Sri Lankans Are Not Naked
Despite how it may look on TV, everybody in the Third World is not walking around all naga. If you take a look behind your neck you might see that many of those clothes are made here. I’m not saying stop sending clothes, but stop sending clothes.
I say this because I can’t walk anywhere because I can’t walk anywhere without stepping on dirty, useless items of clothing. Also, because a real-life volunteer gives me more accurate information. He is a white kid from the MidWest/South who just came here with kids from his church and did what needed to be done, climbing in wells to clean them, riding in the back of trucks, unloading and loading goods, and working his ass off. He doesn’t stay in the Plaza and he doesn’t have a title and I like him.
He tells me that one, the workspace is full of clothes, and two, most of the clothes are useless. Some are just soiled, and recent shipments from places like Dubai are wholly inappropriate. They include stuff like stilletto heels, halter-tops, winter coats, Wonderbras, etc. Some people seem to have actually bought stuff like jeans and sent new items here, which is off cause the stuff is made here, and jeans are bloody uncomfortable here.
What people honestly need are Sarongs and T-Shirts/Button-Ups/Wife-Beaters for men and Sari or pattern dresses for women. For almost all these things roles of cloth are best, and it provides employment for local tailors. The used clothes are more of a logistics problem than anything. I’ve actually heard rumours of container-loads of clothes circling the globe for 20 years because no one wants to unload the hot-potato. I don’t doubt it.
I started off not really liking General Sarath Fonseka, him being part of the aggressive war effort. I didn’t support the war (largely cause I thought it would fail), and I thought Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Fonseka were gleefully stomping everything. Fonseka even came out and said “I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people,” in 2008 (
General Sarath Fonseka was arrested on a bunch of trumped up charges, but mainly for daring to threaten Mahinda in a Presidential election. Despite his poor health, Fonseka was arrested in February 2010 and sentence to three years. Word on the street now, however, is that he’ll be released soon. Like any day now. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has told 
I’ve been testing a lot of apps. A very interesting one is iPlayboy, from Playboy magazine. It’s bad porn but a good magazine, especially since you can read issues from its cultural heyday – the Mad Men era of the 60s.
I’m going to get back to blogging. I buy a shitload of stuff on my iPad. Not that I like spending money, and the exchange rate terrifies me, but it’s just so easy, and so good. For example, I’ve been reading comics again. Spiderman, and 
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