Sinhalese Names, English and Bobbleheads

I have had the worst time trying to remember my Sri Lankan coworkers names, for that matter trying to pronounce their names has become a chore. It's not like Uruguay where everyone pretty much had a name that could matched up to your usual Bible names but here it's a different story.

To make matters that much more confusing for me is that I am coming from a place where letter pronunciation is different, "j's", "g's" all of that. I have to get all of that out of my head when I see a name and remember the "j's" are J's and the "g's" are G's etc.

The good thing about being here in Sri Lanka is that it was a former British colony and just about everyone speaks some level English. Now whether or not you will understand them or they you is a different story.

One more odd thing they do here is how they acknowledge something, they "wag" their head from side to side, it looks close to shaking their heads NO, but they're not. Think bobblehead. It can be a little confusing when you see it and think is this guy saying yes or no?