New Beginnings

Hello dear friends,

How was your week? Mine was very hectic and it seemed like I had just started Monday when Friday rolled around! I'm sure you have some of those weeks from time to time.

This week was a new beginning for me, work wise. It was a great week and I got thrust into the tail end of preparations for a major event in our work calendar. It was like being thrown in the middle of the ocean but thankfully, I knew enough about "swimming" to find my feet and crest the waves.

So today, I got thinking about new beginnings. God provides opportunities each and every day for a new beginning for us because the dawn of each day is really an opportunity for a new beginning isn't it? Yes, we have baggage that we drag across from day to day but each morning that we wake up we get an opportunity to make adjustments that can shift the direction and course of our life.

I also got a call from someone I hadn't spoken with in 18 months. The call came from the blues and I wondered why now? I am waiting to see that picture fully unfold.

Dear friend, where are you in life's journey? What's going on? Happy days? Not so happy days? Reflective days? Transition days?

Wherever you find yourself on the journey of life, never forget one thing - God is very much on His throne. In the happy times, please continue to walk with Him. Share those smiles and joys with Him, as you would a close and trusted friend. Raise your glass and toast with Him. He's brought you into a good place and we should be thankful.

Are you on the other side of the equation? Trying to figure out your next move? No better person to take your hand on that journey than our dear father and His precious Holy Spirit. Ask Him for help and guidance. As I write about and enjoy my new beginning, I can't but remember a dear, wonderful friend whose family is trusting God for their joy to be restored. She's been a blessing in many ways and I'm standing in faith with them that their joy will be made full once again. We judge God faithful and know that it is done!

So you see, in the circle of life, when we cut it up, as we do in pie charts, there are different aspects with different circumstances. In all things though, dear friend, please GIVE THANKS. He is faithful that promised. He won't leave us nor forsake us. The plans of the wicked one are frustrated by the power of His blood. Keep your eyes focused on Him. He cares for the birds of the air, who do absolutely nothing to merit His love. How much more does He love us. He loves us! Friends, be assured of that.

Take a moment to give thanks for how far He's brought you. Thank Him in spite of whatever circumstances you face and rejoice for the glorious future he's promised. For some, that future starts tomorrow. For yet others, it starts in a week, or a month, or a year. No matter how long it takes, stand firm. My new beginning took 9 months to get to, but I never doubted His faithfulness.

Have a great weekend folks, and a blessed week ahead. Till next week, Blessings on you and yours. Navatha Hamu Wemu.

Your friend,

Olubunmi

Navatha Hamu Wemu

Hi dear friends,

How have you been? I've had a good week and I'm going to make good my 
promise to tell you all about the play part of Sri Lanka.

Beach

One thing about Sri Lanka (SL) which I found interesting is that all the action isn't concentrated in the main capital city. In fact, Colombo is the least place you want to stay in during a trip to SL. First of all, it's an island, so you are surrounded by beaches of various kinds no matter where you turn, but some are nicer than others. However, there are some places famous for their beaches - Tangalle, Trincomalee, Galle to name a few. My best laid plans to get to the beach were cut short by rain but some of my colleagues did before the rains so I'm sharing a nice picture courtesy of one of them.

My teammates and I made the 3 hour trip (one way) to the Pinnawala elephant orphanage. That was a good one. At the orphanage elephants whose parents have been killed one way or another are brought up. We took part in the bathing of the elephants and I got right next to one! History moment, lol. Visitors get the opportunity  to feed the elephants as well, with fruit and milk. I saw one and two year old baby elephants.

Elephant Bathing

Further up from the orphanage is the city of Kandy which I promise myself to get to if I ever find myself in SL again but that didn't happen this time. It's got a nice lake and a gold encrusted temple where what is said to be the tooth of Buddha is kept. It's a big thing for Buddhists and there is an annual celebration when an elephant carries the tooth around once a year.

Yala national park is worth a visit if you're into animals and all that. It's got the largest leopard density in the world I'm told. Whale watching happens in Galle but requires an overnight stay because the boat leaves at 6 am to take you out 40 km on the Indian Ocean to see them.

I also went on a tour of Colombo, couldn't resist the red double decker buses. Colombo has its own charm, and it was interesting to see all the old government buildings and monuments. The independence monument, the monument to the Indian peace keepers who died in the war to protect SL, quite a few lakes (Beira was nice) scattered around the city and Ape Gama, a recreation of a typical Sri Lankan village so many years back. Apparently, it's not only my Yoruba people that used a grinding stone (olo) to grind pepper back in the day.

