Part 2

I meant to pick up the story days ago, but for some reason I'm not all that motivated to go near a computer. It's nice not having to check email every 10 minutes.

Sunday was a pretty dead day, all things considered. I showed up at work to find that the staff was involved in a 3 hour English lesson, after which there were classes, and then the rush to turn in final reports. Harith and Malmi also visited the center and checked out the classes. They both had a lot of fun and really wanted to go back.

Monday I went shopping with Maaike for lunch food. We had decided on spaghetti, roasted red peppers, and apple crisp. We grabbed our ingredients and took over Thushari's kitchen. Maaike was doing spaghetti sauce, and I was worrying about the crisp.

I'd asked my mom to email me a crisp recipe so that I had something to work off of, and it was a good idea in theory. In practice, everyone here uses the metric system, and my measurements were in English. Fortunately, apple crisp is a fairly ad hoc science to begin with, so I could guess for most of it. In order to bake it though, I had to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius, which meant deriving the formula and then doing a bunch of math. The crisp turned out ok though.

After that was in the oven, I turned my attention to the peppers. I had intended to build a fire out back. Roasting peppers is a very aromatic endeavor, and they tend to drip. I didn't want to mess up Thushari's nice, clean stove, or waste her gas. She insisted though, so I put Meg in charge of the pepper problem.

I taught Chris to roast peppers with no problems, so I figured this was safe. But I hadn't counted on the staunch skepticism from the peanut gallery and kitchen mistress. Grilling isn't really in the vocabulary here (neither are bell peppers, for that matter. Non-spicy peppers don't make sense to most Sri Lankans), and I had a tough time convincing Thushari that yes, I really do want the things entirely black.

Once I'd cleared that hurdle, I turned my attention back to whatever I was doing. When I looked again 5 minutes later, there was a pepper roasting on a fork. The fork was glowing red. And then Thushari grabbed it without thinking and burned her hand. Ooops.

But the peppers finally got blackened, and it was then that I realized I'd made the offensively stupid mistake of cooking Italian and forgetting to buy olive oil. That's a hand-to-forehead moment if ever there was one. Olive oil isn't used much here, and the stuff we ended up getting was fairly weak. It is much more common to see vegetable oil or coconut oil.

Tuesday we schlepped all the stuff down to the center for lunch. Maaike's spaghetti was great, and I felt terrible for her because I don't think the staff liked it. Then I felt really bad because they liked my peppers and apple crisp and this was supposed to be her treat for the staff. Maaike, I'm sorry about that.

I had left the peppers at the center, and they appeared on the table for lunch the next day. Without bread. So I was a good sport and put some on my pumpkin curry. Oh. My. God. Heaven on a plate. I can't explain why it was so good, but it really, really was. I didn't think it would be. There were also some spicy green beans in there. Over all, a very good mix.

A couple more notes about food and eating: It took me a few weeks to really develop a taste for Sri Lankan food. The spices are subtle, and so when I got here, everything tasted the same. But now, it's better, and I can distinguish what I'm eating. Also, I like Sri Lankan papadum much better than Indian papadum. The Indian stuff has an herb or something that I'm not a fan of.

Finally, I was struck today by the realization that Sri Lankans don't use napkins. They eat with their hands, and yet there are no napkins in sight. The reason is because they don't need them. The right hand is used exclusively for eating. The left is not used for eating, and so it procures more food if needed. Hands are washed before and after meals. And eating rice with hands necessitates eating very close to the plate, so any food that falls, falls back to the plate. So, no napkins. My mouth and lips are generally cleaner at the end of a Sri Lankan meal than at the end of an American one. Very strange.

The week as a whole was not really noteworthy, although I did teach a few more gymnastics classes. And everything hurts. Dear the States: Please send a masseuse.

M2 has also been after me all week to dance every free minute she gets. This is fun, and I got her to teach me some Sri Lankan dancing. I'm really bad at it. But getting better.

Oh and finally... Meg has already used the filthy foreign diseases line, so I won't. There is a computer virus running rampant in the Hambantota area. It's fixable if you reinstall Windows, but it's completely insidious. Locks out the task manager, the folder view options, the command prompt, msconfig... IN SAFE MODE AS WELL. And it regenerates. This was a pain in the neck all week. The whole centre is infected, and we think the machines at the internet center are in trouble as well. So be careful with your laptop.

Today was quite a day at the centre. We had morning classes, during which time I frantically brushed up on my web design skillz in preparation for redesigning the centre's website. Then classes almost ended, and then everyone wanted me to dance. And do gymnastics and karate. So we did some of that, and I pulled another muscle. But it was fun, and the kids here really like to dance, which is great.

After lunch I finally got a chance to discuss the IT curriculum with B. Meg and I have long suspected that there is more to him than meets the eye. He asked us to teach him a fair amount about computer related topics, which we do. And, obviously, we're helping to develop the IT curriculum. But every so often he'll say or do something that suggests he knows a lot more than he's letting on. He also has another job somewhere.

So today I got sick of guessing and flat out asked him what his other job was. It turns out he was holding out on us big time. He teaches computer skills to adults. He produced the curriculum for that class, which includes 50 hours of theory and 50 hours of practice. It's a hugely scoped class, covering everything from "What is a computer" to MS Office to operating systems and even compilers and linkers. Good God.

Now, in the States, you wouldn't teach a class like that without having some sort of credentials. So then I had to ask him what his computer background was. I didn't get the whole story, but somewhere in there is a college degree in computer science. (!) At this point in the afternoon, I had to spend a good 5 minutes sitting with my tail between my legs. The really embarrassing part of all this is that I'm now more certain than ever that we told him a lot that he already knew, and yet he didn't say a word. I may have to go sit in on a class or two, since he knows xp far better than I do.

Once I'd been suitably whacked with the Humble bat, we finished up discussing the curriculum, and then M2 was after me to dance again. It was pretty late in the day, maybe 5pm. M2 and I started dancing as the rest of the staff finished up their jobs for the day. Then they all came in to watch us dance.

W. has been asking me all week to develop an exercise program for the staff, and I keep telling him I'm not qualified. So today, he, B., and M2 all started getting in on the dancing action. It was revealed that B. can break dance (and he calls himself a C.S. major). B. and W. took great pleasure in doing tricks to see if I could copy them (yes, I can also break dance. Vestiges of a misspent youth, I suppose), and I ended up doing head stands in the computer lab, with W. matching me. I felt it prudent to move things in to the main activity room where there was more space.

There, I had most of the staff trying hand stands and various gymnastic tricks. INCLUDING W., the executive director. Mass craziness ensued. Fortunately no injuries though, other than a small cut.

Some of you might remember that I did battle with lice, and then, with red dye all over my nice shirts. The problem with red dye specifically is that you can't use phrases like "red menace" because everyone gets the wrong idea. Anyway, I won. My shirts are now back to their original colors (white, and not quite white). Thank you, Chlorox.