Green Green Grass of Home...

Many of our relatives and friends question our decision to go back to Sri Lanka. Here we are armed with a PR in a developed country (a thing many a Sri Lankans would give their right hand for) wanting to go back to poor old Sri Lanka. They assume that anything is better than back home. Yes, the grass will always be greener on the other side. For us however, happiness doesn't constitute in money, comforts or the assumed prestige of living in another country. For all those skeptics--apart from a few reasons like roots, culture and religion here are our main reason for going back.

Love and happiness- yes you heard me right, home is where our kids will find an abundance of love. Love that cannot be replaced by money or comforts. Love that we believe is essential for them to grow into healthy, complete human being. Our kids will be surrounded by the love from her Grandparents, from Puncha (My sister -H1's favourite ever relative), from numerous aunts, and uncles and imagine the fun times she will have with her cousins.

All those happy times she will have visiting her grandparents - yep...imagine the fun and the different experiences that will enrich her life. My parents live in Kandy, where she will bask in the beauty of the hill capital. Hubby's parents live in Matara where there is sun, sea and sand. And we plan to drop her off during school holidays in either of the place so that she will have the best holidays ever.

Simple reasons...but which we believe are essential for her to grow up with.

And admit it. How many of you abroad start the day reading the Daily Mirror or The Island online instead of the local papers? How many of you press the refresh button every ten minutes to see if there are updates from back home? How many dream of the familiar things you can't get anywhere else in the world like ambul thiyal, malu paan and Astra margarine. Heck, I even miss the pot holes on the roads. Many people have the ability to immerse them selves in the country they chose as home. For us, there is a constant longing to go back. And for all those people who think anywhere outside the country is heaven, who ask us to think carefully of our decision, who say there are no opportunities back home (opportunities are what you create, not what's handed to you I always say by the way), I say look again carefully at the grass on your side. It maybe greener than you thought. You might have missed it for the fact that you were too busy looking at the other side to notice.

Humane way to get meat

A few days back I had to tell H1 that indeed to get meat we have to kill animals. She wasn’t at all happy about it. But when I asked her if she was ready to be a vegetarian like her Indian friend Smitha, she wasn't too pleased either when she realised that she'll have to give up sausages!

Then yesterday, out of the blue she says “ Ammi, you don’t have to kill animals to get meat. You can ask the pig to lie down. Then you can cut the tummy and take the meat out like you take a baby out. Then you can paste the tummy together and ask the pig to get up!”

If only life was that simple ha?

Mad rush to get forms filled

Some private schools have put out their registration forms in Colombo, so all hell broke loose at the our household. Frantic calls to hubby’s cousin ensued who was put on duty to report to us if this happens (and who dutifully did) to make sure the form arrives in Singapore in time.

Isn’t DHL tracking a wonderful thing? The forms were DHLed and we could track the movement of the form every step of the way. So one form was filled and send back to cousin dearest to hand deliver to school with us checking the progress of the delivery like watching a cricket match. Imagine the cousin dearest’s surprise when hubby was on the phone asking whether it has arrived, when our computer screen showed that it has been picked up by Sumaneshwaran, and hubby says “It’s OK, Sumaneshwaran has just signed and picked it up!” She was like, “Ha? How do you know my helpers name?” ;o)

So, the next form from another school has just arrived and one of Hub's colleagues has picked it up and I know his name! ;o)