Back to California

Hi all,

Well this post is long over due. I finished my time in Sri Lanka as of April 2007 and have returned to California via Europe, North Africa, and of course, NYC. I really enjoyed my experience in Sri Lanka and I feel like I learned a lot about the people, the culture, and humanity in general and I hope to bring what I have learned back home with me. I also learned a lot about myself, my abilities and my limitations.

I believe the project was a sucess; we constructed 100 homes for 100 families, installed numerous drinking and agricultural wells, and developed livelihood programs for the people in these villages.

I have the greatest hopes for the people of Sri Lanka and sincerely wish peace on this beautiful island.

Please feel free to continue to comment, but you may have to forgive me if I don't respond in a timely manner as I will not be maintaining this blog regularly in the future.

Thanks goes to the people of Sri Lanka, to Sewa Lanka Foundation, Cesvi - World Aid Italy, and to all my family and friends that supported me during me time overseas.

Peace

Props, Kudos, and Honorable Mentions...

I was recently made aware that the work that I have been doing and more specifically, this blog was mentioned on Joshua Berman's website: The Tranquilo Traveler . Josh is the brother of my friend Todd and he was here in Sri Lanka doing work with Tea Plantation workers in the central highlands. Unfortunately, I was never able to meet up with him during his stay here. If you are interested checkout the post and enjoy the rest of his site, which is quiet interesting and beautifully laid out. Thanks for the mention Josh! Hope we can meet in Boulder or SF when I return. (Permalink to the article)

And while I thinking of it, the Berman clan seems to be quite talented. Todd is a very talented artist and I was lucky enough to check out some of his work when I was back in SF in January. You can see some of his art on his site TheArtDontStop.org Todd was in our Burningman camp in 2005 and did some fun collective art projects. On the day our camp had a party, Todd encouraged everyone to draw a small self portrait of themselves. He then cut out each of the figures and added them into a scene that he painted. It was wonderful and brought a lot of smiles to the folks that visited our camp and participated in the project.

Here is one of my favorites...

The Mission Apartments

Ok, they are not quite family yet, but my friend, and Todd's partner (soon to be legal mate by some obscurely named ceremony) Laurin Giradin has a fun culture blog called Eat Drink Protest Its a fun site with lots of good food ideas. Kathryn, I think you'd appreciate this site.

Enjoy...

Kinniya School Opening - Continued

Ok, ok I know. So many pictures for a 40 min ceremony. But come on it was pretty interesting for me rather than always working with contractors and problems, staffing issues, spreadsheets, budgets. It was a pleasant change and felt like a good bonding/team building event.

All Cesvi photo: Suranjee (Admin assistant), Pietro (Administrator), Gannon (Field Officer), Vimira (Housekeeper and maker of all yummy lunches), Nicola (Country Representative - outgoing), Me (Engineer), Giacomo (Country Representative - incoming) Kumar (Driver/Logistician), Silva (Admin Asst), Franklin (Technical Officer), Rajan (Field Officer), Swaminathan (Engineer), Temporary Driver, and Shakeel (Driver/Logistician). Absent is Marco (Project Assistant).

A few of the dancing girls - happy to have their photo taken.


Some of the fishing boats in China Bay on the way back from Kinniya (note the prestine beaches).

Kinniya School Opening

In addition to our housing project, Cesvi completed the rehabilitation of a school in a village called Kinniya, located about 30 mins southeast of Trinco town. The actual project has been completed for some time but they just now had the opening ceremony to coincide with several openings of other projects funded by the Italian government. Although I didnt provided any significant assistance to this project, it was fun to attend and it gave me some hope that one day, our housing project will be finished as well.

Ten of us piled into our van for the trip down there. It felt like the Cesvi Family road trip!


Only the youngest get to dress up like this, the older girls all wear the white shall as this is a Muslim girls school.

Some local big-wigs and the Italian Ambassador. The played the Sri Lankan national anthem as well as the Italian anthem.

The cer(E)mony consisted of a series of speeches and musical performances by the children and was only 40 mins or so, which is short for project openings. They often last about 4 hours. So I felt quite lucky.

All the children were quiet and well behaved during the ceremony, on the other hand, every male in the room continuously talked amongst themselves no matter who was speaking at the podium - including the Italian Ambassador

Yet Even More Oddities

Time for another installment of odd things that Ive come across during my time here in Sri Lanka. Enjoy!

Praying Mantis on the wall of my balcony. Almost human (alien?) head movements. Freaky...

Natrual Spring Water in a bottle? Why not? Figure this one out... Its actually kind of common here.

Danger - Our Highly Skilled Machine Operator Will Be Dropping Heavy Rocks On Your Vehicle.


If you want to see more oddities, just click on the "Oddities" Lable link on the right. Cheers!

Awe... They are so cute!

On the way back from our relaxing beach weekend in Mirissa, we stopped at a sea turtle refuge near Bentota. We talked about visiting one of these facitlities when were were planning the trip because Christen is a fan of sea turtles. But as it turns out, I think everyone likes sea turtles! I was pleasantly surprised at how interesting the place was and how well informed the people that ran it were.

