reedster

pix finally

all these pix are from a trip to the field that we took on the 28th. it was from a co-workers camera. no i dont have my notebook back yet. shucks

posted by reedster @ 16:42 0 comments

drinking again!?! 

posted by reedster @ 16:30 0 comments

i dont know what we're looking at 

posted by reedster @ 16:26 0 comments

lanka g 

posted by reedster @ 16:19 0 comments

i count five 

posted by reedster @ 16:08 0 comments

community pr work 

posted by reedster @ 16:06 0 comments

restin by the chlorine 

posted by reedster @ 16:04 0 comments

crew cab

yes, i finally have pix of our beautiful vehicle. it is a diesel 4wd 5-gear manual for those of you that are wondering. its pretty fast...0-60 in under a minute...and thats in km not mph. it has amazing brakes, cuz it stops before i hit the cows that are in the middle of the street [prolly like 60-0 in 60ft.] and if you look closely you'll notice that it has super cool fog lamps, even though i havent seen any fog in sri lanka yet. but one of the best things that it has is the lil beeper for when you back up. when i'm stuck in traffic for a while i enjoy putting it in reverse just to hear it beep...its a great beat box for all you freestyla's...

if you're wondering, i have to fly that flag, company policy and it helps at not getting shot. ;) if you've ever driven with a huge sticker plastered across the top 1/4 of your windshield...you notice it is very difficult for the drivers vision...unless your just an exceptionally short person [but then it must be hard to see for other reasons]. so there it is...

it is sorta ugly, what do you expect from a van/pickup truck merger. but i luv it and i have put a vanilla air freshener in it. you need that when you have a couple guys who dont understand the idea of deodorant...or who just spent a hard day working on the field. anyways, i'll spare you all of those details.

cheers!

posted by reedster @ 16:02 0 comments

drivin from the right...yes i'm obsessed

posted by reedster @ 16:00 0 comments

our ride 

posted by reedster @ 15:56 0 comments

we be crusin...lanka style 

posted by reedster @ 15:51 0 comments

at the office 

posted by reedster @ 15:48 0 comments

not finished yet

last friday in trinco i was stopped by the army and asked to move their checkpoint sandbags. well i really wasnt asked i was more forced to. so they loaded our truck full of sandbags...which i'm tryin to get a pic of. then the soliders hopped into my truck with their weapons which didnt impress me. so i had to tell the captain that we cant have any weapons in our vehicle and that i shouldnt even be moving his sandbags cuz they have their own vehicles. so i refused to drive as long as any weapon were in or on my vehicle. hehehe the captian finnally made one of the privates carry all the weapons up the road while he and a couple others drove with me. long story short. i have the captain's cell phone number and he owes me a big favor. he told me that i should be proud cuz i helped build a checkpoint...i only hauled the sandbags. so i told him...you owe me, he agreed. this wouldnt be anything really important except of the context it was in. trinco has been unstable for a number of months and the particular area where this took place is one of the main focal points of this conflict. each week there are a number of grenades or explosions or attacks. last week there was trouble...see last blog entry...so there are eyes watching on both sides. and if you help one side you help the other. see, life is always interesting in trinco. thats why i luv it there...

today i found out my computer is still broken. three weeks to get a price quote and then i was suppose to go pick it up today in colombo. when i got to the store they told me that they sent it to trinco...the city i work in which is six hours away...but not just that...it was still broken. the part they needed has to be imported. agh! i told them to do whatever it took to fix it. so no more pix for prolly another three weeks. or however long it takes for them to ship the part and fix the computer. i'm still unsure what part its. something to do with the motherboard...maybe even the whole thing. bleh

the brite side of today was that i got to do immigration. thats usually always fun. long lines, hot, sweaty buildings and angry custom workers. so i went with meredith to get a three month renewal of the visa which costs $100. our other coworker wasnt given a renewal last time he went in so now he has to buy a plane ticket to india and leave for a weekend and come back into the country. that costs $200++ not fun. so....we werent sure what we'd encounter. instead of not getting our visas renewed, meredith and i got our visas renewed for three months...for FREE. yea, i didnt stutter. so to all of you who dont believe that prayer works. um, it sure worked here. it was quite amazing actually. none of the local staff have ever heard of that happening before.

