Found In Ceylon

On The Lighter Side…

Despite the impression that my recent blogs have given, my stay in Sri Lanka isn’t a constantly breathless event. It has its quieter moments (usually on the weekends). However, being in a foreign country (the poorer the better, maybe?) is like being given permanent front-row seats to a private viewing of the boldness and colorfulness of life in its rawer forms.

Break
School has ended for the 2006 term, so I am looking very much forward to the next few weeks off. December break is one week less than everybody expected because Mr. Abeygunawardana announced to the abbreviated student body last Friday morning, the last day of school, that the 2007 term would begin 2 January. Not 8 January as everyone had thought (and planned) for weeks prior.

Highlights of my shorter-than-planned break include scuba dives, luxuriating in the sun reading books, preparing English lessons for next year, working on the school website, writing postcards, and visiting the holy city of Kataragama with the school matrons. But best of all, I will be climbing mountains, visiting ancient Buddhist sites, and seeing the best parts of this magnificent island with my sister, Liz!

Half of Sri Lanka knows about her impending arrival (and what she looks like, her martial status, her age, her job, her education, and that she is my only sibling). The earlier start date of January 2 has its silver lining; it means Liz will get to see the school in action (but think sloth-like action. 3 January is a poya holiday, so most students probably won’t show up until 4 or 8 January,). I can’t wait, but I keep having nightmares of not being able to communicate with her because I supposedly have completely forgotten American Sign Language.

Lactose-Based Products
Sri Lankan yogurt is the best yogurt I’ve ever had. I’ve never been able to tolerate eating American-brand plain yogurt–it always had to be flavored with mixed berry, strawberry, blueberry, or some other berry. But here, I’ve had nothing but plain yogurt and I can’t get enough of it.

Curd, on the other hand, isn’t so great. Sammi eats it every morning for breakfast (except for days where he has fallen under my insidious influence and is compelled to eat Froot Loops). I’m still not exactly sure what curd is, but it comes from a cow, that’s for sure, and is usually eaten with honey.

And ice cream! Sri Lankan ice cream has a distinctive, almost ice-y taste that qualifies it as either the most authentic or most fictitious ice cream in the world. I am partial to vanilla. The boys have picked up on my great love for the local ice cream, and are always eager to keep me well-supplied with small bowls of the white stuff if that day’s sponsored meal includes it.

Cheese, however, is a non-entity in Sri Lanka. As Jenny pointed out when we discussed this very important topic, there are cows everywhere–why is there no locally-produced cheese? The only cheese available is the Austrian-imported Happy Cow Cheese; its label is so distinctive the children have a sign specifically for this product. WIth a small wheel (eight pieces) retailing at 200 rupees, it’s little wonder that schoolboys Supun and Prasad got into a fist-fight over one allegedly stolen piece.

Mr. Bean
In the eyes of the Sinhalese, I apparently bear a striking resemblance to Mr. Bean, the clumsy Briton played by Rowan Atkinson.

It started with the principal a couple of months ago when he remarked to his secretary, “He looks like Mr. Been, doesn’t he?”

“Who?” I asked.

“B-E-E-N,” he spelled.

“Been?”

“The comedian, Mr. Been.”

“Oh, you mean, Mr. Bean?”

“Yes. You look like him.”

So now every other time I chat with him in his office, he brings up this doppelgänger. One time, the office floor had been just mopped and I was treading carefully on the slippery tile. “Mr. Bean!” the principal exclaimed while pointing at me, and the secretary immediately fell into stifled laughter.

I have to assume that Mr. Bean is very popular in Sri Lanka because there is a specific sign for him, and it isn’t just Mr. Abeygunawardana that’s using that sign anymore. Many of the girls at the school now point out this resemblance, and it has spread to some of the boys as well. Specific congruences include my nose, my stride, my hair, and my expressions.

So it’s time for me to watch a Mr. Bean DVD soon so that I can refresh my memory. I just hope it won’t be like looking into a mirror.

Rice and Curry
Sri Lankans eat rice and curry three times a day. Sure, there are exceptions; sometimes a fish bun will do for breakfast, or a family will have a slab of fish for dinner. But from my observations, people are eating from a plate filled with rice and various curries, dhals, and stews for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I can’t really complain. The school cooks (Ruchira’s mother and another cook who also has a son with Down’s, Haditha, attending the school) do a marvelous job of cooking for everybody.

There’s also those sponsors, who come between three and six times a week, and some sponsors bring so much food that students have to stop eating before they’ve finished off their plates.

All these has resulted in a situation where I am more than happy to eat institutional food and will sometimes go out of my way to get at it, meaning I’ll stay extra-late so I can have a school dinner instead of eating hotel food (not as great). Saves me money, too.

