Once Upon A Time...

I don’t want to bore you with the details of The International Man of Intrigue’s job, but in the interest of explaining how we ended up moving our family to a Third World Country Developing Nation, I’ll give you the rundown. The International Man of Intrigue works for a large government organization paid for by your tax dollars. One day while taking a break from being shot at by terrorists in a war zone, he called and asked, “How about if we try for a job where I get shot at a little less, and travel the world in between my turn at being shot at in war zones?” Always up for something that sounds exciting, I said, “Sure, whatever. Sounds great. Listen, the fridge is broken. I went ahead and googled it and I’m going to take it apart and try and fix it, but I might have to buy a new one if this goes badly, okay?” Then, we exchanged pleasantries and he went off to get shot at some more while I went back to cursing at the fridge.

Fast forward several years and lots of training later and The International Man of Intrigue was well on his way to becoming an expert in the field of South Asia. Either as a reward for a job well done or as punishment, depending on who you ask, the large government organization was sending the entire family to Sri Lanka. After acting cool and sophisticated at the possibility for a few minutes, I finally worked up the nerve to ask the hubby, “By the way, where is Sri Lanka, exactly?” Oh, yes, we were moving to a place so remote, so unknown, that we had to get out my 1980’s globe. Hmm… Here’s East and West Germany… Here’s the USSR… Perhaps Google Maps would be a better choice…Oh, here it is! Sri Lanka! It’s the island off of India. Or, as Michael Ondaatje, author of “The English Patient” and native Sri Lankan called it, “a pendant off the ear of India.”

And that’s really all there was to it. Or at least all that you actually need or want to know. The next thing we knew, we were packing up 14 suitcases, 6 carry on bags and our three kids- Amelia Earhart (5), Gertrude Bell (3), and Arthur Dent (1), and taking off on an airplane to a country many Americans weren’t even sure they had heard of, let alone could identify on a map. I hope you’ll follow me as I share some of our crazy adventures in this year of trying to raise our family in the Third World Country Developing Nation of Sri Lanka.