Upon entering the refuge (read: house near the beach with a large sandy garden and 6 concrete tanks) we were greated by a smily local guide who was the owners son. He told us about the 5 breeds of turtles found in Sri Lanka then took us to the garden where they grow sea turtles. Yep, thats right - Sea turtles can be grown in a garden. Basically, they buy sea turtle eggs from local fisherman and keep them from becomming omlets (hmmm, now I wonder why those omlets in Mirissa were so good...). They take the eggs and rebury them in their garden and after 30-60 days (depending on the breed) the little buggers hatch. After they have hatched, they get moved to the first tank that serves as a nursery.

Jana has here hands full... there were hundreds of these little guys swimming around in the nursery tank.

You could almost hear this one crying "Mama!"

I look so confortable holding this turtle - I think I will take one home with me.

Eric and his turtle. ok, you dont have to say it... yes, Eric has a bigger turtle...

So that was our trip to Mirissa with Eric and Christen. Thanks so much for coming to visit! It was great to see you and I look forward to seeing you on the playa this year!

Beach Holiday

After 18 months on this island, I finally had my first visitors! This is not surprising given the distance from the states, the cost of the flights, and of course the wonderful state of affairs here during the past year. I was lucky though, my friend Eric was making his second trip to Chenni, India for business and had inivted his wife Christen to join him. We originally were hoping to meet in the Maldives for a long weekend, but in the end it was too expensive. So we decided to make a nice 4-day weekend in Sri Lanka instead.

Eric and Christen flew into Colombo on Friday night and Jana and I made the extraordinarily slow drive down to Colombo from Trinco. It took us the better part of 8 hours to make the 260km journey. We booked rooms at a small hotel near the beach in Colombo for the first night and had a nice seafood dinner on the beach. "Nice" being a relative term and even though the beachfront restuarant was better than most places in Trinco, Eric and Christen were quickly indoctrinated to the levels of service found in Sri Lankan resturants.

We rented a car from Colombo and the four of us drove south along the coast to a beach town called Mirissa about 3 hours away. We stopped in Galle along the way and had lunch in the old Fort and walked up on the fort walls that served as protection to the old town from potential sea invaders. We met a local man that claimed to be a dive instructor that lost his boat and all his equipment in the Tsunami. He was selling old coins that he scavanged from the shallow wrecks near the fort. I bought a few Dutch and British copper coins from the 1700's. I figure they will be unique keepsakes if nothing else.

A typical ox-drawn cart still in comon use here in Sri Lanka. Its a wonderful juxtaposition (thanks Eric!) seeing these animal-powered transports working against the sea of buses and Japanese lorries.

Jana and I a-top the Galle Fort walls. We were so lucky, the weather was like this the entire weekend.

Eric and Christen enjoying the views and relative reprieve from India's constant hussle and bussle.


After Galle, we moved on to our final destination, Mirissa. We stayed at the nicest place there, which doesnt mean all that much. But the place was really quiet nice. We each had private 2-story bungalows with ocean views and AC for about $40/night including dinner and breakfast for two.

Not much else to do but enjoy the beach with a few tropical drinks and good friends. Ok, truth be told, these cocktails tasted just a bit off... not quite right... But never fear, Eric and Christen stocked up at the duty free in Colombo airport. So we made our own drinks that were much, much better. Thanks guys!

It was so nice to have friends come to visit me and to see the country that I have been living in for the past year and a half, even if the south is much different then our life in Trinco. The weekend was really relaxing; we started each day with a swim in the sea, followed by a breakfast of fresh fruit, omlets and juice, then back to the beach to chill in the sun, read, swim or what ever met our fancy.

On the way back we stopped at a Sea Turtle refuge. I will write about this in another post.

Nuwara Elliya - Central Highlands

So its been a while since my last post. As you can Imagine, I have been pretty busy trying to finish up my work here so I can move on to greener pastures. Ok, maybe its difficult to get greener than Sri Lanka, but you get my drift. I felt pretty good coming back from my holidays in the states and was motivated to work hard and to enjoy the rest of my time here in Sri Lanka.

Not too long after my return, a few of us planned a trip to the cooler central highlands. Six of us took advantage of a long weekend, and climbed into a van for the 7 hour trip to Nuwara Elliya situated in the lush hills at about 6,000 ft above sea level. I had been here last year with my friend Tom, but it is a really nice place and I was happy to return. Nuwara Elliya is known for its lavish tea plantations and shockingly cool weather. It gets down-right cold in the evenings - about 45 deg (8 deg C).

The view from a mountian top behind our guest house. We hiked through the tea fields to this visita and were pleasantly surprised by the views.

Ivo, Matej, Jana, and me standing in the tea fields above Nuwara Elliya Town.

Mmmmm freash strawberry juice. Verka enjoying her strawberry milkshake. This is almost unheard of in Sri Lanka and was a welcome treat. I think we stopped at the Strawberry Inn each day we were there!

