The people I work with ...

Ayubowan! This is used as hello but it's true meaning is "long life" or wishing someone a long life.

In my last post I mentioned my colleagues ever so briefly about their generosity in paying my bus fare the few times we have taken a bus trip together. I want to elaborate ...

These ladies, my friends, are whom I call my "protectors". They have gone out of their way to ensure I know my way to and from work, that I am safe, and that I feel comfortable and settled. When we travel as a group they're always looking back to make sure I'm still with them. More often than not they keep me in the middle. They've arranged to help get my apartment clean and feeling like home. They've helped arrange my transportation to and from a number of different places. Since day one, they have adopted me into the NOC family with open arms, huge smiles, and plenty of giggles. We've only worked together for about 6 weeks now, but I feel everyday the connection gets stronger and our relationships grow. We eat lunch together everyday and most of us leave the office together everyday. And for the time being, we're working on Zeus together everyday.

Rewind to two weeks ago when I walked into the office thinking TGIF and to my surprise we were getting the latter half of the day off since it was a government holiday to celebrate the ending of the civil war two years ago. The girls in the office, also surprised, sheepishly asked if they could come to my apartment to celebrate the day. I, with some resistance, eventually agreed on the condition they give me 5 minutes to clean my apartment up before I let them in. At around lunch time we all left the office and took the bus back to my area. We stopped at a roadside vendor to buy some bananas. Then we went to the supermarket in Majestic City go get some junk food and a bit more fruit. We walk back to my apartment building where I took them to the rooftop patio for them to explore for 5 minutes while I went back down to my apartment to quickly put some things away and made sure I had enough sitting space.

We had all packed lunch to work thinking it was a full day so we broke those lunches open and ate. After eating, we kind of looked at each other and thought, "what's next?" Well, lucky Gayathri saves the day with a deck of cards. We play a couple of different games (these were smart card games ... requiring thinking which I was extremely slow at) had some good laughs when someone made a mistake was greatly penalized and some moments of joy when someone won.

Then I was introduced to this new game called "maru maru" (probably spelled wrong again) which "change". There were 6 of us, 30 pieces of paper with 6 colours written on them (so 5 pieces each of each colour). They were all folded up into little pieces and mixed up. When the organizer said go, we collected 5 pieces as fast as we could, opened them, and then decided privately which colour we would aim to collect all 5 pieces of paper of. When you got all 5 of the same colour you finished and put your hand in the middle. This game was HILARIOUS!!!  We played I think 5 rounds ... and one or two of those rounds there would be just 3 people left and the same colours would just circulate around and around as we frantically called to each other "maru maru. Maru maru. MARU MARU." Often we had more than one person looking for the same colour and eventually someone had to give. I lost ... I was so slow and probably just too stubborn to ever change my colour early on enough to make it easier on myself. Anyhow, when we were done, I still hadn't really figured out any strategy to be any faster other than relying on luck and hoping that I had three or more of the same colour to start the round (which never happened). Gayathri and Hiruni were the quick and quiet ones. Somehow, they always ranked near the top and did quietly. Kaushalya was quick, but polite. Rasani was similar, but when she was ready to win she went for it. Dinushi was always full of action and enthusiasm. However, we were all definitely competitive. Chetana, another one of the girls I work with wasn't able to join us on this day, but I'm sure she would have been just as competitive!

It proved to be a very entertaining afternoon until it was about 5pm and it was time for my colleagues to leave. Off back home they went. My only wish was that I was more prepared to entertain! Next time girls, next time.

Bring us to the last couple days and despite working really really hard juggling their day-to-day responsibilities at work with sitting with me and training on Zeus, they've always kept a sense of humour and still take care of me. We've spent a minimum of 2 hours a day on Zeus each day this week and more the last couple of days being such troopers learning the ins and outs and putting up with my "quiz" questions. For pushing them to their limits they took me to their "stores" to try and find me some Team Sri Lanka wear (no smalls) but I left with a sports bag and a commemorative medal from when they hosted the South Asian Games in 2006. I also was given one of the mascots from the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. And another example of them taking care of me: on Friday they ordered doughnuts to end the week and when we found out there were eggs in the batter, they went and got me pastries from a different store that didn't have egg in them (they were really tasty ... I gobbled them up right away). Thank you ladies, for working so hard, being so kind, and so understanding. I've got some some things for you up my sleeve ... and I'll leave you with that. ;)

They've also officially started teaching me some Sinhala. On Thursday I learned how to count to ... 999 (Nava seeya anoo navaya?). I didn't actually count to 999 nor can I do anything without looking at my notes right now as I'm learning this language is pure memorization, much like Chinese. Although words can be written in arabic letters by the way they sound, the combination of letters and their pronunciation can be different from what I am used in in English. As a result, my pronunciation and emphasis on certain syllables can be quite off (and yes, I sound really funny and I currently speak in slow motion). I'm looking forward to learning more though and hope that by the end of my year here, I can understand some conversation and maybe even hold a simple one. Lofty goals, but not unattainable.

I also want to give a mention to Taranga who is one of our drivers but has been amazing lately in getting me to a number of different places (ex. post office, physio). Him, like many other drivers here have AMAZING driving skills to squeeze through the smallest of spots and make the tightest of turns. Lots of respect for your skills, sir! Then there's Kanishka who was my driver for the first month and a bit while I was here who also possesses some excellent driving skills. Dinusha who despite seemingly in and out of the office all the time is trying really hard to keep up to speed on Zeus. And also Tuan, who's adorable son made a visit to the office on Friday and has been taking care of a number of administrative things for me since my arrival (ex. my work visa, curtains, looking for resources). I don't know these guys as well as the ladies in my office, but on Friday also showed they have a great sense of humour as well!

This Wednesday I'm travelling to the Hill Country for an Olympic Academy "train the trainers" course for a few days, returning on Sunday. I'll try to post while I'm there, but if I don't, I'll post in about a week's time!