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After another glorious weekend being pampered by Kannan and Sweta in Colombo on the train back we talked ourselves positive about where we are living, determined to focus on the good for our own enjoyment. It was wonderful to be hosted and relieved of responsibility. We arrived early on the Friday and lunched with them before spending the afternoon chilling in their flat, enjoying the shower - a full drencher with a view across the rooftops of Colombo to the Indian Ocean; catching up on various Internet essentials given a rare secure connection and editing the turtle video (or watching Kannan). Time was easy with stimulating and illuminating conversation and the joys of catching up with an old friend and making a new one. We drove round the city in an original Beetle. We ate ice cream in a 60’s ice cream bar (officially Jake’s favourite restaurant) and the boys played until they overheated in the gloriously 70’s style park (I’m sure that is where all the climbing frames which have now been replaced have gone) authentic except the hordes of giant fruit bats roosting in the exotic tropical trees. We shopped in glorious boutiques and a stock it all mall
(though thankfully not for long). We relaxed over drinks in stylish cafes. Best of all we enjoyed the exquisite stylish modernist luxury of their apartment, we with chat and the web, and the boys with their month’s dosage of the Cartoon Network. The boys remain to be disabused of the notion that Kannan and Sweta’s is the best place in Sri Lanka!
Just down the road towards town from us is a very simple mechanics workshop, and often as I head back from shopping I see the mechanics washing up after a days work. This involves them stripping down to shorts and drenching themselves in water from the well, lathering up and then rinsing off. I cannot help but imagine a crowd of office girls in Britain gathering for a diet coke moment, but here no-one bats an eyelid.
On the way to the boys’ school in the morning we pass a roundabout on the corner of which is a trio of beggars. They are remarkably well organised all clearly down to the woman who bustles about the 2 men. While they struggle into seated or crouched positions she brings them food she has cooked on a single
The boys in the pool
Well we've earnt it! pot on a 3 brick hearth. There is a pile of slightly beyond their best vegetables that they have either been donated or scavenged and their sleeping cardboards are folded and stashed. Walking down the pavement feels invasive and like walking through their house, but they are oblivious. By the time we walk back they are alert to us, and have started their days work, small pile of coins and outstretched hands at strategically placed points.
I had a fascinating conversation with an English teacher and writer as I was leaving school one day. He explained that in SL there is no market for publishing anything other than educational books (of which he has published several) and lamented that Sri Lankans have almost no concept of reading for pleasure. Westerners love to read he said noting that all the travellers he sees have two things in common, a bottle of drinking water, and a book. In Sri Lanka all people really do is sit and watch TV in their leisure. I pointed out that this is similar in Britain. If you only know Brits who travel you do not have an impression of the majority. Only those who read have their imaginations and hungers fired with a desire to see and experience the world we live in. Many live in fear of missing the next episode of Coronation Square and only holiday where it and the premiership are available.
We now have a Sinhala teacher. Elliot is taking great delight in being the family expert on something - he has a couple of lessons a week at school, and with Jake as his assistant takes very seriously his duty of educating his ignorant parents. He plans his lessons, and even has a special shirt he wears to do so. He has been devastated on the couple of occasions that classes have been cancelled because we haven’t finished the washing yet.
Buying food has become a very sociable affair, there are various people who greet us on the way to town, none more enthusiastically than the little fellow who runs the fruit stall which I have decided has the freshest looking produce. I am well aware that I am the goose who lays the golden egg, but he looks after me so well now, refusing to sell me unripe things when I ask for them and sorting his produce to give me the very best. He sometimes rejects things as he is weighing them and goes back to hunt for better specimens. I am greeted with a cheery smile and wave, and he soon dispenses with other customers to attend to my needs, sometimes tempting me with new treats when they are at their peak - spiny fresh lychees so much tastier than those at home or a yellow looking mango that I would never have chosen but was the sweetest and juiciest I have tasted - I had to buy two to take back and share with Nicky which was of course his plan.
News clearly spreads quickly in a small town, and we seem to be the latest news. I stopped at a market stall last week, away from Joe’s usual haunts and was told the full details of our life in Kurunegala by the stall holder from where we lived to how long we would be staying, all 100% accurate. It’s a good job we don’t want to get up to anything illegal, it would be all over town in seconds. I have a slight insight into how difficult it could be for women to overcome cultural restrictions like the burkha. After just a few days here I had become conscious of the length of my skirts and arm coverage of t shirts and now wouldn’t dream of walking around town in shorts and vest top. Perhaps that is more a result of my status as guest in the country and being one of only 2 females in town with different coloured skin. Everywhere we go we are stared at, with curiosity rather than hostility, but has made me self conscious in a way I have never been before.
Life with a non English speaking housekeeper is entertaining. This appears to be Pushpa’s (our housekeeper) first job and unlike Annette, our cleaner at home, who attacks everything that doesn’t move with a damp cloth and boundless energy, Pushpa requires very precise instruction. This has tested my miming abilities to the limit and I’m not convinced yet that it wouldn’t be quicker just doing it myself. During a day at home this week after abandoning attempts to teach Pushpa how to use the twin tub washing machine I resorted to making her lunch and showing her how to make bead bracelets. She seems to have decided that she likes working for crazy English people who don’t ask her to do much work (because they don’t know how to) and we now struggle to persuade to go home at the end of the day.
The boys seem to be adjusting happily to life in the Wolverhampton of Sri Lanka. On the way back from an egg hopper tea stop in town this evening Jake reported that he thought he would bring his children here when he is grown up. Clearly we aren’t torturing them enough! Even Elliot, when given the theoretical option to fly home tomorrow or stay in SL opted to stay. Our planned visit to the elephant orphanage on Sunday may have something to do with his wish to remain, as might the fact that on Saturday the boys are in charge! Yes we are giving them the budget for the day (and a few ideas/options) but it is up to them how they spend it and what we do. Alan we are just hoping they do not do a "Will" and that we will end up with Mars bars breakfast, lunch and tea!
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