Thursday night, I slept over at the school. Friday was the last day of the term and there were so few boys left that I didn’t have the heart to say no to their “will you sleep over tonight with us?” pleas. Luckily, Thursday dinner was sponsored and it was a feast in every definition of the word. My plate must have weighted two pounds and I finished off every last piece of rice.

Per usual, a few of the sponsors stood nearby intently watching me eat–the sight of a white person semi-expertly mixing up rice and curries with his right hand is irresistible to many. One person even took several pictures of me with his camera phone.

It has been a process to learn how to eat with my hands. The food, is of course, exquisitely prepared for this very method of consumption, but it took me a while to get it (Americans don’t run around squeezing filet mignons). Originally, I would just gingerly put food next to each other, slightly mash it all up (avoiding any possibility that the shape of individual pieces might be altered), and slowly throw it into my mouth.

Now, thanks to the boys’ tireless lessons, I vigorously rub every piece of food together until all of it has dissolved into a light brown and green mass (it can look very red if beets are served during that meal). “Work it–hard” is my mantra; the food, is after all, inert and will not object to being squeezed within millimeters of its former self. The harder I press different curries and rice together, the better the resulting concoction is.

Memory: Gayan and Sanjeewa, two schoolboys, were treated to an American-style dinner at a hotel in Mirissa. Sanjeewa did just fine using a fork, but Gayan tired out after a while. I looked on with horror as he mashed together french fries, ketchup, tomato-onion-lettuce salad, and grilled fish pieces into round red-yellow masses and threw each one into his mouth.

The really great part about this particular dinner last Thursday, was that Supun, who was sitting next to me, suddenly served me a ball of everything mixed up. He motioned to me to eat it out of his hand. And I did. I then immediately mixed up a similar ball and served it to him; he ate it out of my hand.

And I repeated this with four other boys - Sanjeewa, Jeewatha, Prasanna, and Priyankara. Each ball tasted uniquely because of the different concentrations of curries and rice that each boy mixed.

It was just this wonderful moment of friendship with us eating out of each others’ hands. It was testimony that oceans of distance could be forgotten and new cultures embraced. For what could be more personal than serving food by hand to other mouths, with nary a utensil to increase the distance between feeder and feedee?

I was reminded of this story David told me once about this mother who still fed his son food by hand even thought he was in his mid-20s and married. In fact, this mother barked at the son’s wife that only she, and certainly not the wife, could feed him.

I dread going back to a country where south Asian food is served in restaurants with accompanying forks and knives–because that’s just not how it is meant to be eaten.

Tidbits
On a rainy morning, I observed from my three-wheeler a man walking along the street with one hand holding an umbrella and the other hand occupied with brushing his teeth. Since then I have learned that people seem to like to walk around brushing their teeth for a very long time; they will walk outside their homes and look around their neighborhood during this morning ritual. It is odd to me because I really can’t brush my teeth for longer than one minute, maybe a minute and half at the most.

The Sinhalese seem to be constantly falling in love with my blue eyes. “They are so beautiful,” they exclaim. They also believe there is nothing more beautiful than a white person wearing a white shirt. Even though Sri Lankans should be used to be seeing white people, it is very difficult for me to remain anonymous. This is especially so when I am walking down the street and endure stares, waves, and yells of hello-and-whatever-else-they-are-saying-but-I-can’t-hear-them from every person that passes me by. I keep wondering if I have a piece of spinach stuck between my teeth or have left my fly open, but it’s really just me that they’re fascinated with.

Fairness cream is in popular demand throughout Sri Lanka. This cream supposedly makes you skin more fair, although I have yet to see it work as described. This infatuation with whiteness is probably why many characters on Sri Lankan teledramas do not bear the dark Sinhalese skin that I see everywhere around me (and that is a fact I lament).

And to touch on the topic of food again, fish buns are wonderful no matter the time of day, and I have to say with smug pride that I consistently surprise my companions with my ability to withstand very spicy curries on a daily basis. Take that, you lousy capiscum!

I think it is remarkable how quickly I have gotten used to taking very cold showers in a room that is both a shower stall and an entire bathroom (After a shower, I have to wipe off the toilet seat and the mirror above the sink; they’re all really that close to each other).

It is distressing (and hard to believe when living in the peaceful area that is Matara) that Sri Lanka is embroiled in a civil war. It angers me that it is the same old stupid story again–an ethnic conflict between two groups. We have all seen this story played out so many times on so many stages around the world, and we all know it does very little good for anybody except defense contractors and weapon manufacturers. Why have we not learned yet?! It is not a hard lesson to master but it is likely one of the hardest of all if you are part of the ethnic group entangled in the conflict.

Please include peace for Sri Lanka and all other ethnic hotspots–Sudan, Israel, Northern Ireland, Oaxaca, East Timor, Tibet, Kashmir, Iraq, Lebanon–in your year-end meditations.

Ayubowan!

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