To Colombo and Back

Now that I finally have my laptop, my posts will get more thorough. I'll type them at home, at a reasonable pace, and then post them at work, when I get the chance. Prepare for some small novels.

I have adopted a manner that can only be described as meek. I think it comes from having to rely on everyone else for translation and not wanting to appear as a "typical" American tourist. Additionally, the less eye contact I make with others, especially men, the less I get honked at while walking down the street. So I spend the day looking at the ground trying not to get noticed. This is...alien.... to my nature and I will be quite happy to return to the States. People think I'm helpless here, and they tell me not to go out alone, not to walk anywhere. I wonder what they'd think if they saw me in my own environment.

The trip to Colombo yesterday was long, but informative. We went through the mountains, through Ratnapura and the center of the country. It's all jungle. There are no yards around houses here. No grass. Just trees and animals. And everything is wild: cats, dogs, cows (yes, cows. Wild cows. They hang out next to roads). Meg has been trying to pet every wild animal she sees, and so I spend my time babysitting. The last thing I need is for her to get rabies, a real threat here.

There are no highways in Sri Lanka. I haven't seen any roads wider than 2 lanes, actually, even in cities. The road system is not extensive, so there are a few main roads, named for the cities they go to (Galle, Tangalle, etc) and other streets in the cities. Outside the major towns, the roads are very bumpy. This all leads to two very odd consequences.

Sri Lankans have only a passing acquaintance with seat belts. Those in the front seat will usually wear them, but people in back will not. Vehicles rarely travel above 40 mph here, so it's not quite as terrifying as it sounds, but still it takes getting used to.

On long trips, it is rare that the car will stop. There are no cross roads, so we just keep going. I was surprised by this, since the business roads in the states all have stop signs, and more traffic than here, I think.

The first time I experienced Sri Lankan driving, I almost turned around and got on the first plane home. To someone from the States, the traffic looks like a a text book example of Brownian motion and mass chaos. People drive on the left, and though the roads are only 2 lane by our standards, people turn them into 4 and 5 lane roads. Passing is constant, both on the right and wrong sides of the road, and people will cross the median to pass into oncoming traffic far more than I am comfortable with. Horns are used almost constantly, and I spent my first car ride unwillingly trapped in a vision of a 40 car pile up as every driver had a heart attack all at once.

But my driver, though he was no stranger to the horn, was quite calm, and I noticed that most others were too. There is a definite system in place here; without one, there would be no driving. It seems that here, drivers use the horn the way we would use the turn signal or flashing head lights. If someone cuts you off, you honk, but only to let them know that you're there, not to express displeasure. If you're coming up behind someone, especially if your vehicle is bigger than theirs, you honk. If you're passing someone, you honk. The result of all this is that people here are actually much better drivers than we are. They are much more alert, and they are more prepared to make sudden stops and swerves than most American drivers would be. This hypothesis is strengthened by concrete evidence: I have seen very few dented cars here. No matter how old, their bodies are in pretty much perfect condition (I saw a body shop yesterday called Body Parts... I wonder if they have any idea).

I have been trying to pick up a little Sinhala, but I am having much more difficulty than I expected. In Greece, most street signs were written in both Greek and English, so I could learn the alphabet and pronunciation by reading the signs. Here, signs are also written in both Sinhala and English, but in a much different way. English is a national language here, and especially in Colombo, most people speak at least a little. So rather than having 2 full translations of one sign, shop owners will headline their storefronts in English and have subtext in Sinhala. So nothing is actually repeated. And this makes it much harder to pick up the alphabet. I noticed this in the airport in Bombay too. News programs had "BREAKING NEWS" at the top of their ticker tape, and then all the headlines were in Hindi.

Back to the trip...

We eventually arrived at Ashan's father's house. Ashan is in the States right now on business, and I had given him all of my luggage documentation so that he could forward it to his travel agent and she spent her time tracking it down. I needed it back in order to pick up my stuff, hence the stop.

Perhaps I spend too much time with my nose buried in books. There is a character that keeps reappearing in my literature. This character is typically, but not always, male, past 50, rich, and wise. Most importantly, he is old enough and rich enough to have the freedom to be frank and direct in his speech. This person is never malicious, but brutally honest. I have always liked and respected these characters, but I didn't think they actually existed in real life. Imagine my surprise then, when I realized that Ashan's father is just such a man. He invited my traveling companion and myself to have lunch with him and his family, and it was quite an experience. Ashan's father has a commanding presence, and he was not afraid to talk politics, or to ask me directly what I thought of our current president. I gather that most Sri Lankans would not speak of such things with foreigners. I think he was testing me. He also warned me never to go out alone.

We went to the airport and I managed to get into a few disagreements with the staff. I don't think these were entirely my fault. The first was at the baggage claim counter. The woman helping me asked for my local address, and then wrote down "Ambantota" when I gave her the town name. I tried to correct her spelling (Hambantota) and she told me my pronunciation was wrong, and that really there was no 'H' in the spelling. I was fairly sure she was misinformed, since I had just spent a week staring at all the signs here that say "Hambantota", but since I am foreign, she would have none of it. The first thing I did today, upon arriving at work, was to confirm the spelling of the town (I was right).

