Saturday

Yesterday I enjoyed a generally relaxing day off from work. Everyone on our team went to the beach except me. I decided to hang back to get a bit of alone time and do a bunch of nothing. I'm also not all that much of a beach person. That isn't to say that I always hate being at the beach, but I've never been super excited about the beach either.

In the early afternoon a Muslim boy that lives next door came over. His name is Youssef and on most days we get at least one visit from him. Youssef knows a tiny bit of English, but for the most part our language doesn't overlap at all. I tried to use a phrasebook we have in the house, but "Where is the bank?" and "Can I exchange money here?" weren't all that useful. Later in the afternoon he came back a second time and I tried to teach him to play Go Fish. I don't think he really understood the concept though, because he kept showing me his hand when I'd ask him if he had a certain card. Oh well, maybe over the next few weeks I can get the idea across.

I did get some good time alone without Youssef too. I got some laundry done, listened to music, and got in some good one on one time with Jesus. It was really refreshing to have all of that time by myself after a week of never being alone.

In the late afternoon people started coming back from the beach. Some stayed longer than others, so it was a bit of a trickle. Kristin and Angela (both WMF staff) were the first two home. They made the unfortunate discovery that our refrigerator was off, and the inside of it didn't smell too good. We looked for a switch that might have gotten turned off, and even tried a different outlet in the hopes of that being the problem. Nothing fixed it though, so it looks like we're without a fridge for a bit. Kristin and I cleaned everything out of the fridge, throwing anything away that seemed questionable. Then I scrubbed out the inside of it so that it no longer smells too awful. Although inconvenient, going without a refrigerator shouldn't be too much of a problem.

As soon as the next wave of people arrived home, the problem just got a little more complicated. They had a bunch of raw chicken that they were planning to cook for dinner the following night (which is now tonight). We asked the neighbors (Youssef's family) if we could keep it in their refrigerator, or at least tried to by using the phrase book. Their response was "no fridge." We tried a few more people we know in the area, but couldn't find anything. We were about to rearrange plans to cook and eat the chicken immediately when Youssef came running in saying "fridge, fridge." I took the chicken and followed him. Apparently their family does have a fridge and our chicken is now living happily in there until we cook it up tonight.

For dinner, our team met at a restaurant in "downtown" Galle. It was a bit of an expensive (for Sri Lanka), touristy place, but I enjoyed going there. They had a DJ playing music, which at first the music most of our team remembered from Junior High dances. They clearly had the place set up so people could dance, but no one seemed interested in that sort of music. Eventually the DJ started moving towards more rap/hip-hop type dance music. Melissa, one of the women on my team, knows how to swing dance, so I went up and asked the DJ if he had any swing music. He didn't, which was a bit of a disappointment. Melissa also knows a tiny bit of Cha Cha, so instead I convinced the DJ to play Smooth by Santana. Melissa wasn't as hot on the idea of showing off her Cha Cha, but I managed to get her to go for it. She definitely got better over the course of the dance, and was doing pretty well by the end of it. I realized that I only sort of remember my Cha Cha and kept wanting to lead steps that I no longer remember how to start. In any case, I had a lot of fun and I think Melissa did too. After that the DJ just went back to rap and hip-hop for the rest of the night. That isn't really my thing, but a lot of other people took the floor and started trying to dance. I'd like to think that Melissa and I inspired them, although I suspect they would have started dancing anyway.

Well, that was my Saturday. In a lot of ways it hardly felt like I was in a city recovering from the tsunami. It felt more like I was in America. I guess that is easy to do in tourist areas. In any case, it was a nice break that I think our team needed. Hopefully this next week our bodies will be a bit more prepared for the physical labor and the hot Sri Lanka sun.