Succumbing to the Blog

Everyone has a blog for chronicling their time abroad. I didn't see a need for a blog until I realized that it was tireless and unrealistic to try and cater the same story to various people. Thus the creation of this blog.

Anywhere you go, you're an outsider looking in on someone else's world. I've always felt like an outsider, an observer often peering through various lens of other people's lives. This cumulative observant lens I suppose makes up my own. In America, I'm a Sri Lankan and in Sri Lanka, I'm an American. Talk about having identity issues.

I arrived to Sri Lanka for my sixth visit, on Friday, June 10th and it was my first time traveling here without my family. On my own as I usually am, I set forth with no expectations but much insight to gain for the two and half month duration of my stay. A week prior to leaving I discovered that the Development Agency I would be working with had it's funding withdrawn because there was no longer a "need" for humanitarian efforts in Sri Lanka. So after taking leave from my job for two months, booking my ticket and going through all this trouble. My father called an old family friend, who managed to save my summer. Now, I'm teaching English at Aquinas University in Colombo and assisting with technology courses on the weekends. I wear a sari to work everyday, eat rice and curry like it's nobody's business, and come back to a family of seven that has taken me in as their own.

 So begins my blog...