It is 4am, August 9th. Alice is sound asleep. I am not. I lightly shake her arm. "Alice, I need medicine." Little does she know I have been up all night pooping. She instructs me to grab her the bag of pills. I pass it to her, she rummages around, and says take this. In the morning she confesses that she wasn't even sure what pill she was giving me.
In Hikkaduwa, a beautiful little beach resort community between Colombo and Galle in the southern part of Sri Lanka, I got the hurt real bad. It wasn't some local adaptation of the feared "Delhi Belly". It was a bug. I wasn't able to eat for three days and was pooping every 30 minutes. Fortunately, Alice compensates for her occasional tardy packing and grump attacks by being a traveling dispensary and nurse. In my days of sickness Alice was a gem. She loaded me up full of antibiotics and then would disappear on a bicycle for 6 hours. When she would return she would have crackers, ginger ale, and most importantly a sweet sweet dose of human compassion - usually in short supply in our room.
I didn't see much of Hikkaduwa, but Alice adopted the persona of Lance Armstrong and cycled her way around most of the southern province. She took photos so I feel like I was there - as I know I was in her heart.
(something Alice saw on her tour de France)
When we first arrived at the bus station in Hikkaduwa we met a guy named Dinesh who offered us a place to stay when we eventually made it to Galle - the next big city over from Hikkaduwa. Alice who can smell a scam a mile away sniffed out the situation and came out smiling, so with our newly activated cell phone we called Dinesh from the Galle bus station. Dinesh met us at the bus station, and payed for a tuktuk to his uncle's place which turned out to be a beautiful large house right off the main road. We have the entire ground floor of the house to ourselves, separate bedrooms (to Alice's relief), and there is even a kitchen with fridge and microwave. We have stayed two nights so far and will be staying a third tonight.
(Dutch Fort in Galle)
Dinesh is a super human. I have a man crush on his gigantic heart. He has shown us all around Galle (which has a beautiful 16th century Dutch fortress, cool museums, and old churches), Unawatuna (a local beach community with great temples and seafood), and Matara (more temples, a star-shaped Dutch fort, a cricket match, and giant light house on Sri Lanka's southern most point). Tomorrow he is taking us to his village where we will stay at his place and visit his school.
(view from the lighthouse)
Dinesh is a teacher. After saving up some money and taking a loan from his brother he quit his job to found a school where he teaches English to poor children in his village. He is extremely kind, very generous, and so welcoming. He describes himself as poor, but often won't let us pay for things. He has no source of income, but gives to every beggar he sees. He is the best and we were really lucky to meet him.
Oh yeah, the part about Alice's legs. So we go to a lot of temples, right. Most of the time it isn't a problem that Alice prances around in shorts and a tank-top, but today the monks weren't having it. We were kicked out of 2 of the 3 temples we went to today because Alice can't dress in a decent manner. A 6 year old monk in-the-making hissed at Alice and kept hitting me with a metal gate door, not so subtly hinting that he wanted us gone - but we stood our ground as Dinesh pleaded our case to the little tyrant.
Sri Lanka is really beautiful. We have only explored the southern coast so far, and it is the end of monsoon season so the skies have been a little gray and the wind blows pretty hard, but it is very nice. The country's civil war only ended about a year ago and people seem very pleased to have peace, and are optimistic that it will last. The coastal section that we are currently in was the hardest hit part of the country by the 2004 tsunami which killed 30,000. A lot of buildings are still in shambles but things look pretty good. Locals have said a good amount of the aid money given by foreign governments never made it past the politicians which is sucky to say the least.
Soon we will be heading towards the central, hilly, part of the country which is known for its tea plantations (the British portion of Alice's DNA is ecstatic).
Oh my poor poor baby boy! I am so pleased that Alice is taking such good care of you. It sounds like you have found a real gem in your friend Dinesh.
ReplyDeleteLove ya,
Mummy
Sorry to hear about your constant pooping. Dad says apply cornstarch to your butt hole to stop the burning feeling. That's a Kasper gem. Love you.
ReplyDeletei recomment ciprobay.. if you can find it at a local pharmacy.. it's the best! got me all the way through asia.
ReplyDeletealso, remember to keep your fluids up. if you poop more than 2 times in an hour you should make yourself an emergency re-hydrating solution to drink. it's gross.. but it will keep you from dying (haha).
ingredients:
* one level teaspoon of salt
* eight level teaspoons of sugar
* one litre of clean drinking or boiled water and then cooled
* 5 cupfuls (each cup about 200 ml.)
everytime you poop, drink a cup. once again..it's gross. but it IS the best thing you can do for yourself. stay hydrated! you can also find pharmacy versions of this stuff, in flavors like orange! and red! but they still aren't great.
best of luck!