Vesak

Vesak was on Thursday. Most Buddhists go to pansal (temple) to observe sil (to my knowledge the 5 percepts) during the day. I didn't go (yes..I'm a bad Buddhist). There is a pansal next door so I spent 2 hours out front listening to the hamuduru (monk) recite gathas (versuses) through a microphone while readinig What Buddhists Believe. During the night we went out to see the various decorations and celebrations. The entire district is lit up with vesak kudu (latterns) of different colors and along the streets families set up dansals (booths where they hand out free food and drinks). Most families don't eat dinner and go out to various dansals and eat dinner (buth (rice) dansal) and have dessert (cake dansal). Most dansals offer Nescafe, ice coffee and soup. The other major Vesak decoration is the thorana which is a "religous storyboard" made up of pictures and lights. Most thoranas are 30 feet + and tell a story usually from the Buddha's life. An audio recording is played with the thorana so people can listen to the story.

I had assumed that Vesak was over on Thursday but my cousin informed me that the night activities continue for the whole week. We went out Thursday-Saturday night and drove around the Gampaha district. We saw 6-7 thoranas and stopped at various dansals. By 9 pm the crowds get quite massive and younger groups (my age) start driving around in tractors singing songs and dancing. Overall my Vesak experience was quite enjoyable. The only negative was that I wasn't able to visit Colombo over my 4 day holiday. Since Colombo is the capital city, I'm sure the activities/decorations in Colombo were massive.

In other news I have taken a strong interest in the business environment in Sri Lanka. I've set my homepage to www.lankabusinessonline.com which i read every morning. I have a strong interest in starting a business in Sri Lanka during this summer and I have been working through a couple of ideas already. On a similar note the stock exchange in Sri Lanka (Colombo Stock Exchange) has been doing extremely well. In the last year it provided an average return of 124% (2nd best return in the world behind Russia) and in the first quarter of 2010 it was the best performing stock market in Asia. For those of you who invest in stocks I would highly recommend looking into the CSE. I hope to have some money invested in the market before I leave and have started reading Ben Graham’s (father of value investing) famous book the The Intelligent Investor.

As I write this post I am watching the Sri Lanka-India cricket match on TV (7 hours of cricket). One thing I love about being in Sri Lanka is that I can watch cricket on TV without having to search for the game online. The Asia Cup is coming to Sri Lanka this month and I'll be heading to Dambulla to watch a couple of matches. It'll be my first time watching a cricket match live so I’m really excited. Anywho I head back to Colombo tomorrow morning to start a week of work. I’ll post again during the week.

Video of a Thorana

Video of Moving Kudu

Video of Pansal

It's tea time..again...

So it's been a while since I last posted. I'll try to post more often (2-3 times a week).

I spent the first part of last week finishing off paperwork for my passport and I.D card. It's been quite the time consumer. Anyway, I started work last Thursday. Over the week I learned a lot of things about dressing like a professional in Sri Lanka:
1) You are expected to be clean shaven EVERYDAY
2) You need to wear a vest (I really don’t know why but everyone here points it out if you don't).
3) Also wear a tie..even if your co-workers don't (my supervisor called me out on this)

More importantly, I was assigned to Advisory Services which I am really happy about. Last week I spent my first two days at the largest chemical importer in Sri Lanka and now I’m working at one of the largest conglomerates in Sri Lanka. Over the next 3 months I will be working on 3-4 audits across a number of industries. The biggest thing that struck me about working in Sri Lanka is the pace of work. People work at a more casual pace here and the work environment is very relaxed. By the end of the day you've had 4-5 cups of tea and a very detailed update on everyone's lives outside of work.

I finished reading Ahead of the Curve this weekend. If you go to Ivey DO NOT put this book on your “To Read” list. In a nutshell, the book summarizes the HBS experience into two: 1) the case work (almost all the cases he described we’ve done at Ivey…Eric Peterson, Apple, Black and Decker etc) and 2) how private equity and venture capital are dream careers post-MBA. The next book I plan on reading is What Buddhists Believe by Ven. Dr. K. Sri Dhammananda. I’m not the most devote Buddhist so I figure it’s a good time to really understand what Buddhism is about. What Buddhists Believe is classic when it comes to “answer[ing] many questions which are asked about Buddhism by Buddhists and non-Buddhists.” Should be a good read.

Vesak, the holiest day in Buddhism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ves%C4%81kha), is tomorrow . It signifies the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha (which happened all on the same full moon in the month of May..different years). This is the first time in 20 years ish that I'll be in Sri Lanka for Vesak. For the past week the city of Colombo has been decorated with white lanterns and Buddhist flags. Since I arrived in Sri Lanka everyone has been talking about Vesak so I'm really excited for tomorrow.
I have a four day weekend coming up (because of Vesak). I'll blog again post-Vesak.

This post was mainly a result of Hil complaining that she didn't have any bed time reading. So Hil here you go..and goodnight :)! (mainly to Hil but also to all of you who are about to go to bed as well)!

