More on Badulla

This will be briefer tonight because I am tired and have a bit of a cold..I wish I could share the sounds of Badulla with you, morning and night there is this mixture of Buddhist  monks chanting and Imans calling people to prayer...I keep thinking people are annoyed with me and have to check myself not to react at all because I know it is really their translation of our language.  Their language is very practical as I have said, so translated it is:  where are you going, what do you want, where did you buy this. The shopkeepers will eye me and look at me and talk about me to whoever else is in the shop, then I shall pick up a sponge and ask the price and they will smile and everyone will get friendly and it's  OK. Today I got the "where did you buy that top" from one of the nurses, the one that seems pretty outspoken.  I said in Colombo and would be happy to get her one the next time I am there, her reply, "oh no, I don't like it".  Today I went around the town on my own, without Nilantha who is the Social Worker who has been kind enough to get me to appointments in various places.  So today I was on my own to go to the various bureaus that basically control my fate meaning my work visa.  I needed to bring gifts from VSO to 3 different doctors at 3 different locations,they were very lovely to me and  couldn't believe I was walking, people take trishaws here mostly. Anyway I was very proud that I found my way all around Badulla and located some stores with stuff I have been looking for.  Later I went back and also took pictures of some of the people I talk to in the course of the day.  Sri Lankans  love to have their pictures taken.
 I did finally have my computer hooked up, but of course not so quickly because they came when they said, looked at my computer and popped in this teeny  disk that I knew was not for my computer but helped them do it anyway!  Of course then it was stuck and wouldn't come out; without telling you the entire 3 hour saga let me say, seven people standing in my office and one little boy who was the only one who had ever seen an Apple computer before, it got connected.  For those who have the urge to locate me on a map, there is a map of Badulla in the Lonely Planet and at the top of the map it says Badulla, I live where the A is!    Favorite meal so far, String Hoppers, Daal and Sambol and Hoppers which are like their equivalent of a pancake.  I actually don't get to eat Sri Lankan food daily but sometimes I go in for lunch at a hotel which is a cafe and ask for the lunch packet which is rice and some kind of curry.  I believe I explained to you that I am now eating with my left hand which I have to announce is because I am left handed, well, the other morning the nurses insisted on sharing breakfast with me as they all do with each other.  I made my usual announcement and we ate and after we were talking about it and I said well it is OK isn't it and there was a hesitation and a nurse said well, no...giggles...another nurse said, you use your left hand for the toilet...giggles..I had to really think about it and they were rolling on the floor.  Needless to say, I now use my right hand to eat.  Another thing not done here is nose blowing.  I don't know if it is because they don't have paper products like tissues.  My friend Roger keeps asking about the toilets so here goes:  In my apartment there is a regular western style toilet, very noisy but usual.  Many places have western toilets but many have the porcelain  foot stands with the hole in the floor which I first encountered in Paris in 1966,  that is what the staff have at the hospital.  The bazaar thing to me is that no matter what kind of toilet they have, there is no paper available and frequently no soap to wash your hands.  What there is is either a bucket with a pitcher to wash yourself off or a hose to wash yourself off and I'm not talking about your hands.  This I think is the way it is and the lack of paper.  When you are finished eating in a cafe they either provide a sink to rinse your hand or they rinse it in a bowl at the table and give you a little piece of cut up paper to dry your hands.  At work when they bring in tea and cake, it is covered with used newspaper and plates and silverware are not provided.  Actually, when you buy food in a cafe, it arrives on a plate covered with some thin paper so that when you are finished eating, the leftovers are rolled into the paper and it is disposed of, no wasted water. The doctors write their medical notes on each patient in little composition books, some with Tweetie on the cover.  This is third world.  The next time you waste paper, think of Sri Lanka, everything is precious and used over and over.
 A major product all over being sold is this little packet with beetle nuts and chewing tobacco rolled in a tobacco leaf.  It must be addictive.  Which reminds me that it is dirty in terms of not being paved everywhere in Badulla but there is little trash.  Smoking is not allowed anywhere public and no one eats on the street!  If someone has an ice cream they stay in the shop, if you buy a snack from a vendor, it's in a bag eaten at home.  The hospital is supposedly only 20 years old.  It looks 100 years old.  In the middle of each ward area are gardens that are being tended but on the edges of the gardens are troughs, in these troughs the patients or staff wash their clothes and bath.  There is no privacy, women wear a shmatah type thing and bath as best they can.  All psych patients do their own laundry and it is draped over the bushes and gates.  There don't seem to be doors, only curtains.  The ward #12 where I work has 20 beds for women and 20 beds for men, rows and rows of beds, no privacy.  So I need to write about my new work, my colleagues, my feelings, but not tonight  I just spilled water all over my extra bed and have to figure out what to do....