kabuk

and so it is. Just like she thought it would be. Life goes on... sings Damian Rice in The Blower's Daughter.

A rather eventful week, culminating in a trip to a recommended laywer, deep in the heart of Pettah along this single lane winding off from the Chinese pagoda-like Supreme Court and in which every lawyer worth his ambulance has put up a shingle.

Walked into a 200 year old house, later informed, being built of kabuk, a paste of soil and stones which is naturally formed in the hill country and which is cut into blocks using skilled labourers. The art of kabuk making has been lost to the ages and now cheap cement rules the roost. I was impressed only by his bookcase, groaning under the statutory weight of Sri Lankan law books, but also with biographies of Mandela and Prabhakaran, placed perhaps not so incongruently side by side. Explained to him the complexities of our 'little problem', confidentiality forbids me from putting it up on this site and railing against all manner of dishonest, fraudulent, selfish, exploitative contractors playing with the lives of children.

I got a earful (have not been chastised like that since grade school) about our irresponsibility in the whole matter, but left having fallen a little bit in love with the 65 year old dry legal wit from Cambridge, under the 4 m high 2oo year ceilings with ancient whirring fans. I wondered what this house had seen, the street was apparently where Premadasa was assassinated and how much the nation had changed.

We rounded off with saying, well great, let's correspond over email over what kind of services we may require from you and he said, Madam, do not use the word services. You will have my assistance, which is free, at any time. I went out the swinging door, and into the sun.