The days are hot, the afternoons in Sri Lanka peppered with cool breezes and sometimes sudden intense rain storms. The winds are welcome they rustle the trees and blow toward the coast. Today the sea is a deep green with a wash of blue against the dark grey storm sky.
Fishermen haul nets along the beach catching small fish, kilos of them. The process of drawing the nets to shore take hours and the men work to a rhythm called by the oldest men. Their legs bend and dig deep into the sand as they haul the heavy pink nets with their load of fish against the drag of the water.

At least 300 meters out to sea a boat circles and somewhere along the length of the circular net. One man yells and splashes, neck deep presumably to keep the fish within the parameter of the closing circle of the net.

The Chinese have undertaken to build roads and other infra structure in Sri Lanka in return they have fishing rights in Sri Lankan water and fish the tuna. The fishermen are poor and work amazingly hard, the intensity and physical economy of their efforts show in their sinewy bodies. The waters are being fished out and regulation is not something the Sri Lankan government is good at. The country is in deep debt and the short term goal is to decrease that. The Chine have put a coal powered power plant on the coast in a country with no coal. So every day coal arrives in big ships which sit off the coast in the dolphin and whale waters because they can’t deliver the coal directly to the power plant it has to be ferried in small boats to the plant. Nuts. Waste of money.

It seems that this country is mostly buddhist and politicians are treated like spiritual gurus . After public appearances, people surge forward to touch the PM. It’s definitely cultural and really more to do with lack of education than having any reality. The more well educated Sri Lankans are sceptical about their politicians, quite rightly so, but they tend to leave the country.

There’s a great influx of Italians buying properties and setting up homes here. It’s a beautiful culturally diverse country and not hard to live in, I think the Italians have got that right.

The languid days and intense sun attracts people to these shores. it’s so easy to be but there are strangely certain things that are completely unavailable. Despite the fact that Victoria’s Secret manufactures a lot of its underwear here you cannot buy a decent pair of undies to save yourself. The big nickers are really funny but odd. Anyone coming to visit bring me some decent nickers. Jus sayin…