Temple of the Tooth

Colombo City Tour

Interestingly, Sri Lankans are also into batik. Their men traditionally wear a sarong wrapper that's made from batik and even the Sri Lanka saree, which is slightly different from the Indian one is made from batik as well. There's a Batik village on the way to Kandy. I still can't get over the fact that the women wearing saree leave their tummies uncovered, irrespective of how many folds they have, lol. Funny though, most of the women don't have that many folds. Most of them have relatively flat or only slightly rounded tummies. It's a beautiful attire and I just had to get one but I'm definitely going to have my tummy covered when I wear it.


One draw back to living in or visiting SL is that cost of living is really high. Just to illustrate, to refill a bottle of dispenser water which we buy for about N400 at the most in Lagos goes for Rs1,000, which is about N1,600! So food and housing are really expensive but the government ensures that the basics - education and health are completely free. University education is free, though less than 20% of qualified people benefit from that due to limited capacity.

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka also suffers "brain drain". After educating its citizens free of charge most of them go away to the UK or Australia and such places where their income can spread further than it would in SL. This has led to a skills shortage in the country.

There is a habit of the Sri Lankans which I found quite tough to get used to. First of all, being a visitor makes you a "target" and I don't mean that in criminal way. Practically everybody, (and I'm not exaggerating) asks you where you're from and almost interrogate you if you allow them. From the tuk-tuk driver, to the hotel personnel, to the man that catches your eye on the road? They have no concept of personal space and privacy and will probe you as much as you allow them.

They start off by asking where you're from? What brings you to Sri Lanka? What do you do? If you are Nigerian but school outside Nigeria like I do, that starts a whole new avalanche of questions. Did I mention they are persistent? There was a gem sales event hosted by the government and at least 3 people, whom I met on the road took 5 minutes of my time trying to convince me to attend. They have nothing to gain by your attendance but they have a fierce price in their national heritage and apparently the Sri Lankan gems are one of the things they are really proud of. I had to be almost rude to tear myself away from the first person that tried to get me to go there. I was like - Na by force?

Going on to Food, I must confess that I acquired a taste for curries in the past week and a half. I particularly like that they eat at least 2 or 3 different forms of protein with each meal. So, a typical meal is rice (a staple) and fish + chicken curry at a minimum. Being an island, SL has all manner of sea food. Cuttlefish was one I'd never heard of before. I love prawns and I must say that I ate more in this week and a half than I've done the in the last one year.

Egg Hoppers

Another staple that I fell in love with is hoppers. This is a Sri Lankan staple that is eaten either in the morning or night or both. It's basically made from rice flour and coconut milk, like a very thin wafer and is done either plain or with half done egg in the center. It's shaped like a spread out funnel and is eaten by hand, with a curry and two condiments that I wasn't brave enough to try. I'd go back to SL just for the hoppers alone.

So, as you've guessed by now, I had a really good time in Sri Lanka and that's why I say "Navatha Hamu Wemu", meaning See you again instead of goodbye because I definitely would love to visit again. So I'm back to work now, need to earn a living after all that expensive Sri Lankan living, lol.

Have a great week everyone, Navatha Hamu Wemu next week.

Sthoothie

Oh wow, a very busy week is ended. It's been almost whirlwind but also very fulfilling. How was your week dear friends?

Sthoothie is the Sri Lankan word for Thank You. A big thank you to the company we worked with, our school and to my team for a truly rewarding consulting experience. My pre-conceptions about what the week would involve and how it would turn out was quite far from the reality we walked this entire week.

Our client company were very warm and welcoming from the minute we stepped into their offices. The CEO was quite open now that we were face to face and gave us an overview of the organization and their challenges. It became clear very quickly that they were doing well but are looking to ensure that they could sustain their success into the future. At this point, they have poor visibility of their success enablers and finances. 

One thing I took away from the International Business Assignment (IBA) experience is that developing countries seem to have the same basic problems. Cultural differences also add their own dimension to the issues experienced, especially by small and medium enterprises. 

Full Understanding the workings of any business would take more than a week but the openness of the CEO of our client company made things a bit easier for us. The foundational problems were immediately visible but are not what we can solve for them in the time we had. We put together a strategy document which we believe if implemented, would go a long way to ensure the business continues to exist in the long term. I was part of a wonderful team of 4 and we split up the work amongst ourselves and managed to get it all mostly done by Thursday evening. We even went undercover to do some competitive analysis! James Bond would have been proud of us.

One thing that became clear by the end of the week as well was that the CEO knew practically all the things he needed to do, but asked us to come in so that we could say those things to his management team. He really wanted a third party to corroborate the ideas he had been putting up in the hope that will ginger his team to adopt and buy in to his plan. It was gratifying to realize that our proposed strategy was in sync with what the CEO had in mind as well. 

