THE INCIDENTALS

We have just returned from two days in Colombo. Although it wasn't a particularly eventful trip, I feel the urge to tell you about the incidental things that happened over those couple of days. These little things aren't particularly spectacular - in fact, some of them are downright mundane - but they give a little glimpse into our world.

Sunday morning started as the sun was rising because we had a couple of hours drive ahead of us. Before we were to leave I was to find myself at the kitchen sink, scrubbing my thongs (footwear, people, I am Australian - and therefore refuse to call them flip-flops, slippers or any other silly name). I have a blue pair which I wore to the fish market recently. It was not my usual fish market so I was not expecting to have to walk across such a wet floor. I wouldn't normally consider myself to be a princess but I did have to draw the line at washing my thongs, which I figured were covered in something that must have been in contact with fish guts, before I would wear them again. My other pair is a pretty pink pair of Kustoms thongs that used to be my mum's. She commented that they probably weren't a sensible colour for a place like Sri Lanka but I thought I could just keep them to be my 'good thongs' - you know, for those times when I have to dress up. Anyway, I had to go into town the other day and, because I hadn't got around to washing the blue fish-water thongs yet I wore the pretty pink ones. I must admit I was feeling quite proud of actually owning a pair of 'brand-name' thongs in such an attractive colour and really enjoying how comfortable the writing felt on my feet - so much more comfortable than the cheap thongs that I would buy - and I really did feel pretty cool. Of course, you know how pride comes before a fall, and the next thing I know one of my thongs had disappeared from my foot. You see, some men were re-tarring the road and the not-quite-dry-yet tar had stuck my shoe to the road and I had walked on without it. After that first instance of confusion, I had to go back and peel my shoe off the road and put it back on my now-sticky foot. The black dots have only just washed off my foot. Anyways, so that is why I would find myself at the kitchen sink on Sunday morning (I don't have a laundry sink, but I do have two kitchens), scrubbing furiously at my thongs and thinking that perhaps I should have done this before I put on my gleaming white new t-shirt.

Sunday morning is a good time to drive to Colombo because the traffic is a lot quieter. We made it in reasonable time and I headed off to a class that I needed to run for a group of children. There were about 30 children in the group, ranging in age from about 4 to 14. We get the honour of being involved with several out-of-school classes and most of the groups tend to be made up the same way. I find that my Sinhala is getting better because I can occasionally throw in sentences without needing them translated. This always goes down a treat, especially if I'm telling a story and I take them - and my translator - by surprise by throwing in some unexpected Sinhala. It's usually bound to get some laughs! Actually, I find teaching English is a great way for me to improve my Sinhala at the same time.

After the class finished it was time for lunch, which we decided to have at a nearby hotel. Here we met a lovely gentleman who works for the hotel and who is also vice-president of the Origami Club of Sri Lanka. He made some origami birds for the boys and we got to talking. He showed us a sample from his repertoire of origami creations, the most notable being the set of 9 nesting origami boxes, the smallest of which held an origami crane about the size of a grain of rice, and a naughty frog that seemed to be alive and had quite a mind of its own. He also showed us one of his magic tricks but, although he tried to teach us to do it ourselves, we proved to be rather dense students and could not master it at all. It was quite difficult to believe this spritely, animated man could be all of the 79 years he told us that he was.

After lunch we scouted the area for a place where we could spend the night and finally settled on something adequate. This was no mean task, as the next day was poya - a Buddhist public holiday in honour of the full moon - and the long weekend meant that most places were full. The place where we stayed was adjacent to the beach, which also means that it was adjacent to the train track but so are most of the hotels in that area anyway. Besides, you find that once you know that trains will be passing from time to time you find that the noise doesn't really bother you all that much. Plus, to our delight, we were to find that our room had proper hot water - not just the standard luke-warm.

After a rest we headed down to the beach for some dinner. Being poya, and a long weekend poya at that, the beach was absolutely packed. It is not that unusual to see busy beaches in the evening, particularly at poya, but this was definitely the most crowded beach I've ever seen. We made our way to the same restaurant that we always visit for dinner when we find ourselves in this area. We watched the sun go down while we waited for our meal - it was a blazing red that night, like the Japanese flag, and didn't seem to set so much as suddenly disappear as though it had fallen through a hole in the sky - and let the children run on the sand and visit the park. That night we had the added surprise of finding that another diner at a nearby table was also an Australian. It is incredibly rare for us to come across Australians in Sri Lanka so, after some precursory conversation, we invited her to come and join us at our table. I find that it is incredibly enjoyable meeting other foreigners here in Sri Lanka and finding out about what has brought them to this part of the world. There are always so many different stories to hear.

The next morning we were off to meet with a group of teachers. These teachers are involved with schools that are run for children from tsunami camps and other poverty-stricken children. We have a collection of toys, books, games and puzzles that we lend out to teachers such as these so that they can extend their curriculum and offer lessons and activities that are fun, colourful and stimulating. We were there to collect the items that were previously borrowed and to allow them to choose some items for the upcoming few months. My kids also had fun demonstrating a selection of the toys.

After this, our work in Colombo was done. However, on the way home we did make sure that we stopped off at the shopping centre. There are some things that it is just a little difficult to find in our local stores so when we're in Colombo we're bound to make a trip to one or two of the special places where we know these little treasures might be found. Some of these things are always hard to find and Colombo is our chance to stock up for a while. Cheese is one of those items. Other items can usually be found locally but occasionally they go missing for a period of time (once imported goods are sold out you must wait until more come in before they are re-stocked). Tomato soup is one of those items; it went missing just before Christmas and is yet to return to the shelves of my local store. So, it was as proud owners of cheese and tomato soup we were to finally to return back home.

See, I told you that it wasn't anything spectacular, but now you know why my pink thongs have tar-sealed soles for extra-grip and why you can no longer find tomato soup at my special Colombo shopping centre.