on a sillier note---back to flying creatures

I’m a worthless worker between the hours of 1:30 and 3:00 p.m. and usually pretty crap the hour before lunch too. I should just be given an automatic nap time, because it would be more productive for all involved. Because of my total lack of focus for a good 2 hours in the day I try to come in early and stay about an hour late each day.

Therefore, I’ve been staying at the office most days until just around dusk. I walk the very long block to my bus stop and as I go the skies fill with black flying creatures. Mostly Mr. Crow and all his little friends are squawking just as loudly as they have been all day, but then you start to notice that flying in what appears to be a northerly direction are crow-sized bats with amazingly huge wings. They’re silent and there are hundreds in a flock. I wonder what they eat, and where they go in the night and when they change shifts again in the morning...

Today I enjoyed watching them on my walk to the bus. The sky was a beautiful pink and deepened to a darker and darker blue. I stood at the construction zone (where they were building improved sidewalks) waiting for my bus. I believe I mentioned something about the bus on my first Sri Lanka entry. I mentioned they were crowded.

Crowded doesn’t even begin to describe a Friday night out of the city commuter bus. It leaned towards the curb. Four men clung for dear life on the footboard with one foot and an arm hanging on to part of the bus, as they approached the stop. More people managed to pack in and I just stood back and laughed. I had no intention of boarding that bus. They arrive every 30 seconds anyway. It left and lilted down the road leaning even further to the left with the weight of the commuters.

I waited and another arrived. Fewer people seemed to hang of this one I was the last to get on the footboard, and as the bus roared down the road, I realized my laptop swung precariously from my outer arm in nothing more than a cloth bag. The prospect of losing all my research for 3 different projects, because it fell off an overcrowded bus was just the ironic story I could imagine. Fortunately the bus attendant hated the thought of this short little Western girl falling off the bus too, so I was squeezed further into the crowd. Into someone's armpit I crammed. Six of us balanced one hand worth of fingers on the ledge above the door. Only three guys swung from the door of our bus. All I can say is at least there was a breeze. But for a 10 rupee commute I suppose squeezing in with my fellow Colombo-ites is a small price to pay.

After this little adventure and a week spent staring down a computer and reading copious academic papers, my Friday night consisted of a bowl of yogurt, a brownie, and a lot of ‘How I Met Your Mother’. Perhaps the wild times in Colombo were only a one-off…but the weekend is still young…