nearing the end

My time in Sri Lanka has come to an end. I have only three days left and this may well be my last blog entry.

Its always the most sad before you are about to leave, its when you miss people the most and get all nostalgic about how wonderful everything was. I am trying to be reasonable about leaving but this always happens to me. What is odd is that I don’t miss people here, I miss the people I am about to see. Perhaps my anticipation of seeing my friends and family elsewhere makes me think of them a lot and then miss them more than usual.

I work up this morning and everything was perfectly normal and familiar. I had to remind myself that I do indeed life in Sri Lanka which is a foreign country in which I am a foreigner. I have gotten to accustomed to everything to the point where it has become ordinary. I almost have to pinch myself to remind myself that I am in the third world, halfway around the world from people I love and my real home.

I am ready to go. My project ended up being successful, I made great friends and I got to see a lot of the country.

What I will miss:

Getting a massage whenever I want

Being 15 min from a swim-able beach

Living 100 yards from the ocean

Cheap, cheap clothes

Short eats

Elephants at every occasion

Public holidays

Sarong-wearing by both genders

Chili crab and seafood in general

The Sri Lankan accent (What to do machang?)

What I will not miss:

Waiting for taxis to come to your house

Security checks

Bomb blasts

Pictures of politicians everywhere (not even good looking ones)

Haggling for rickshaws but not haggling for fruit

Body odor and the smell of rancid coconut oil in the hair of the person in front of me

Mosquitoes

Expats who think they are better than everyone

Russian prostitutes who hang out in hotels

Food so spicy it makes you want to die

this was supposed to go up on the 6th

Last weekend, my last full weekend in Colombo, was extremely Sri Lankan. On Wednesday it was the going away part of one of my Sri Lankan friends. She decided to have a rooftop BBQ for all of her friends. I was given the weighty task of making pasta salad. Now when I think of pasta salad I think of that delightful concoction of boiled pasta tossed with various fresh veggies. When Sri Lankans think of pasta salad they are imagining jars and jars of mayo which covers a small amount of pasta. Basically that gross stuff they sell in plastic containers in the Safeway deli section. That stuff that mom never let us buy because it was always questionable as to what was in there. Needless to say, I made my own tasty pasta salad and tried to convert as many people as possible to its deliciousness.

On Thursday I attended the Navam Perahera, a major elephant festival. For the festival 50 elephants are brought in from surrounding areas, made to wear elaborate costumes, and then are paraded around a lake. The elephants are interspersed with teams of ethnic dancers. It all happens at night and is very religious, although I am not quite sure as to what the different things mean. It’s definitely a sight to behold as massive elephants go parading down the roads. I did feel a little sad for the elephants though as they are controlled by many chains that are wrapped around their legs making it so that they can’t run away. I supposed this is a safety precaution as there can’t be elephants stampeding around, but its still sad to see the elephants all chained up.

Saturday was another typical Colombo day. Being too lazy to go down South to spend time at the beach, I went to the resort within Colombo, Mt.Lavinia. Mt. Lavinia is a suburb around 8 km South of where I live and it boasts the closest decent beach to the city. For a mere $4 my friends and I used the pool and private beach all day. It was nice just to lay on a deck chair and get out of my dull, fluorescent lit guesthouse and office.

Sunday was Sri Lankan Independence day and everything was shut. I spent most of the day working on my final presentation for work. I presented yesterday and everything went off without a hitch. At the end of it all, I am quite satisfied with the work I have done here. I think I was able to really understand the entire e-village project and feel comfortable talking about it as an expert.

I’ve had fun while here in Sri Lanka but I am also ready to get back to my much more civilized life. This is the first time in my life where I have had nobody to take care of except myself and I have really seen the difference it makes in my lifestyle. In college I ate pretty well because I spent my parent’s money freely on food. At home I ate well also because mom bought the groceries. In India I always had roommates or my grandparents who made me be more responsible. Here I don’t have anyone so I end up eating kraft mac and cheese or peanut butter sandwiches for dinner because its weird to eat in a restaurant alone and I can’t be bothered cooking for one. Can’t wait to get back to Bombay and some good eating!

Colombo Weekend

Last weekend, my last full weekend in Colombo, was extremely Sri Lankan. On Wednesday it was the going away part of one of my Sri Lankan friends. She decided to have a rooftop BBQ for all of her friends. I was given the weighty task of making pasta salad. Now when I think of pasta salad I think of that delightful concoction of boiled pasta tossed with various fresh veggies. When Sri Lankans think of pasta salad they are imagining jars and jars of mayo which covers a small amount of pasta. Basically that gross stuff they sell in plastic containers in the Safeway deli section. That stuff that mom never let us buy because it was always questionable as to what was in there. Needless to say, I made my own tasty pasta salad and tried to convert as many people as possible to its deliciousness.

