Would the Real Jo-Anne Liburd Stand Up?

Cows rule. On Wednesday morning, I reached the big roundabout that is the centre of Boralesgamuwa . It’s just steps from my office and the normally chaotic traffic was even slightly more so. Why? A cow had decided to sit itself down in the middle of the lanes. There’s a nice big patch of grass in the middle of the roundabout but no, the cow decided that actual street was better. Think of a cow in the middle of the Yonge-Dundas intersection and you get the idea. It wasn’t even the least bit disturbed by the many big vehicles that honked and tried to inch around it, trying to coax it up without hitting it. Then, that afternoon, as I left work, traffic was equally snarled. A parade of cows was making its way down the main road. Then, just as I stepped outside, one of the bulls leapt up and mounted the cow in front of it and, as if Marvin Gay or Barry White had just been turned on a loudspeaker, started to hump her. I couldn’t stop laughing. It seemed so awesome that Colombo’s ridiculously insane traffic would be paralyzed by bovine fornication. Love it.

That afternoon, my friend Lianne emailed me. She’d googled me and found Warren’s video. I was surprised by this because I didn’t think my last name had been tagged to the video, so I decided to google myself and see what else I’d find. I discovered that there is a link to my blog (and Jessica’s) on a travel website about Arugam Bay! Arugam Bay is Sri Lanka’s foremost surfing beach, and it’s an area that I desperately want to visit but haven’t been able to because it’s in the conflict-plagued east. I also made another discovery. I admit, this isn’t the first time I’ve googled myself so I know that there’s another black girl named Joanne Liburd out there (no dash, small A). She seems to be athletic and her sports scores are mingled with mine in the google listings. From the pictures she looks a bit like me and someone who doesn’t know me well might think we’re one person. Well, it turns out that she works at PricewaterhouseCoopers, MY FORMER EMPLOYER. This is getting a bit too weird. I need to get in touch with this girl and tell her to stop living my life.

Jessica has returned from the Kataragama Perahera. Check out her pictures on her blog, Expat with Elephants. A link to the site is on the right.

Yesterday was another Poya holiday – Esala Poya. I’m not sure of the significance of this one but there’s the big annual perahera in Kataragama and also one in Kandy, which is located in the middle of the country and used to be the capital of Sri Lanka many moons ago. In Colombo, however, it was pretty dead. So Jesse and I decided to try out a badminton facility near his place. It was empty when we arrived and we had a really fun hour-long game, although I swung and missed at the shuttlecock more times that I’d care to acknowledge. The facility was really hot. When we were done, the idea of leaving without showering was out of the question. So I showered – one of the rare times I didn’t mind the cold showers here. But when I was done, I realized that a) I had no towel with me; and b) my clothes were in the other room. I grabbed my shorts and tried to dab myself dry. These shorts are the ones that leach blue dye so I was slightly blue as I made my way into the other room. As I dashed to grab my clothes I noticed that the open door to the change area put me in clear view of the family – mom, dad and 12 year old boy — that was now playing on our court. I pivoted, grabbed the clothes and dashed back to the shower area. I’m choosing to believe that none of them saw my black (and blue) butt streaking through their peripheral vision.

In the evening at Mike’s, as I was lying in bed I could hear this yowling that sounded like a raccoon or angry cat. I couldn’t tell if it was in the house or outside. I listened but the sound wouldn’t happen. Then it would happen out of the blue again. I determined that it didn’t sound like our cat, which has a much smaller voice. This morning, when I opened the door to the bedroom, our cat came in and she looked scared. That, of course, made me a little scared. When I went downstairs, sure enough, there was a big black cat in the dining room. I have no clue how it got in the house – perhaps when the housecleaner was in during the day. Anyway, she was not leaving, no matter how much stomping and “OUT!” yelling I did. In the process, however, I manage to scare and confuse our own cat. There was a lot of “OUT!! No, no, not you, sweetie…. OUT! No, no, it’s okay, I mean that one… OUT!!”

I didn’t want to get too close because it’s yowls in the night sounded ferocious and it could have been rabid. Finally, I opened the front door and went into the kitchen which would allow the new cat to head straight out the door without passing me. When I came out of the kitchen she was gone. I just hope she wasn’t gone upstairs…