The second issue came up when I went through customs. My bag was opened and searched, so that the agents could confirm that I had declared the right things, and the customs agent going through my belongings came upon two religious texts that I had not intended to make public. Before I came, I tried to find information on Sri Lanka's religious laws and tolerance. My research turned up nothing, and these books could not be left at home, so I had resolved to keep them out of site. The official found them and immediately questioned me. I said that theology was a hobby of mine (true) and that those books were my research over the summer (also true, after a fashion). A bit more of this, and he put the books back, with a stern warning that extreme forms of this faith were dangerous. Thank you, Mr. Customs Official.

Finally, we were able to leave and start the drive back home. At that point, it was 4:30. The drive home was relatively uneventful, except for one thing: the road blocks. The Sri Lankan police have set up check points on the main roads. They will stop and search random vehicles, asking for drivers licenses, agendas, and occasionally my passport. This happened many times, and at one of the stops, I was told to open my luggage. I do not know the search and seizure laws here, but my personal convictions include not arguing with people holding assault rifles, so I complied. As soon as I'd shown that I was willing to open my bag, the guards desisted, and let us pass.

We stopped for dinner at a small Chinese takeout place and- wait, there is much to be said here about Chinese takeout places. I have seen A LOT of Chinese takeout restaurants here. They are especially numerous in Colombo, but even the smallest villages will usually have at least one. There are two traits common to every Chinese place that I've seen so far: All the signs look like Italian flags (red, white and green, every single one) and they are all run by Sri Lankans. I haven't seen any other ethnic food places, just Chinese, and I haven't seen any Chinese people at all. Anyway, as I was saying.

...we were at a Chinese takeout place for dinner. We had the Sri Lankan version of Chinese fried rice, which is probably about as authentically Chinese as the American versions I've had (but I like ours better). At the end of the meal, Madu asked me if I wanted to use the bathroom. I said yes, and she and the driver promptly disappeared. They came back a few minutes later, and Madu told me there was no... comma? comma'd? comet? Was I supposed to clean the bathroom? I decided that if she could handle whatever was there, then so could I. It wasn't until I arrived at the bathroom stall that I was finally able to translate her heavily accented english. Among the other elements missing from the bathroom (light, lock on the door, toilet paper) was the toilet. Madu had said "commode" and I had not understood. Instead, there was a hole in the floor. And ants. Ants everywhere. I dealt with it as quickly as I could, and we left.

On an unrelated note, I met my personal savior a few days ago, at work. Mijka, a Dutch woman, has worked at the CRC for 8 or 10 months and she speaks perfect English. She also has a good understanding of what it is like to be a foreign, white woman here, and she has steadily been feeding me bits of very useful information.

One such gem involves the LTTE and the north and east. I had suspected, before coming here, that the LTTE was wary of involving foreigners in this internal conflict. I was more right than I knew. Mijka told me that in the north and east, which are under Tamil control, there are very concerted efforts to keep tourists out of the conflict. When tourists arrive, representatives of the LTTE will come to their houses and record names, addresses, agendas, the places they'll shop, and so forth, and then there will be no bombings at those places.

Meg tells me that Mijka is also the one to thank for our 5 day work week. The people at the center mostly work 6 days (Tuesday - Sunday). When Mijka arrived, she tells me she was very firm about her work schedule and refused to work weekends, since that is when her husband is off. So I guess she explained to my boss that most people from Europe and the U.S. work 5 days per week.

As one might expect, Sri Lankans have some great secrets that they've learned over time. Occasionally, they share them with me, so I'll record them here.

Sri Lankan Wisdoms:
-If, in an attempt to commit suicide (or, presumably, for any other reason), someone ingests gasoline, give them coconut milk immediately to induce vomiting. Just FYI. (It seems that drinking gasoline is a common way to kill yourself, here).

-If you think you are getting sick, make tea with ginger and coriander. This will ward off illness.

-To clean a pillow (not the case, but the pillow itself), place it in the Sri Lankan sun for a day. The heat will kill the germs living there.

TEA
Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, has a very intimate relationship with tea. There are 3 tea times that I observe each day: before breakfast, mid morning, and mid afternoon. There are two types of tea: milk tea and plain tea. Milk tea is tea with cream and sugar (quite good, I love the stuff), and plain tea is tea with sugar only. I have not heard of tea without milk or sugar. It seems as though they do not drink it.

THE FOOD
Before I arrived here, I was warned, both by guide books and personal friends, that Sri Lankan food is very spicy, "some of the hottest in the world." After some research, I have not found anything even close to inedible, which is what I was expecting. In fact, everything is quite nice, and for those working on the Pittsburgh Indian scale, I have not had anything above a 5 or so. I don't know what everyone got so worked up about. Maybe I just haven't had the right food, or maybe those people who didn't grow up with a cabinet dedicated to hot sauce would find things a bit less palatable but I just don't see what everyone is whining about.

HOT WATER
There isn't any. Neither Tushari nor the center has a water heater. It makes some sense, since all water must be boiled before it is consumed. And the water that comes out of the tap isn't exactly cold. It's probably about 75 degrees or so. But this does mean that I take cold showers every night. It took me about a week to get used to it.

THE WEATHER
The temperature doesn't really change here. It is always in the mid 80s. But the humidity varies, and it makes a huge difference. Today it feels very nice because it's not very humid. Yesterday was miserable.