On Thursday I attended the Navam Perahera, a major elephant festival. For the festival 50 elephants are brought in from surrounding areas, made to wear elaborate costumes, and then are paraded around a lake. The elephants are interspersed with teams of ethnic dancers. It all happens at night and is very religious, although I am not quite sure as to what the different things mean. It’s definitely a sight to behold as massive elephants go parading down the roads. I did feel a little sad for the elephants though as they are controlled by many chains that are wrapped around their legs making it so that they can’t run away. I supposed this is a safety precaution as there can’t be elephants stampeding around, but its still sad to see the elephants all chained up.

Saturday was another typical Colombo day. Being too lazy to go down South to spend time at the beach, I went to the resort within Colombo, Mt.Lavinia. Mt. Lavinia is a suburb around 8 km South of where I live and it boasts the closest decent beach to the city. For a mere $4 my friends and I used the pool and private beach all day. It was nice just to lay on a deck chair and get out of my dull, fluorescent lit guesthouse and office.

Sunday was Sri Lankan Independence day and everything was shut. I spent most of the day working on my final presentation for work. I presented yesterday and everything went off without a hitch. At the end of it all, I am quite satisfied with the work I have done here. I think I was able to really understand the entire e-village project and feel comfortable talking about it as an expert.

I’ve had fun while here in Sri Lanka but I am also ready to get back to my much more civilized life. This is the first time in my life where I have had nobody to take care of except myself and I have really seen the difference it makes in my lifestyle. In college I ate pretty well because I spent my parent’s money freely on food. At home I ate well also because mom bought the groceries. In India I always had roommates or my grandparents who made me be more responsible. Here I don’t have anyone so I end up eating kraft mac and cheese or peanut butter sandwiches for dinner because its weird to eat in a restaurant alone and I can’t be bothered cooking for one. Can’t wait to get back to Bombay and some good eating!

religious fervor

My time has been taken up this weekend by Moharram, a religious holiday celebrated by all Shia Muslims mourning the massacre at Karbala. For the occasion the high priest of the Bohras has come to Colombo, bringing with him hordes of people and a carnival-esque atmosphere.

Bohras are supposed to go the mosque for 10 days. From 11-2pm, he gives his sermon. Then there is a break for lunch. People reconvene around 6pm, pray, hear the local priest talk, and then have dinner. A mosque built for a community of 2,000 people has been expanded through tents and platforms to hold 20,000. It’s a pretty remarkable sight. It’s almost like going to a Backstreet Boys concert, with people swarming the stage and trying to get into the inner chambers.

I have to hand it to the Bohras, they are remarkably well organized for controlling that many people. Within ten days of the announcement, all of the preparations including tents, platforms, food and accommodation were made for the visiting crowds. People who come do not even have to pay for accommodation as their hotel or homestays are provided by the Colombo mosque.

Around the area there is a first aid tent, refreshments, ticket tent, etc. There are even stalls with people selling Bohra related items such as clothes, prayer mats, and jewelry. I have been going some of the time and trying to absorb what I can. I am not in the main mosque but they project the sermon on video screens which are in each sitting area. You have to kind of give credit to these people for organizing all this and being dedicated to come for ten days in the sticky heat to listen to sermons.

There are literally Bohras everywhere. I mean everywhere. When I walk down my street there are Bohras. When I take the bus there are Bohras. I even went to a grocery store a little out of the way to avoid being spotted and there were Bohras there. On the bus a Bohra lady sat next to me and started chatting with me about what Moharram is and why so many people are here. I was wearing normal clothes so she didn’t know I was a Bohra. I think she thought I was Sri Lankan. I didn’t want to upset her by saying I was actually a Bohra and in mosque a few hours earlier so I went along with it. I told her my name was Alisha and that I was from the states, so its not like I lied.

It is very weird to go to these large mosque events. Sitting for a long time in a massive hall filled with tons of other Bohras causes some mental disconnect where I wonder if the me sitting there is the same person who goes clubbing, and lives at Lakeview Drive, and is going to grad school. I wonder how many other people in there have double lives like me and how many people in there really truly believe 100% of the time.

I am unique!

