I had talked to Marlene, another church member who lives in my neighbourhood, about riding to church together, and when I called her this morning, she said she wasn’t going. The school she’s working for decided to make today a service project day and the entire school is driving to a small village that was flooded to help the people out. She feels it’s a worthy cause, and I can’t disagree with her. It’s a two hour drive away and she’ll be gone all day, so she won’t be coming to church today.
Fahim came with me to the road where the trishaws hang out and negotiated a fare for me – 220 Rupees to church – and he came with me in the trishaw as far as the main Pelawatte junction, not far at all – as in just up the road a few hundred meters, where he hopped out so he could go to work with his laptop. Oh, we’re married, so I guess his laptop is now our laptop. Funny, that makes my laptop our laptop, and yet, mine is newer and has more power, and he’s still letting me use it. Given that he’s a programmer, I’m surprised he hasn’t absconded with it yet.
All kidding aside – it would be a pain in the butt to change two laptops to settings that suited someone else with very different needs, so, um, I doubt I have anything to worry about. Oh no. I just gave Fahim an idea. Drat.
Back to the trishaw ride. This driver went on a lot of the back roads, so it was harder for me to follow where we were in relation to landmarks that are known to me, and this also meant that I had no idea how late I was going to be for church. I started out late from home, and we knew I’d probably be five minutes or so late getting to church.
He’s not driving too fast, so I’m concerned I’m going to be even later. As it happens, I arrive at 9:35 – church starts at 9:30 with Relief Society, then Sunday School, and Sacrament meeting last. I walk into the classroom where Relief Society is being taught, and only Visaka, the Relief Society President, is there. I thought I’d be interrupting everything. She’s so warm and friendly – gives me a big welcoming hug with bussing on the cheeks. Some people do that here – but to me, only women. Men will shake my hand, and even at that, some of them seem surprised when I put my hand out to shake hands. Perhaps it isn’t done here with most women? I don’t know. But if so, I’m a North American, and therefore, I can get away with it.
The last meeting goes overtime – I finally leave and it’s nearly ten to one. I told the driver from this morning to pick me up at 12:45. Yes, I’m only five minutes late, but I don’t like keeping people waiting.
The trishaw driver from today (as did Dhammika last week) offered to come back for me. I gather from Fahim that whenever the government changes hands, the newly elected government issues a bunch more trishaw licenses, so the trishaw market is glutted with drivers and they have a hard time getting enough fares to make a living. Ouch. So if they can get a certain fare, they’ll take it. Of course, this works very well for me since it means less fumbling trying to understand a drivers accent as I fumble even more at giving directions. This one knew where we lived – he’d driven us there before and has a good memory.
On the way back, I get a phone call from Fahim saying that he may have to come back to work, but we need to get another gas tank, so perhaps we should pick him up on the way home. Okay, no problem. I tell this to the driver – that we need to go to my husband’s work to pick him up – and the driver says "Young Asian Television?" Yes, exactly. He probably drove Fahim there once and remembered. How wonderful – to not have to give instructions.
After buying the blue Shell tank of gas for the stove, we go home, whereupon Fahim immediately turns around, gets on his motorcycle, and goes back to work until 4 or so to finish installing windows updates. It had quite a few to install, and someone at his work uses a lot of bandwidth so everyone else has slow connections.
Fahim brought groceries home from Food City. My heat rash is still bad enough that walking even that far would hurt. Not worth it. We learn, though, that produce is not as good on Sundays. Big surprise. And of course the beef stall is closed, so we got fish only – more thalipath, searfish, and cuttlefish (which is also known as squid).
Thalapath Coconut Curry
3 tablespoons coconut oil
Thalapath, tossed in 1 teaspoon curry powder and 1 teaspoon salt
– let that cook for a few minutes, then toss in
1 Bombay onion, chopped
1 cup oyster mushrooms
1 tomato, diced
Vegetable Curry and the usual pink rice.
