Arrival in Colombo

Its been 24 hours since I landed in Sri Lanka and I feel as if I have entered a parallel universe. In so many ways I feel like I am still in India and then something happens to jolt me into realizing that I am no longer there. True, the people are brown-skinned and the climate hot but there are many small cultural differences that I have picked up since arriving here.

1) Lack of "the stare". Indians are curious people. If you look different in any way or even if you look the same, people like to stare at you. Maybe you are young, maybe you are really old, maybe you are female, defomed ect. Regardless, people like to just flat out stare. Not so in Sri Lanka. Either people have seen it all before or, more likely, they can't be bothered to stare at you. This is amazing. I roam the streets in shorts and a t-shirt and nobody cares.

2) Niceness. Now I am not saying that Indians are mean, but life in Bombay is harrowing enough to make even a nice old lady like my grandmother a scary force to be reckoned with. Local vendors better hope that they don't misquote the price of fish or eggs or there will be hell to pay. The caste system insures that you can ignore a large portion of the population and saying "hey you, get me that tea fast or else" is the norm. Not so here. You gotta be nice to everyone from the rickshaw driver to the tea man. In turn, everyone is nice to you.

3) I don't know what any of the food is! I thought there would be similar fruits and things as India but when I went for lunch today I got to choose between colored rices and unidentifyable sauces. I have no clue what I am eating and the fruits and veggies are not the same. The tea is the same sickeningly sweet milky chai that they have in India so at least I have that.

4) Cleanliness. People don't throw trash on the street. I actually can walk around in heels with gay abandon. There is no poop on the road.

5) Laziness. Perhaps this characteristic is true of all islands. Maybe when you live in paradise you feel less motivated to wear yourself to a nub with work. Or maybe the sun just makes people tired. Whatever the reason, people are way lazier. I should paint this more positively and say people are less stressed rather than lazier. However you look at it, there are more national holidays here than any other country as people get a day off every full moon. There are long lunches, people come to work late and things move at a much slower place. This morning it took the girl in the cafeteria 30 min to make my tea and toast. I was about to hop the counter and help her out and then I realized that I wasn't in a hurry for any particular reason other than I like being in a hurry. The lack of stress is stressing me out.

6) Its not fun to stay at the YWCA. Lured by the promise of the YMCA I chose the YWCA but sadly it doesn't live up to the reputation. I have to share a common bathroom with a bunch of people, there is no hot water, and on the floor of the room was a ball of someone elses hair. There is another bed in the room so another person could have theoretically moved in while I am typing this and be trying on my clothes right now. I hope they put everything back in its place. The positive side is that while there are lots of mosquitos there are no roaches.

7) People here eat a lot of rice. I mean an immense amount of rice. All food is either rice or a rice derivative. This makes me sleepy. Maybe it makes other people sleepy too and is one of the causes of "lack of stress".