First Days in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Steve and Kurt at staff worship

An alley in the local market

Staff singing

Same song second verse...

Ayubowan...the Srilankan way

Sri Lankan Breakfast (texture: crispy)

Zeny at the market

Vendor at the market...cool weighing scale, huh?

I still don't know what that is...

Public transportation bus...

Some kind of Tuktuk

Fruits at the local market

Rice

Coeur de boeuf

Sri Lanka is an amazing place! Well, I guess every place I've been to is amazing in it's own way. But Sri Lanka has a special touch to it. The faces, the smiles...the language. In fact I've already learned a couple Singhalese - the "local" language. The first phrase I learned was "Ibowan" it's some kind of greeting. It's more than just a greeting, it's more like blessings on the person you're greeting. If you've flown on Sri Lankan Airlnes you'll probably be familiar with this phrase.

The people of Sri Lanka are really warm-hearted and will readily respond to your smile with a smile. Even though in many cases it's obvious that they are going through challenging times (e.g. tsunami survivors), the people here keep a cheerfull heart and try to look at the positive side of life. I pray that I can learn to be content and more cheerfull even when things aren't going my way.

A visit to the local market. After traveling around I've come to realize that the market (open air market) is a good place to discover new things about cultures. Well, I had the surprise of my life when Zeny, Athula, and I went to the market. Zeny's Steven Cooper's wife, and Athula's our kind and skilled driver. Steven Cooper's the ADRA Sri Lanka Country Director. Anway, I noticed at the market that all the vendors were men! I mean exclusively men! I thought that was kinda strange. Of all the countries I've been to (almost 15 countries now) it's the first time I've seen this. Oh well, enjoy the pictures and give me some feedback whenever you can.