Today I decided to head out to the nearby “magical American library”. Indeed magical because it resides in the second story of someone’s house. But, that’s only if you find the correct library. My housemates and I have been looking for a library to haunt, in our search for a good study space. Rumor had it there was an “american library a short walk away.
What should have been a five minute walk to Sulieman ave to find the “American Library” turned out to be quite the adventure. Sulieman ave is a curly cue shaped street with a bad case of erectile dysfunction. It also has four or five unnamed little side streets that branch off of it. I walked on down to the tip of street, passed all the little side streets and found nothing, except some rather aggressive feral dogs. Trudging back to the beginning of the street I began the usual game of asking the locals where this said “American Library” was. A couple of tries later, I was directed to a “Social Science” Library, whatever that means, disguised quite well as someone’s house. After visiting the 1st floor bookstore, I Found the library, which I discovered was not in fact the American library.
So, I wandered out with a vague sense of where I needed to go next, and lo-and behold I see a white man! Very academic looking, too. Now, I’m on to something. I walk up to the house he came from and ring the bell, and am invited upstairs to the “American Library” office, where I’m told to go next door for the actual library. Unfortunately, the next house turns out to be just that: someone’s house (a duplex), and an irate old man in a lungi comes out to inform me that I need to go exactly back where I came. Bleh.
In the end, I do find the library. It’s the second floor of the duplex next door, above a small sign that reads: “American library upstairs. Ring the bell.”
In other news, I have been participating in Sinhala class with the Fulbrighters. Great fun as the teacher is a brit expat named Michael. It’s located in the south of the city in a neighborhood called Pepilyana, near Mt. Lavinia. We have classes in the guesthouse where the English Teaching Assistants stay (ETA’s), called Shangri-La. Very nice.