November 3, 2008
I’ve been all four provinces in the last week, meeting with the provincial directors in hopes of gaining
Tea plantation: A tea plantation in the central province. their much-needed support for the planned surveillance system. I expect they will have to remain enthusiastic to keep the field veterinarians participating and While Sri Lanka is a geographically small nation the nature of the roads makes travel an arduous task.
As an example, it’s about 120 km from Colombo to Kandy, where I am based. With normal traffic the drive takes about three hours while during rush hour you’re looking at four and a half hours. No joke. So needless to say there have been some long days with some very bumpy rides. It’s good news for the project though: all provincial directors seem very enthusiastic and meetings in each province with the ten selected field veterinary surgeons have been arranged to take place between November 10th and November 17th. Things are really shaping up!
There has, however, been one little snag. Because of the ongoing conflict between the Sri Lankagovernment and the LTTE bringing GPS devices into the country, essential for the surveillance project, requires government approval. Dr. Daniel has been reassuring myself and Colin Robertson that he knows a guy in the Ministry of Defence and that all will be set for Colin’s arrival. Well, that’s not going to be the case I’m afraid. Apparently there’s been a recent change in the approval process involving the Ministry of Telecommunication and now there’s more paperwork to be done. So the plan is that Colin will bring the handheld devices into the country with him next week and will package the GPS devices for the courier. These will then be shipped as soon as approval is obtained. Fingers crossed!