My funk...

     I have had a bit of a funk this week.  I think it is partly feeling  some confusion at work or around work for VSO, feeling lonely, and just the time. I decided I could hang out and feel really shitty which I did a little or I could try to take some action.  I of course have my little Buddhist and other sayings up on my wall that tend to get me back on track and I also decided to call some of the contacts Hannie, the person who I replaced, had made.  So I called Shabby who was one of her friends from the Lions Club.  It so happened that that night was the annual Lions Club dinner and ironically she had met Hannie exactly two years earlier at this event!  So despite the fact that I was to meet her at 7:45pm (practically my bed time),  I put on my prettiest outfit (thank goodness because it was practically a formal affair), called a tuk tuk and met Shabby, Kevin and their two kids at this do.  It didn't take me out of my sadness but it was quite an exposure to the richer side of Badulla.  The saris where unbelievably beautiful.  Have I mentioned that women here do not wear makeup, don't shave their legs,  that almost all women wear their hair long and pulled back?  Anyway, I was glad I went.  I feel better now, somehow just letting each day be what it is.  I find I must plan something for the future, a trip even if for a day, it helps.  
     In the last two days I found out that the Consulting psychiatrist Dr. K is leaving to go back to Australia.  Also Mahendra the only trained psychiatric nurse who also is the main translator for me is leaving to move home to Galle.  This is huge because everything depends on the support and approval of the psychiatrist in this system and I am already at a huge disadvantage not being able to speak the language to the staff, now it will be even harder. The nurses are really trying to use as much of their english as they can and we have been doing not too badly.  Dr. K said to expect only little changes and that over 2 years it has improved. Oh well, this is minor compared to so much in the world that is really awful.
     What do you think of this font?  My cousin sent  an email in it and I thought, wow, I can do that.  Today I was supposed to have my hair henna' d.  I don't particularly care but one of the nurses insists it will take years off so we headed out looking for a beauty parlor that could do it.  We couldn't find one actually.  It was odd but they only have black henna or tint, neither of which I wanted.  I did decide a few days ago however that I needed to make some food I could have in the fridge for whenever and so I made pickled beets and onions and was able to share this american dish with my landlady who is always sending up food and with one of the nurses who also made me my favorite dish, Sambol.  So my beets are called beet curry and served with the other curries at breakfast, lunch or dinner..who knows.
     Here is one of the issues here, aside from feeling terrible because I never know what anyone is saying and those who know me know that would drive me up a wall since I want to know everything, all the time; people don't quite tell you the truth, they don't lie but they sort of tell part of a story or maybe they accidentally get a tense wrong and so they say something is going to happen and it doesn't or they think maybe they will do it a week from yesterday or whatever.  It drives me mad.  I have a feeling it is an Asian thing because even Ancy who tells me she doesn't like this does it!  We all laugh a lot though, Mahendra says terrible about almost everything from a very minor event to a major trauma so of course we all walk around saying terrible, terrible all the time.
     My camera is almost fixed, it was fixed and then unfixed but hopefully tomorrow it will be fixed.  I can't wait, there are so many great pictures I see as I walk around.  Did I tell you that this is the noisiest place I have ever tried to sleep.  I am not bothered by a baby crying or usual night noises.  I have barking dogs that can go on all night, various religious recordings, seems to be a combination of Buddhist chanting, Hindi and Muslim chanting, other animals cavorting, and very early on the birds, dogs, chanting and other varieties of things.  Sometimes it is deafening, no kidding and I am practically surrounded by king coconut trees, papaya trees and other glorious things!
     It's Saturday morning here and I got an email from my sister letting me know that Margaret DeP., probably the last of my parents really old friends (Rudy DeP and my father were friends since they were 10 years old in Roxbury, Ma.) had died at the age of 99.  I feel very sad.  There are many reasons to feel sad, the loss of someone I truly loved (my favorite childhood memories are of going to Rudy and Margaret's and their twins, little Rudy and Margaret and Uncle Brother (Rudy's brother, the priest), cooking lobsters, eating great meals, getting presents like giant pink piggy banks, but mostly the amount of love in that house and when we were there it extended to us.  So, that is a reason to feel sad, I kept saying I was going to visit Margaret and little Margaret, the only ones left, for the last several years, and I didn't.  I think her passing represents so much in terms of my parents and my life, so many reasons for sadness.  I started wondering, what do people here in Sri Lanka do with feelings like this?  Do they acknowledge them, do they talk about them?  Do they get depressed,  hospitalized or what.   An interesting thing happened on Ward 12 this week.  A patient who was admitted with mania several weeks ago and discharged in good shape a couple of weeks ago, was readmitted.  She seemed fine to me.  I kept asking various staff why she was back.  They answered me but not real answers, they said her husband was an alcoholic and abusive and she was here for that reason.  I kept saying he should be here, not her.  I must have asked 4 staff before one of the doctors finally explained that she has been admitted at her request so that our social worker can go to the home and talk to the husband and let her separate.  They are doing this to help her socially live a better life!  I think that is amazing.  So what am I here for, I can't improve on something we wouldn't even do at home.  I know similar cases in the US and people, family, got no help from the system we have!
     While I have been writing this a friend Skyped me and then my landlady and her husband came to the door to offer me food tomorrow night and ask for a favor, meanwhile I am soaking my clothes I am washing and then my other neighbor came up to see my home and my friend was no longer on Skype!  Life can be so different from moment to moment as can moods.  I can only be in the moment, sometimes it's terrible, sometimes it's fine, it always is something.