My Second Christmas in the Tropics

It's my second Christmas in Sri Lanka and I can honestly say that it feels Christmassy to me this year. There are a lot of lights around Colombo, and the shoppers are out in full force. Some of the stores are even doing "midnight madness" sales. It's hard to believe that buddhism is the predominant religion, but I guess buying transcends all boundaries.

I'm using this holiday season as an opportunity to reflect on the past year, think about where I'm at with it now, and look at what I hope to do in 2008. I can't believe I'm leaving Sri Lanka in 10 days; on one hand it seems like I just arrived and on the other it feels like I've been here for years. I have mixed feelings, but the bottomline is that I'm excited to get back to Geoff.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Love T

Santa Claus (Sri Lankan style)

Christmas lights on the beach

Getting Back on Track & Olympic Déjà Vu

Hi All

Yep I am well and trully back in town now from my retreat...a bumpy start to the week back at work but settling in fine now.

It seems that the Olympics can bring out the best and the worst in people and places...in 2010 Vancouver will be hosting the winter games and I can't help feeling a certain sense of déjà vu from being in Sydney in the lead up to the summer games for 2000...gross over runs in projected costs, outrageously priced tickets, construction woes, IOC pressure on small family businesses that happened to have the word 'Olympic' in their names etc etc. and now the latest...the unveiling of the 'Olympic Mascots' to very mixed reviews from the local daily paper:

' "Why not just use a 7-foot Wookie and a couple Ewoks while we're at it?" wrote one reader, alluding to characters from the Star Wars movies. Many readers suggested Miga was similar to Pokemon's Hello Kitty'.

Have a look and make up your own mind on these:

http://www.vancouver2010.com/mascot/en/index.php

Meanwhile the local left-of-centre free newspaper has been having some fun of their own with the mascots including cartoonist Rod Filbrandt's "Rejected 2010 Mascot" series with some local jokes thrown in but I think you will get the general idea:

Love to all

G

Heading Home from Retreat...

Hi All

Well I sort of ran out of time before heading of to my annual meditation retreat in the USA and in the process I forgot to mention to a lot of people that I was going....ooooops and sorry all at the same time.....

Well here I am sitting in the Westfield shopping mall in San Franscisco using the free internet terminal and checking in on my emails....

All a bit surreal and somewhat jarring at present or maybe it is the uber strong 'Peets' coffee that I have just ingested that is providing a bit of an edge to things???

Well what to say...a great retreat and I am heading home with lots of internal homework as per usual...but all good. Nice to catch up with some old faces and make a few new friends as well at the retreat and always a few suprises along the way.

In reviewing my email inbox, it has been suprisingly boring in scanning through it...the world stands still in some ways.

Anyway off for a wander around town for now and flying back into Vancouver tomorrow evening.

Love to all

G

Beaches and Bombs

The last week of November 2007 will go down in my books as one of my high times and one of my low times in Sri Lanka.

My friend Francis visited for a few days. We went once again to the hill country, and as an added bonus, we got a car and driver and had some time on the coast. It is beach season again...hooray! I know that many of you think that it's always beach season in Sri Lanka, but with 2 monsoon periods, inter-monsoonal rough seas, etc, the window of opportunity is not as wide as one would imagine. From November to March the seas are amazingly blue, the weather is great, and the water is a constant 28 degrees. We made it to Unawatuna, a nice little half-moon bay near the fort city of Galle.

Shortly after Francis left Sri Lanka there was a "Hero's Day" speech made by the leader of the LTTE. As a result, two suicide bombs went off in Colombo, the first killing one person and injuring two others, the second killing 17. The scary part about this was that up to this point, most bombs have targetted the military, and the government. The bomb that killed 17 was targetting civilians in a market area in a central suburb of Colombo. The past week has been filled with checkpoints, random police searches of neighbourhoods, and the arrest of 1000 Tamils (without charge) who were subsequently released.

"You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have the facts of (Sri Lankan) life" T

A walk on the tracks in the hill country

Unawatuna Beach

Unawatuna Beach take 2

The Cold & the Beautiful

Hi All

Just a few pics from this morning's coffee walk before work...sunny and 1 degree celcius!

