One more candy plz!

There were many cute children amongst the people living in the getto where we handed out food. This one caught my eye and my camera managed to catch her when she was asking for seconds of the toffee that my mom was handing out to the kids. Next year we’ll have to give them toothbrushes also ; )

---

Almsgiving
In Sri Lanka it’s tradition that you give food, or help people in some other way on the day that a relative died as a way of remembering them. This photo was taken while we visited a small community of people living in shelters by the beach and gave each family a bag of food, soap etc from a small fund we have from my grandma.

Yesterday was the 2’nd year since my Swedish grandmother passed away here in Sri Lanka during our vacation. We were close to each other and spoke on the phone almost every day; she always had one of those grandmother excuses to call, either something she read in the news or gossip from last night’s sewing meet. I think my parents thought she talked to much but for some reason that never bothered me and now I’m so glad that I made time to be with and talk to her as when I still could.

There’s nothing I regret doing in my life but there is something I wish I would have done, and that is to learn my grandmother’s secret recipe for her cinnamon buns that were world famous. At least in our old hometown Varberg. She was going to show me how to make them, but since I was having a really good period at work before our trip over here I said we’d have to wait until after the trip. I remember when we found out she was dead from a phone call to the hotel we were staying. After the first couple of minutes of trying to put the words together and finding out if it she was dead or just wounded my first thought was that she never got the chance to show me how to make the buns.

This might sound strange but a big reason for me giving up my life and career back home that was doing so well was that I never got to learn how to make those buns : ,) The buns themselves aren’t all that important but what they represent is. Not taking time to do what I really want to do and what I find important and using that time to do something that even though it gave me loads of money didn’t feel important. After all I’ve always wanted to help the world and do good, and not doing so is not an option any more.

Air raid
A little side note is what happened friday night. I was awoken by the sound of some loud bangs and repeating fire that I first thought was fireworks from some wedding but as it turned out it was fire from an anti air raid that the Tamil Tigers had launched against Colombo and Bandaranaike airport which is close to us. I wanted to get some photos of the lighting rounds that filled the air but missed that, hopefully I won’t get a second chance to take that photo. The threat of physical violence that I’ve experienced this year is new to me. Back in Sweden we live protected and don’t have to deal with war and people killing each other in mass over beliefs. Sweden hasn’t been officially involved in a war for something like 300 years now and as far as I know we hold the record for that.

It was a little bit scary last night with people standing on the roofs and all the lights turned off but we weren’t really close enough or densely populated enough to be a target. From what I’ve gathered 2 people died and around 30 were wounded although the media is semi controlled here so you can never know for sure. From what I understand people in general are happy that it happened though because the military knew the TTL had two planes but had been unable to find them and now both where shot down with “minimal” causalities.

It’s a strange world we live in.

Camera: Nikon D200, 50mm 1.4