So I always knew that white people couldn't tell brown people apart, but its getting ridiculous. When I first moved into my guesthouse it seemed to be a place for Sri Lankans who live abroad to stay at when coming to the city. There were always kindly aunties and uncles in the hallways and sometimes random families. It seems now that the holiday season is over the guesthouse has become the abode of hippies and backpackers. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (some of them are very friendly) but it does lead to a little racial misunderstanding as every white person who stays there thinks that I work at the guesthouse.
The girl who actually works at the guesthouse looks nothing like me. She is Sri Lankan, rail thin, 5 shades darker than me, has long frizzy hair, and about a million other characteristics that make her not look like me. No brown person would ever mistake us. Furthermore, she barely speaks English.
It often happens as I am sitting in the living room watching crappy American movies from 5 years ago or using my laptop, that some other guest comes in and asks me for clean towels or water in their room. I'm usually nice to people and tell them I don't work there. What is obnoxious is that people will come back and ask a second time. Perhaps my American accent and laptop using-self did not give it away in the first place, but I am not there to clean any one's room.
Living alone has also made me very creative in my meal options. Upon leaving India my aunt gave me a packet of 25 rotis. Whenever I want a meal, I just have to defrost one and add some toppings. Obviously I am too lazy to actually cook Indian food so I have had to get creative. Some of my favorites include: roti with banana and nutella, roti with tuna, cucumber, and balsamic vineager all wrapped up, toasted roti with soup, roti with scrambled eggs and tomatoes, roti pizza, roti quesadilla, ripped up roti in some leftover sambar from yesterday's dosa, roti and achar (when I am desperate), roti with peanut butter and M&Ms (when I have had a rough day), Basically the roti has become my new favorite food. It is going to be odd to go back to India and see people actually using it for its intended purpose.

cultural triangle

I took another mini-vacation this week and went to see the famed Cultural Triangle of Sri Lanka. In the middle of the country there are many ancient ruins and well…cultural stuff from the time of the Kandyan empire. I saw the Sigiriya rock fortress, the Dambulla caves, Pollonaruwa ruins of the ancient city, and managed to squeeze in a safari and a trip to Kandy. The trip culminated with dinner on the beach in Negombo. I won’t blather on about how amazing everything was (though it was amazing). It was the same tourist stuff that I am sure everyone does when they visit that part of the country. Ruins and things like Sigiriya always fascinate me though, it’s interesting to think of people building massive structures before they had things like machinery and measuring instruments to get everything precise.

What is also weird is that the majority of people lived in relative squalor while very very few people got to live in crazy opulent palaces on cliffs. I can just imagine being a random villager getting recruited to build a cliff palace and just wondering why I had been recruited for such a task. Also, I don’t know what they ate back then, but it must have been good to enable them to build fortresses and things with their bare hands. I suppose they had elephants too, but still.

Traveling further north has also reemphasized to me how dire the tourism situation really is here. Hotels are doing their best to pull out all the stops so that people visit and stay. The southern beaches have some local tourism but the center of the country and the north do not and it is pretty tough to see the staff at restaurants and the hawkers looking desperate for business. I feel like Sri Lanka is on its last legs here and if things don’t pick up soon, they are going to get horribly worse. I don’t think that hotels can operate at a loss forever and eventually things are going to start to fold and that will be bad for everyone involved.

So, if you haven’t visited Sri Lanka already, you should. Its got something for everyone, ruins and culture, beaches and nightlife. Even elephants, both wild and tame.

Mark just visited me for a bit and although I am quickly becoming a pro at short visits, they are always a bit sad. It was like this for my parents as well. I hope and hope and look forward to the visit and then before I know it, it’s upon me. I have fun for a short window of time but then, in what seems like an instant, this time that I have looked forward to so much is over.

I have become very accustomed to life in my little guesthouse and the more I think about it, the more I am reassured that I made the right decision in coming and living here. There is something homey about this dorm-like atmosphere and I feel like I really am leading a travelers lifestyle. The other benefit is there are always weird characters hanging out. Today there were some random Aussie surfers and the day before some bohra aunties, its always an adventure

more work, more beach

This week has been busy with all of the follow up work I have had to do after the village trip. Going to the village is fun and all but now I have to tackle this project and analyze all of my data. Things have also been a bit hectic with Mark's arrival and Nuzzy's (one of my co-workers) wedding.

I attended my first Sri Lankan Muslim wedding on Friday to see Nuzzy get married and it was quite exciting for me. I was firstly surprised to see all of the women in saris. In India, its the Hindus who wear the Saris and the Muslims who would probably deck out in the fancy Punjabi suits. The bride herself was wearing a Western-style wedding dress which was also quite a surprise to me. Party favors are always small wrapped pieces of cake and they are distributed by female friends of the bride during the reception. (I was recruited for this job). The reception itself was much like a Bohra reception as there was a procession of the bride and groom, dinner, and photos. Also, just as in a Bohra reception, the non-religious people snuck off to another part of the hotel for drinks.

This weekend I was off in Unawatuna again. Its the lovely beach that I wrote about on my first weekend here. It was quite idyllic with coconut palms, white sands, and clean blue ocean. There has been some trouble in that region after a bus bombing about an hour North. I did not take the bus there, needless to say. It was a bit depressing though because while it was a lovely weekend, the hotels had lots of vacancies and people were talking about how the tourist numbers just keep getting worse. The hawkers seemed a little more desperate, and guesthouses kept slashing the prices as an incentive to stay.

The highlight of the trip was a visit to the turtle hatchery where we got to take three-day old baby turtles and release them into the sea. It was adorable to watch the turtles struggle, then scoot along on the sand, and then finally make it into the ocean. We kept a watchful eye out for the crows to make sure none got eaten along the way.