Love

G

English Bay

English Bay Seawall

[The temperature rating is just for shock and awe value to Australian readers...Canadians can ignore this pic]

The Seawall Reopens

Hi All

Late last year part of 'The Seawall' was closed after a big storm. This weekend is reopened with little fanfare but much joy in the hearts of Vancouverites.

G

Migratory Ducks

Early Morning

Siwash Rock

Ship Entering Burrard Inlet

Back in The Hill Country

It was yet another holiday in Sri Lanka (Diwali this time), so I took the opportunity, along with two friends, to travel through the hill country by train. It was an 11 hour journey which began in Colombo and ended in a small town called Ella (which sits at the edge of the southern range of the mountains). As a train fanatic, I enjoyed every minute of the trip...it also brought back memories of when Geoff and I did the same trip 9 years earlier! T

View over Ella (toward the south coast)

Tony getting on board
Tony waiting for our ride back to Colombo
Henrik (from our room's balcony)
Winding through the hill country at 2000 metres
A stop in a hill town

A Friend's Death

We make and break plans to meet with friends and family all of the time, citing work obligations, and other commitments; and then the unexpected happens...

"A Macedonian volunteer attached to the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) team died early morning yesterday (Nov. 4) when the motorcycle he was riding had collided with an Army vehicle in the Cinnamon Gardens police area, police said.

Police said that Mr. Roman Mirceski (36) died on the spot after being involved in a head-on collusion with the military vehicle. Police have taken into custody the driver of the military vehicle and he was to be produced before the magistrate yesterday. The United Nations Development Programme said that the victim had been supporting the VOICE Project as an ICT4D Specialist".

I only knew Roman for a few months, and with both our busy lives, we never met up as often as we should have. Thanks Roman, for reminding us to prioritize friends, to enjoy the most casual get togethers, and to not take our mortality for granted.

Fall Colours...

G

Geoff's Update.....

Hi All

Yes I have been a bit absent in blogging lately..the weather has been a bit crappy and I have not felt very inspired to take any pictures...until this afternoon!


On my way to the pool the sun was getting close to setting and produced a beautiful gloaming which really complimented some of the Fall (autumn) colours....enjoy!


Otherwise doing fine and settling into winterish routines with the shorter daylight hours etc...time to dust of my video store membership card again...any suggestions on good movies???



The city pools have finally reopened after a 3 month strike so it has been nice to be able to get back in the water in our local pool rather than travelling to get a swim in.


Terry finishes his contract in about 10 weeks...

Love

G

Baby Ethan

Just a baby Ethan update. Lori sent some photos, so I thought I would drop a couple into the blog...T

A smile or is it gas?

Obviously not as avid an Oilers fan as his dad.

What Happened to Geoff?

I remember a time, only a couple of months ago, when Geoff would grace us with his presence...posting black and white photos of Vancouver and giving us insight into life on the westcoast of Canada.

I hope this will motivate him into action, in the meantime, I'll post a few photos I took on a "day (off) in the life of Terry". My new pool, and I have it all to myself.
Mt. Lavinia Hotel with monsoon clouds moving in.

End of my street, with my three-wheeler guys waiting.

Listening Project

Hi everyone,

I was away from Colombo for the past week working as a facilitator for the "Listening Project". The basic idea behind the project was to send teams to various parts of the country to have discussions with people about their experiences with international assistance, whether it be humanitarian, livelihood, emergency, and so on.

I led a team to Anuradhapura district which sits in the north central part of the country and is one of the original buddhist kingdoms dating back 2300 years. The cultural aspects were interesting, but I was more taken by the stories people told us about what is happening in the area in terms of assistance and development. Two of the days were spent on the northern defence line which separates the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) and government areas. It was amazing hearing the perspectives of people constantly displaced, sent to internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, and then starting over. Many of the people we spoke to had lost family members in bombings and attacks, were living in temporary shelters, and had very little money (if any), but they were some of the kindest and warmest people I've ever met in my life.

It was an opportunity for me to get into the field, leave my desk in Colombo, and gain a new experience in Sri Lanka. AMAZING!!!

