Still in Colombo…

I stayed longer in Colombo because things take longer than planned to complete.

Most places are closed on Sundays and today, Monday, happens to be a Poya Day. Poya Day is the Sri Lankan celebration of Buddhist Uposatha Day and the full-moon Poya Day occurs once a month. The actual date for Poya Day follows the lunar calendar and is officially set by the Sri Lankan Government. The minor Poya Days are also important for sincere Buddhists but are not public holidays.

So it is a classic “long weekend” in Colombo right now. I can’t do any last minute shopping for computer printer cartridges and so on. Some shops are open but don’t have what I want. Also the comfortable internet cafes are closed… I’m in a hot stuffy one without ergonomic furniture right now.

In hindsight I should have gone to a hospital earlier and then returned to Na Uyana earlier. I wanted to have a fluvax (flu vaccination) but neither of the two major hospitals I went to have this vaccination which is so common in Australia. I went to Asiri and Apollo hospitals. It is not so important, maybe I can get this injection when I return to Australia in 3 months from now. In the mean time I had a routine diabetes test at Asiri hospital and was asked to come back after fasting 12 hours for another blood test this morning. The doctor also asked me to eat dinner last night. So I recited seven precepts and missed out the sixth precept about times for eating and went out for dinner at a nearby restaurant. Then this morning I recited the full eight precepts again, skipped breakfast and went to Asiri hospital to give a blood sample, and went to a restaurant for lunch. I’ve been told to go back to the Asiri hospital again this evening at 6pm to get the result and advice from the doctor. I expect a good result of “normal”. I am doing this partly because of my age (50) and it being a sensible thing to do. I also tend to eat a lot of sweet things even though I remain fairly slim at the moment. I have no symptoms of diabetes so far.

Now I shall spend some time in this cafe, writing a few more blogs which will be time delayed to appear on the blog while I’m on retreat. I hope to have at least 3 blog articles on Dhamma topics that may appear in April (10, 20, 30) and two in May (10, 20).