My initial reason for coming to Colombo is to attend the regional design, monitoring & evaluation (DM&E) conference for work. Monday through Saturday we spend the work day in a conference room at the hotel, meeting for breakfast and stopping for morning and afternoon tea/ coffee breaks and lunch. And it's the only time we have internet access so, um, yeah, I'm listening to a presentation right.this.very.minute. Staff are here from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, India, Kashmir and Sri Lanka. It's very "small world after all" hearing staff from AFG, PAK and India speaking to each other in one native language.
Our evenings are free though we seem to be rather isolated in this part of town. Tuesday evening, my boss Diane, who is based in Bangkok, and I discussed work over a glass of wine on the veranda of the old colonial style Galle Face Hotel, looking out over the Indian Ocean as dusk fell. Yeah, it's tough but someone's gotta do it. Later after a nice Indian meal, on my way back to my hotel, I mused over how much I enjoy humid, night-rides in tuk-tuks weaving through the crazy traffic of South Asian cities.
Wednesday evening was our group dinner with the Colombo office staff where we dined out at a restaurant on the beach. While very nice and full of ambiance, not as romantic as it sounds with stray cats circling your chair for handouts, the occasional rodent making a mad dash, and as one expat staff claimed, the possibility of picking up worms if you go barefoot in the sand. Interestingly, the rail lines run between the main road and the ocean, thus any business that wants to be on the beach requires customers to navigate these busy railroad crossings. It makes you wonder about the casualty rate of inebriated people stumbling across three sets of tracks after a night out. However, well fed and talked out, we all made it home safely.
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