battles, epic and not

Well, this post was going to be a light-hearted romp through my epic battle with the extended family of cockroaches living in my new house (long story short: it is an epic battle. Their casualty numbers are in the 30s, aided by our primary weapons of three extra large spray bottles, one for each of us. They won the initial PR battle, because the sound of them scuttling behind the cabinets that night was really just too gross. But we've been gaining, and I think we've taken out their primary force. However, they're starting to venture into our territory aka upstairs where the bedrooms are, and one of them started to fly. Our epic battle will continue.)

However, I was going to start writing last night when our evening got interrupted by something less funny - an air raid on Colombo. My flatmate and I were sitting in my room watching Freaks and Geeks on my computer when the power went out. We of course thought that it was a normal power outage and settled in to be pretty hot until it came back on (no fans). However, maybe 15 to 20 minutes later, we saw lights out the window and went to look. What we saw was really powerful search lights coming up into the sky (the kind that always makes me think of movie theaters for some reason), and a bunch of red things being shot into the sky. The red things looked a little like fireworks, a little like flares, and a little like bullets. Apparently they were some kind of anti-aircraft fire. But we also heard a lot of gunfire, which sounded like it was coming from the same area.

So, being silly Americans, what do we do? We went out on our little balcony to look at it. It was apparent that something military was happening, but we didn't know what. So we called someone from the Fulbright office, who told us that she wasn't sure what was going on, but that we should go sit downstairs and sit away from the windows. So we did this until the noise died down - maybe 20 minutes. After that, the search lights were still going but the guns had stopped, and the power came back on maybe an hour later.

What we found out later that this was an LTTE attack on a power plant outside of Colombo. Apparently whenever this happens, they start shooting up into the air from around where the President's house is, and other government buildings, which is what we could see and hear. The government turns the power off during these raids, but our cell phones still work.

Now, my parents were certainly not pleased to hear about this (nor was I to see it), but these attacks are that dangerous for me, or generally for civilians. I was thinking, though, about how as Americans, we have no historical memory with which to confront the idea of air raids. There just haven't been any in the states, except for, um Pearl Harbor? I've never encountered anything quite like this.