The biggest need that I personally feel he has is an advisory board because it was also clear that the CEO finds it difficult to push his people and make the tough calls. An advisory board would hold him accountable and push him to make and execute on the tough calls which are really important for the continued success of the business.

There is a political issue that has a major impact on doing business in Sri Lanka. It shows that having a political system in which the people's voice has power is good but there is the downside risk that politicians may take decisions that don't augur well for the economy overall in an effort to please the ordinary man on the street. In Sri Lanka's case, the labour laws are skewed in favour of the employee, such that terminating an employee, irrespective of the reason is an Herculean task. This obviously doesn't augur well for small business especially so companies end up with a lot of dead wood they can't touch.

So all in all, I've had a rewarding week and I hope you did too. Final thanks to God for keeping all of us that came all the way here and will no doubt take us back. Everyone has had a good experience, lots of adventures and no one fell ill or had any untoward incidents. I'm looking forward to hearing all about the experiences of our colleagues that went to China, Japan and Zambia the next time we are all together.

All work and no play makes Bunmi a dull student so now that work is done, it's time to play! I'll gist you about that next week. In the mean time, Have a wonderful week ahead.

Blessings on You and Yours.

Ayubowan

Hi friends, finally, my long awaited trip to Colombo, Sri Lanka happened and I am here. 
Ayubowan, the Sri Lankan greeting means May you live long! 

Sri Lanka Air Hostess Greeting Ayubowan
(Photo courtesy of Flickr) 

Colombo, the capital is very much like Lagos and yet quite different. Humidity is higher, that's the first thing that hit me. Traffic is chaotic, I'm told (arrived Saturday so haven't witnessed that yet) but the picture I was shown looked saner than Lagos. The air is clean and so far electricity only went off for about a minute and a generator came on, only to be turned off just a minute after it was turned on.

Colombo seems to be the Lagos of Sri Lanka. The rest of the country isn't as cosmopolitan, I'm told. Unemployment is low, at 5.1% and inflation is just 4.7%. Literacy is high - 95% of the population are educated to age 15. At the airport, the guy that helped with our luggage asked for "help money" so that was familiar to me at least. It was probably strange to my fellow students from the UK.

Street lights work and I saw plantains at a shop on the way in! History has it that most Sri Lankans are descended from someone who came down from India so there are quite a few similarities. The most immediately noticeable one for me is the use of the head as part of communication, something I first noticed on a trip to India a few years back. Sri Lankans smile a lot and get into your personal space, quite unlike the western world.

Tourism is a big earner for Sri Lanka (generated $2bn in 2009) and they boast a diverse array of animals, birds and vegetation. I plan to see a live elephant, I'm told they can sometimes be found walking on the streets in some areas. That's how prevalent they are. The big blue whale can be found in the south but I don't think I will get there. Tea is one of Sri Lanka's famous exports. They were formerly called Ceylon and we all know Ceylon tea don't we?

Interestingly, just like Yorubas in Nigeria, Sri Lankans show respect to their elders. They do so by "worshiping" them. This act refers to kneeling in front of an elder and touching their feet. Both men and women do this, however, which is different from the Yoruba tribe. Men in Yoruba land prostrate flat on the ground. The women kneel but we don't touch any part of the body of the person we are greeting.

So what else? Ayurveda is a massage therapy I'm going to try. There's a plateau, Horton Plains that actually gets as low as -3 degrees. I won't get there unfortunately, it would have been interesting. My visit outside Colombo will probably be to Kandy. That's the tea area and they also have some Buddhists temples there I'm told. 70% of the population is Buddhist. I've seen a catholic and a Methodist church as well. Well, I mustn't forget a shocker i got. Our apartment toilet didn't have toilet paper and apparently that was across all the apartments. One would have thought that would be standard but it seems the use of water is standard. They did give us on request, thankfully. 

Crabs for Dinner

Ha - One last thing. I had my first ever meal of crabs last night, at a place called Ministry of Crabs. It was quite nice, though not very filling. We filled up the space with a nice Leek Rice.

Colombo By Day - View of Indian Ocean

Ok, so that sums up my impressions and knowledge of Sri Lanka so far. The real work starts tomorrow. We are here to help a small business with a business problem for the next 5 days. There are 25 of us in total and my group comprises 4 of us. I'm looking forward to the assignment, it's the reason I chose Sri Lanka. I wanted a field trip where I could do real work and solve a problem. I will be writing about that experience next week and the week after will be back to my cultural experience and all my touristy activities!

Be good and lend a helping hand this week. Stay tuned for more on my helping hand.

Blessings on you and yours,

Your Friend,

Olubunmi