The fierce and much feared wild Sri Lankan Elk. Ok, he was not so tough in the end. i think he even came to me and licked my hand.

San Francisco - The First Few Hours

Ok, I just received a couple more pics from my time in San Francisco. These are from my first day back in SF. I landed in at SFO around 1030 AM and was greeted by Jesse and Hetal's smiling faces. We left the airport and headed for Jesse's house in Noe Valley where I changed out of the clothes that I had been in for some 48 hrs, washed up, and we walked down to a corner cafe on Dolores for my first big cup of dark roast coffee. Mmmmm! After we were sufficently caffinated (note to self: Jesse has enough energy without caffine), we went down to El Farrilito's in the Mission District for a proper mission burrito. Man, I had been looking forward to this for 15 months and when I walked in and smelled the burritos and saw the grill, it was all I could do to stand patiently in line to place my order (additional note to self: large amounts of caffine dont help any of us wait patiently in line). It was nice to see the familiar face taking my order. El Farrilito's is a Mission institution, and a late night standard. There is something about having a well seasoned grill to make a proper burrito.

Finally! After 15 months - burrito magic. Less then 2 hours in SF and I accomplished my first goal. Yum!

After finishing our burrito's (yes I finished that whole thing), we bummed around the city and I somehow managed to stay awake all day. A considerable feat seeing as there is a 12.5 hour time difference from Sri Lanka. We went to the climbing gym in the evening followed by beers. After a few stops, when met some guy that decided to join us to the next venue. Lucky for me he had a skateboard and was happy to lend it to me while he was trying to flirt with Hetal.

California Dreaming: A late-night ride down mission street. I swear the light was green when I passed!

It was a great first day back in SF. Thanks to all my friends for hanging out with me and making my time there so much bloody fun! I look forward to seeing you all again soon!

Family Time

After my time in San Francisco I went to Delafield, WI to visit my family. It was so nice to see my Mom and to have time to catch up with her. She retired on the 2nd of January so we had lots of time together! She had the clever idea to invite a bunch of my family that is scattered across the midwest to come visit. So we had a mini-family reunion. It was great to see everyone and helped minimize the traveling I had to do during my short stay there. The party was a lot of fun, we had good food, nice drinks and the conversations were flowing. I also gave a slide presentation of some photos from my last 15 months in Sri Lanka. Thanks to mom for organizing the party!

The Bablitch family representatives: Uncle John, Uncle Steve, Dad,Michelle, my cousin Ameen, my beautiful nieces Katie and Erin, my cousin Jacob, and me.

Still showing photos... Uncle Steve, Jacob, and me.

My mom and Erin.

Thanks again to my Mom and her husband Jim for organizing the party. And thanks to everyone who came to visit, including those not pictured here: Uncle Donnie and Aunt Carol, Aunt JoAnn, and my friend Paul from Minneapolis. Thank you for coming and traveling so far through the snowy weather! It was great to see you all. I look forward to seeing you all again soon! Much luv.

San Francisco Continued

Like I said, not too many pics from my time in San Francisco, but here are a few more fun ones. Enjoy!

Dusk on Jesse’s balcony. Thanks for letting me crash at your place Jesse. You da best!
Me and Regina. Its amazing what 6-inch platforms will do for you. I was contemplating wearing these out for New Years Eve, but decided against it in the end. How can anyone dance in these things?
Good Friends. Jesse and Hetal on the balcony. The weather was so nice near the end and it was really hard to leave. I think this was taken on my last day in SF. You see the excitement in their giddy smiles that I am leaving and they will actually be able to get some sleep and be able to get to work on time in the morning!

If you are going to San Francisco

Its been a while since my last post, but I am finally getting around to putting up some pics from my trip back to the states. I went back to San Francisco after being gone for 15 months and it was great to see everyone and spend time in my favorite city! Luckily my flights went smoothly, albeit insanely long, and I didn’t seem to suffer to badly from jetlag. I think I was so excited to be back that I was able to power through the drowsiness that comes with a 12.5 hr time difference.

I somehow managed not to take many photos during my stay there. I think I was too happy just to be with my friends and bumming around the city. But I did get a few pics and got some others from friends. Below are some pics from one of my favorite days. It was my first Saturday in SF and I had plans to meet my friend Hetal for brunch, which turned into a brunch for six at the Beach Chalet on Ocean Beach. There was good food, great conversation and yummy mimosas. It a beautiful sunny December day so we decided to walk along Ocean Beach for a while after. I can tell you how nice it was to be back with my friends and to have such a nice day on the beach.
The gang: Jesse, me, Hetal, Sean, and Regina (Claudia taking the photo). Is my zipper open???

Showing my excitement to be back! Um… yep, my zipper is definitely open. I wonder how long that lasted.

“Have a Wonderful Day” – Ok, we are definitely in San Francisco. We stumbled upon this sand-script that someone had made. Jesse, Regina, me, Sean, and Claudia.

Thanks to all my friends that took time to hang out with me! I had such a great trip. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to see more of you but I definitely look forward to catching up when I am back this summer! Much luv!