posted by reedster @ 18:09 3 comments

here i go again

so i recognize that again, i've failed to keep this updated. some of you know what i'm about to write but many will not. its a bit exciting but its a perfect picture of crazy trinco. thats why i love the place and why it makes me so frustrated at times. enjoy

first i will start of will the trip that katie and i took to batticaloa. its a city thats about three hours south of trincomalee but cuz of the roads it takes six or seven. it was tired so like usual i was sleeping or tryin to cuz our van had literally no shocks and katie was staying amused at how well my patience was being tested. tested not kept. ;) we had been behind a military convoy, a bus, two pickups and a SLMM [sri lanka monitor mission, regulate the cease fire] for a number of hours when all of a sudden the road exploded. the LTTE, the rebels, attacked the convoy with a roadside bomb. we were only 100m from the convoy! it was crazy and we felt the concussion in our van. i'll include the pix of the road that has a huge hole in it. all that to say, we're fine, i dont recall about hearing any injuries from the blast, the blew it off a lil to early i think. but still crazy...

after a weekend in batti and then a week in colombo for meetings and taking katie to the airport. i was back in trinco. the new development was that we have our vehicle now! a crew cab...its ugly but its great to have a car. i'll show you pix of that too.

but trinco on the other hand is its same crazy ol' self. just when i thought i'd get sum work done trinco decided to start protesting. to start it off, this last sunday four LTTE cadres were shot by the SLA [sri lankan army]. that lead to two days of mourning and retaliation from the tamil ppl. on monday i was on my way to the field do sum work when we were forced to pull over and let the bodies of the dead LTTE guys pass. they were having public showings for the funeral. we had to wait there for a lil while cuz they were washing the road in their respect afterwards. so interesting.

this was the ignition. since then theres been tire burning, occasional grenades and sporadic gunfire. most of it aimed at the SLA or the LTTE depending on which site you're on. tuesday was hartal, day of protests, so i ended up on the beach and was able to even out my tan a bit. yes that is true, and i got caught up on my reports. wierd city i live in...

today there wasnt a hartal but there was continual violence. two grenades were discharged, injuring two army dudes, ten minutes after i was at the local market. makes you rethink where you go...and how you travel. we have our own vehicle so its pretty good now. they arent attacking the international aid community which is nice but you dont want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. or oops... so now that i've probably painted a pretty scary pic of what the city is like, it really isnt that bad. or u just get use to all of it. you hate it, cuz it hurts the community and hinders the work but then you realize this is life in the majority of the world. forget pleasentville n. america. thats an illusion that we all convince ourselves we live in. life is difficult for 90% of the world. thats a fact...

another fact is that our office staff ran up a 5500 SLR phone bill while i was in colombo for the week. thats like$55. not to much but considering that our monthly phone bill is usually 4200 SLR it was pretty big. one week was more than one month. hmm so i sat them down and talked to them. its was funny cuz they denied any phone calls that would amount to that. so the phone company is giving me our complete records so that i can figure out who exactly is responsible. i found this out cuz they disconnected our phone line due to nonpayment. this is a big black mark on three ppl who were on their last chance with us. the head office has asked me to politely fire three of our staff. i convinced them to give them one more chance. this might have been it...or its been the last drop in the bucket. it makes you feel bad. for all but one of the guys. he just has a rotten attitude. but hey, we all do at times. so yes, trinco trinco trinco. i love it. its never the same, its lots of fun but its making go prematurely bald. oh, wait, thats the genes. its at least testing my character and patience.

but hey, all things are possible through God and that is a good thing.

ciao

posted by reedster @ 18:57 1 comments