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..