Day 71, 42 to go.
Sunday, March 16. High clouds, humid, calm seas, [ready to repel boarders and searching for missing plane debris] [?]
I have been puzzled about that awkward name, Sri Lanka, since it first popped up some many years ago.
- According to a lecturer on board, it means Sacred and beautiful Island.
- According to our Government Licensed guide yesterday, SRI is an acronym for Social Republic Independent.
Do you now understand the difficulty that I may have in trying to write a blog with a few purported facts in it?
Yesterday we were in Colombo, Sri Lanka, previously known as Ceylon, I preferred the name that I was taught as a youth in geography class and collected stamps.
OK, here we go with my limited knowledge, all based on information received in the last few days, none from memory:
There have been people here for over 110,000 years and even Marco Polo dropped by here in the late 1200s on his historic journey. The original name was Zeila, which meant 'land of precious stones'. In the 11th century it was called Serendip. [Hence Serendipity.] The Portuguese, Dutch and finally the British have had their presence here, the British having the latest and most pronounced affect on the Island.
The make-up of the people on the island is about 75% Sinhalese Buddhists, 11% Tamil, [Sri Lankan], 7% Tamil, [Indian], and 7% Muslims.
Ceylon got its independence from Britain in 1948, then in 1958 there were interracial riots between some Tamils and the Singalese. The name was changed to Sri Lanka in 1972. In 1976 the Sri Lankan Tamils started their battle for separating from the established country. Then in the 1980s there were riots and 3000 people killed. India was asked to help militarily in 1987 and did so for three years. In 2001 there was a major Tamil Tiger attack on the Air Force and Airport doing $500,000,000 damage, in effect a civil war was taking place. A cease fire took place in 2002 and then the 2004 Tsunami hit and shortly after they started fighting again. In 2008 and 2009 the Government pushed the Tigers north and slaughtered then in a final battle.
According to our tour guide yesterday, the Tamils were brought into Ceylon a long time ago from India to do the grunt work in the fields in the north of the country. He is able to identify Tamils from their facial appearance. I believe that most Tamils are hard working individuals that through a set of circumstances, none in their control, are looked at with a degree of suspicion by some citizens of Sri Lanka.
End of lesson, such as it is.
* * *
12 days from today we are in Durban, South Africa where were we leave the ship for five days, four nights on a Safari arranged by us with an agent we have used before in Africa. All four of us are looking forward to that with great anticipation. However before we get there we have nine sea days. To me those sea days are like the annoying slow progress through the countdown to Christmas when I was a youngster.
* * *
Our daughter, Jeanette, celebrated a birthday two days ago. It is hard to believe it is over half a century ago that we were in the expanding-family mode, where did all those years go in such a hurry? We are constantly aware how lucky we have been in life, combined with some hard work and a lot of blind faith. So many people have toiled as hard as we have yet are struggling or just scraping by at our age. Hard to believe.
* * *
We had an Anti-Piracy drill today. It was compulsory for the crew but optional for passengers. After the alarm bell went off the crew did what they are to do in the event of a real attempt; there were some on the promenade deck I imagine looking after the fire hoses now laid out, and the room stewards and others stopped their work and stayed in the corridors along with the passengers who participated. The ship cranked up its speed to a little over 22 knots per hour. That was about it. In my opinion all of this is meant to reassure some few fretful people who are over concerned about many things in life.
As of tonight, we are now exactly 12 hours ahead of West Coast Time.
Nautical terms in everyday usage:
Toe the Line:
When called to line up to attention, the ship's crew would form up with their toes touching a seam in the deck planking.
Pic:
- This tea picker carries this rod in case she runs into one of the highly poisonous s-n-a-k-e-s amongst the tea plants. Any anti venom serum has to be injected within 15-20 minutes according to our guide yesterday. That time line is unlikely to be met bearing in mind the deplorable road conditions I did not tell you about yesterday out in the tea plantation areas.
Enjoy your next cup of tea, somebody risked their life for it!
- Razor wire and a fire hose on the promenade deck as part of the Anti-piracy precautions. [?]
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