Colombo bomb blast Al Jazeera news report 6 June 2008

December

Colombo lately has been winding down to the end of the year, and its been a mixed bag of emotions.

Work is slow, the weather is getting hotter, the cicadas have started humming, mangoes are back in season. Yipee! But then also a lot of friends have finished their work contracts here and are returning home or continuing their travels.. : (

At least there have been a lot of changes in our lives to distract us from this - my job is coming to an end at the end of December so have been going for job interviews, and Jason has started a new position as General Manager of Eco Fisheries in Negombo. We had to move out of our apartment for a month (because the owners came back for Christmas) so are now temporarily living in a great apartment around the corner from our old house, with another friend, Otto just until we leave to go home to Australia for Christmas. Packing, cleaning, cleaning, unpacking. It has been a welcome distraction.

Many of our Australian friends have already left to go back home or onto other travelling adventures. So we have been really quite miserable with so many friends leaving, even though there have been many farewell parties:

Apart from parties, the weather is not the only thing that has been hotting up here. In the last few days of November, there were 2 bombs in Colombo on the same day, and many more undetonated ones found around the city on buses, on the footpath, etc. It was really scary.

The first was targeting the Minister for Social Services. At 9am, a woman walked into the Ministry building (it was "Meet the Public Day") and blew herself up when she got to the counter, killing the Minister's Public Relations Aide, and injuring many more.

At 5pm, peak hour traffic, a person walked into the No Limits department store, full of people, and blew themself up, killing 19 people and injuring scores more.

Both bomb blasts were within 3km radius of my house, I heard the sirens. The bomb set the street dogs barking, and they didn't stop for hours. The wailing of the sirens, the dogs, the blanket of low humid cloud, it was very eerie.

Its sort of weird how accustomed you get to this sort of thing. I wouldn't say de-sensitised, because everytime it happens it is still terrifying, but life doesn't stop because of it. You get up the next day, walk down to get a 3-wheeler, go to work, go shopping in the supermarket, go about your business. What else can you do?

Its a crazy world.

Peace xx