Friday, November 04, 2005
Sri Lanka or Bust
Actually I arrived in Sri Lanka today; am staying in the stopover coastal town of Negombo--the beach, though a silty one, is still the beach and close to my room. It feels like an inexplicably sudden, random luxury that I had no choice but to obtain to renew my visa. Tomorrow I'll go to a town in the south where ICAF volunteers have begun a healing arts project, and while I'm there I'll visit some ngos just to learn what they are up to. I also have to write a few things for ICAF and CAFI. I FEEL like I was a tourist for long enough and, though I know I'd be remiss to miss certain things, I'm eager to stay working. But I had a papaya pancake for dinner last night, which was a crepe wrapped around papaya, and it was delicious (and not spicy). Then I had a lemon one and some tea and talked with the owner about the tsunami in Sri Lanka. From his description it encircled nearly 2/3rds of the island, to greater or lesser degrees, over the course of a day. It hit Negombo only slightly, coming up to his shop and knocking over a few tables, and he described it with the awkward guilt some people who weren't quite affected seem to feel.
Colombo Airport is shiny and fresh as if it were just minted, with lots of nice shops selling large, expensive things like duty-free kitchen appliances (I took particular notice of a bunch of rice cookers). There were also many more white people than I'd seen in a while, and the touristness of the place is in stark contrast to Nagapattinam and the tsunami shelter. The airport's niceness startled me, and seemed to simmer with the tension of a place that has fought for years to be a fabulous tourist resort even as it's been enslaved to militia groups. But white tourists trotted through in low-cut tank tops and low-rise jeans, reminding me that you don't have to see the airport's glittering through the darkest possible lens.
I love my room, the smell of the sea, the perfect weather, and the silk trimmed mosquito net that hangs like a canopy over the bed. There are delicate green floral curtains and orange and pink sheets, and there are two little old-fashioned frosted glass wall lamps. I slept strangely well. Over the past few days I tried to read a certain popular book (nameless because I don't want you to do what I did), but the story's tension was really stressful and I had to skim the whole thing to find out what happened before I could relax to read more fully.
Colombo Airport is shiny and fresh as if it were just minted, with lots of nice shops selling large, expensive things like duty-free kitchen appliances (I took particular notice of a bunch of rice cookers). There were also many more white people than I'd seen in a while, and the touristness of the place is in stark contrast to Nagapattinam and the tsunami shelter. The airport's niceness startled me, and seemed to simmer with the tension of a place that has fought for years to be a fabulous tourist resort even as it's been enslaved to militia groups. But white tourists trotted through in low-cut tank tops and low-rise jeans, reminding me that you don't have to see the airport's glittering through the darkest possible lens.
I love my room, the smell of the sea, the perfect weather, and the silk trimmed mosquito net that hangs like a canopy over the bed. There are delicate green floral curtains and orange and pink sheets, and there are two little old-fashioned frosted glass wall lamps. I slept strangely well. Over the past few days I tried to read a certain popular book (nameless because I don't want you to do what I did), but the story's tension was really stressful and I had to skim the whole thing to find out what happened before I could relax to read more fully.