Baby Ethan

Hi everyone,

yes, my "baby sister" had a baby of her own. Lori "Lou Lou" Spurway gave birth to Ethan Cole Spurway on September 9th, 2007 after only 4 hours in labour. I heard that Lori even drove herself to the hospital. Considering she's from good Ukraininian farmer stock, I'm surprised she didn't have him at home and continue making breakfast.

I have officially nicknamed my new nephew "Rutiger" for no other reason than to use a Simpson's reference. Mom and dad both seem pretty tired and there have been a few little panic moments of the first time parents "wondering what to do next." Everything is fine now, uncle Terry is definitely not happy to be so far away at the moment, but updates come regularly, so that has to do at the moment. T

Uncles Terry and Geoff (again)

Hi All

Well Terry's little sister Lori just had her first baby at 8:45 this morning...Terry is still asleep in Sri Lanka and will get all the news once he wakes up. I will let him fill you out on all the details.....Mom, Dad and baby boy all doing well.

Love
G

Quote from the Seawall #1

"Hey I have to change my whole f@*king lifestyle... where did this start?"

Quotes from the Seawall...Intro

Hi All

For a few years now I keep threatening that I will write a book compiled of quotable quotes overheard as someone passes you on the seawall deep in conversation. As I will never actually get around to this I thought I would throw a few of them out on the blog instead over time.

Love
G

Back to the Seawall...

Hi All

Well Terry is now back in Sri Lanka after a whirlwind but great visit...lots of time just to hang out and reconnect. So now it is time to get back into my solo routine for a few months...

As you would probably know from my previous posts 'The Seawall' forms a lot of my activity space year round. Here are a bunch of pics from the last little while...

Sunday Afternoon Couple

Second Beach

Third Beach

Groovy Graffitti

B&W Series

WOW....that went fast!!!

I can't believe I'm sitting in my hotel in Bangkok right now...How did the time go so quickly?

With that being said, I had a great time in Vancouver reconnecting with Geoff, taking a holiday up the Sunshine Coast, seeing friends, going to a wedding, celebrating the start of another decade, wandering around during Pride, and so on.

Bangkok is my middle point to help me get back into time zone, back into the heat/humidity, and to think about my time in Canada, and my 3-4 months ahead in Colombo. The biggest question I was asked when I was at home was, "are you enjoying it in Sri Lanka?" My answer to that was a resounding "yes". Even with the conflict, human rights issues, heat and accompanying sweat, poverty, etc, I feel lucky to have this opportunity, to have a partner who supports my work, and to have new perspectives and thoughts thrown at me to challenge me for both my professional and personal growth.

Thanks everyone for making my time in Vancouver so memorable. I look forward to seeing you all again in a few months. T

Camping it up at Mermaid Cove

A view of Mermaid Cove

Vancouver Pride

Bangkok Street Scene

Terry's 40th...

Hi All

To get the birthday weekend started we had a couple of friends [or friends who are a couple] over for drinks. Then a few more friends over on Saturday night for drinks, the fireworks from the balcony then off to The Pumpjack our local bar to take in the sights and sounds of a whole lot of sexy men in leather...[ok so maybe that was a little present for me in there as well ;) ].

Home at some God forsaken hour but up early on the day itself for an ocean dip before heading off to another friends wedding: One of the grooms being Sikh, east indian Canadian born and his husband USA born Radical Faerie, the wedding being conducted in the Dr Sun Yat Sen garden by a Chinese/Canadian marriage celebrant...complete with dove release. Home from there and then off to the Gay Pride post parade festival at the beach where it was my job to announce to anyone that we met that it was Terry's birthday...with lots of ensuing hugs/kisses and then some. Dinner with friends old and some new, then an evening wandering about Davie Street people watching.

At the wedding

Terry and Mohammad

Terry and Claudio

The One that Got Away

Monday was a public holiday so we had time to just hang out and have a lazy day, time at the beach swimming and snoozing in the sun.

All in all a well celebrated birthday.... year older but I think he is actually getting better looking as he goes.

Love to all

Geoff