A Birthday To Remember; A Drive To Forget                        

Another hi-lighted story of the month: Koda, Kenai and I decided to go to Hashani's birthday in Batticaloa, a 3 hour drive by tuk tuk. I told her momma that I would help out and buy and decorate a cake for her. Sharmali embarked on the adventure with us and also Vava on the way there. If you've ever seen a tuk tuk; 3 fit. Five is possible, especially with kids; but when you add cakes, gifts, a whole banana tree, bags, etc… it's definitely gonna be a fun adventure. It actually was fine, until about 2 hours into the drive when we hit a road block with many police who kindly asked us to find a jungle path around the next village. We did so, and safely found our way without running into any wild, large animals in the jungle. We made it to the  party and stayed around 3 hours to enjoy. The kids had fun playing, us adults made goodie bags, they fed us lunch, sang happy birthday, cut the cake and off we were back in the tuk tuk for the drive home. We tried to leave in time so that it wouldn't be dark when we were to come upon that village again; unsure if they would let us through or force us into the jungle again. We didn't make it by dark and thus when we did arrive, there was still a barricade. We made the decision to drive inland to a big city and then make our way back home a different way, instead of facing what lurked in the jungle at night in a tuk tuk. We made it home safely and needless to say we had spent more of the day in a tuk tuk (8 hours), then at the party. We found the headlines the next day, which showed that the village we couldn't go through was rioting, M*slim* against the police. Fires in the road, mass chaos and rioting and gun shots firing in the air. GLAD WE TOOK THE JUNGLE ROAD. #anotherdayinSL