Migration

Welcome to my newest blog format (and location). (Here is the last of the previous posts and here is the main index of all of those posts.) I have given up some design freedom (which I wasn't really exploiting) for quicker and more computer-independent updates.

I'm settling into work and life in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka. (I work for Merlin, a UK health NGO.) Batticaloa was devastated by the December 26 2004 tsunami which swept across the sandbar in the foreground of the photo above with a wave that swamped all those trees. The building in the centre of the far shore is the Merlin office - the water flooded seven feet deep there. Where I live, several hundred metres farther inland the water reached three feet deep.

I've been surprised by several of the things I've observed and experienced so far. My job is much more bureaucratic and less hands-on than the nominally equivalent job I was doing last year in Liberia. I've had to buy some 'real' shirts and I've already been to an awful lot of meetings. Our Merlin staff design and lead programs - school health, infection control, community health development, facility reconstruction and dental care - but none except the dentists actually provide treatment. The fact that we even provide dental care puts our program in context: this is not the overstretched primary health care situation of Liberia. There are still some emergency aspects to our work but this is mainly development. We are building and equipping health facilities but we don't have much to do with their operation. The government, while understaffed, is a lot more able to do this than was the case in Liberia. And while a lot of our beneficiaries are IDPs - displaced either by the tsunami or by the ongoing conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Government of Sri Lanka (and a loosely aligned Tamil breakaway group), their temporary shelter is of higher standard than most Liberians could dream of.

Anyway, life is very pleasant here. I live in a very comfortable home with virtually full-time electricity, hot water, and a much better variety of restaurants than Buchanan, Liberia. I work with another wonderful team and I think we're going to get along very well.

My first few days in Sri Lanka were spent in Colombo, which has most modern conveniences and some very nice restaurants. The drive across from Colombo to Batticaloa was lovely. (The roads I've seen are much smoother than Liberian roads.) We spent a night up in Kandy which has cool air, nice hotels and splendid views. Farther on we saw these Temple Monkeys, also known as a toque macaques (Thanks Steve for the identification!), and then spent a night in Ampara, here on the east coast, before reaching Batticaloa. I'm looking forward to seeing more of all these places but I'm also told that Sri Lanka has very many more lovely places to visit.

Best wishes to all.