Let it rain..

I arrived in Sri Lanka on Wednesday night (there was a pretty crazy thunderstorm on the way in..see the before and after pic to the right). The first thing that hit me was the humidity. I'm used to it now but for the first couple of days it felt like I was walking in a warm bath. The temperature has ranged between 25-35 C for the week and since it's pre-monsoon season all we've gotten is a ton of rain :(.

I spend most of my taime at my nanda's where I help babysit my cousin's 1.5 year old son and check out the surrounding area. We have quite a few plants growing here: close to 100 pol gus (coconut trees), amba gus (mango trees) along with kadju (cashews) and rambutan (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocuvpgdh3ythw_srLHZv4quvWa5Ybp-7Cnj3b181sif8Jw1RppOrFucncY7pHBrhv5o5cBRoBBbq-ImfR5Usg7tGixYR4BIS2S3uTu2x7qKHtZoEQ7UGL1_2i9MQdgrN1ZFoUn60bJLs/s400/Rambutan.jpg) trees. Over the past week I've seen how people in Sri Lanka use the full coconut to make meals (using the white flesh), to grind out coconut oil (coconut pieces are put out to fry in the sun) and to fuel fires (using the husk). Interesting stuff.

I have also travelled to Colombo regularly to check out my mom's place (where I'll be staying when I start work), and to apply for an identity card and Sri Lankan passport. Over the weekend I visited an ex-soldier in the hospital. He had lost one of his arms, was completely blind in one eye and could only see shawdows in the other eye (a year ago). Last week he went completely blind and the doctor told him there was nothing they could do. My family has taken a personal interest in his story and I visited the hospital to give him a small pocket radio ($10). Seeing the smile on his face when he turned on the radio for the first time is an image I will remember forever. It's crazy how something worth pretty much nothing (one lunch in Canada) can have such a huge impact on a person's life half-way across the world.


Work Update: I found out on Sunday that I will be working in the Business Risk or Advisory services instead of Audit. This is great news since both BR and Advisory are more suitable to what I want to do post-Ivey: consulting.

I have one more week before I start work on the 24th. My 3 main weekly goals are: (1) to start working on non-profit stuff (I have made a contact in the Lion's club of Sri Lanka), (2) to travel this weekend and (3) to finish reading Ahead of the Curve by Philip Broughton.

I've attached a video of the rainfall in Colombo this past Friday. This is what the roads looked like less than an hour after it started raining..

3 hours to go..

So here is my second post as promised.

About to head to the airport in an hour. I've got everything packed and my Ipod music updated. In terms of emotions I'm not really feeling anything right now. My flight goes through Hong Kong (hoping for a seat upgrade), Singapore and then finally Colombo.

For the first week I'll be staying at my naenda's (aunt's) house which is an hour outside of Colombo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombo), the capital city of Sri Lanka. My guess is I won't have internet for the first week so my next post will be in a week's time. I'll be moving to my mom's place in Colombo this weekend and I start working at E&Y on the 17th.

There is a ton of stuff I'd like to get done during my 3 months in Sri Lanka. I'm going to list them here and hopefully I'll get them all done.

Places I'd like to visit:

a) Ancient City of Sigiriya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigiriya
b) Maldives
c) Adam's Peak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam%27s_peak
d) Yala National Park http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yala_National_Park
e) Watch the Asia Cricket Cup in Dambulla and visit the cave temple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dambulla_cave_temple
f) Visit Kandy during the Esala Perahera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esala_Perahera
g) Visit the Kandalama Hotel http://www.heritancehotels.com/kandalama/
h) Anuradhapura http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anuradhapura
i) Visit the City of Jaffna http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffna

Other stuff I'd like to do:

a) Read 7 (supposedly 3 is too little) poth (books) during my time in Sri Lanka. Most of you know that I don't read. I figure now is a good time to work on that.
b) Start a non profit helping children in Sri Lanka (I'm leaning towards something like Make-A-Wish foundation but I need to look into the logistics of it)
c) Start a business (in Canada).
d) Take lessons in a sport (squash/cricket) or instrument (guitar?).
e) Improve my Sinhala (writing and reading)

This post is WIP. I'll update it within the next week. Next time I post I'll be in..Sri Lanka!

Welcome

Hey, I'll be blogging on this site during my time in Sri Lanka. Hopefully this isn't my last post (those of you who checked out my blog last year "Crumbs under the Couch" know what I mean). Kallu Sudha pretty much means "white-washed" person which I am. I'll be dropping at least one Sinhalese word/phrase (one of the languages spoken in Sri Lanka) in each of my posts that way you guys can learn something while reading my blog. I'm quite excited. Last night I wore a sarama (sarong) around the house (typical skirt-ish thing guys wear in Sri Lanka).


Right now I'm packing/getting all my paperwork. I realized last night that I need to get vaccines so I'll have to get 6 shots on Monday (the day I leave). Anyway I'll write one more post this weekend before I leave.