ABDF

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Hi everybody!

It’s about 8:30 in the evening.  I just got back home from a very pleasant evening, which I want to tell you about.  I mean, given all the bad news I’ve been writing about, it’s time for something pleasant, n’est pas?

First, I took all the family kids out for dinner.  I live in a house that’s really part of a larger family compound.  My Sri Lankan family lives on the first floor, but the family next door, and which shares the same compound, is headed by the brother of Siva, the guy who built my house.  There are two boys; Vihas, 12 years old and Nic, who is 11.  Next door to that lives an uncle who has a boy, Dilakhan, 13 years old and the sweetest little girl, Darshikka, who I think is around 11.  This extended family is actually huge, and so there are always sundry other relatives in and out of the three houses.

Starting last year, about once a month I take all the kids out for a meal.  We usually go to the Green Garden in Kalladay and have Cokes, noodles and ice cream. The last few times we’ve taken the deck of Uno cards, and played while we wait for the food to arrive.

So this evening it was the afore mentioned kids, and a cousin named Shalli (Sally, but with an “sh”) who looks to me to be around 10. The kids LOVE going out with me; I guess that I’m fun for them, and they can get out of the house and away from the parents.  I like it ‘cause with all the crap going on around here, it’s nice to be reminded of the simple joys of childhood.

So we did our usual thing, spending about an hour and a half at the Green Garden.  The cost is remarkably low, considering I fed all six of us: about $25, including tuk-tuk back and forth with wait time. The waiters there, who know us by now, get a kick when we show up.  Sri Lankans love children, and always smile when they see kids. 

Earlier in the day Vihas and I had gone and bought pineapples, with which his mom had promised to make Pineapple Curry.  So when we got back, she had a big batch prepared.  Really, it is more of a pineapple chutney, and its fiery hot, but extremely delicious.  You only eat small amounts of it at a time.  For example, Tamils here dab a small bit on a date.  The contrast of the super-sweet date and the fiery tang of the curry is wonderful. It keep in the fridge for about a month, which is nice.  I got the recipe, and the ingredients are pretty common in the U.S., so I can make it at home, although with a bit less chili, for my friends and family. 

So I was sitting in front of Vihas’ house with him and his mom, writing down the recipe, when other relatives started to arrive.  This is typical in Sri Lanka, where friends and relatives will simply drift over for a chat during the evening.  Some of the folks I already knew, others were new to me.  Everyone was extremely friendly and I was asked all sorts of questions about myself, my family, America, and so on.  One young woman, a cousin, said she wanted to marry John Senna, the American wrestler and actor.  (John Senna is hero-worshipped here in Sri Lanka.) So I whipped out my cell phone, pretended to dial a number, and said loudly and clearly so everyone could understand me “John – I have your future wife here.” And held the phone out towards her.  Peals of laughter.  I ended up sitting and just chatting for about two hours.

It’s these sorts of quiet non-event events that make me love this place so.  I mean, just to sit and relax and talk and joke and be part of the group.  It means a lot, especially if you’re a foreigner.

True, almost everyone spoke only a little English, but between everyone’s little bit we were able to communicate just fine.  In the US my sense of humor tends to be witty and very dry.  That wouldn’t work here, as I’m not fluent in the language and culture.  So here my humor tends to be both wacky and physical.  I have an expressive face, when I choose to use it, and facial expressions are universal.  So I exaggerate them, and make them funny to make my joke.  Or I use exaggerated body language.  It usually works, and I manage to make a lot of people laugh. I’ve also learned to poke fun at myself, my idiosyncrasies, and my Americanisms.  I think people appreciate a person who can let their hair down and laugh at themselves.

One thing folks here find very funny are my attempts to learn Tamil.  I’m given a word and unless it’s a simple short one, I manage to mangle it beautifully.  This gets a lot of good-natured laughs, especially if I accidentally say a word not intended.  Double that if the mispronounced word turn out naughty or risqué. Vihas, who is very good in English sometimes sets me up, or so I suspect.

Since this dispatch is turning out to be about my Sri Lankan family, I suppose I should give a description of them.  You won’t be tested on names or anything, but I just want to give you an idea of the family size.

As I’ve said before, the house I live in was built by Siva, who lives in Ireland.  The house was built for his sister, Thiru (Tee-roo), for when she gets married.  I’ve already mentioned in a past dispatch that the brides’ family traditionally provides a house.  Thiru works for a Czech organization called People in Need as a field manager.  Her fiancé is a name named Kugan; he’s over at the house all the time, and is already part of the family. 

Thiru speaks pretty good English, and she frequently comes upstairs to sit and talk.  Lately it’s been to exchange gossip about the recent trouble, but I’ve also helped her with her University studies.  Sometimes I’ll go downstairs and watch Tamil television with the family, and she’ll explain the plots and sub-plots of the various soap operas.  She’s a lovely person, and has become something of a sister to me.

Living with Thiru are her mother and father.  I’ve never been given their names as the tradition is just to refer to the elderly as Amma (mother) and Appa (father).  They are both quite old and very much still “village” in their ways.  Appa is a renowned temple musician.  He has a problem with his legs and can barely walk with assistance, but this doesn’t seem to affect his talent whatsoever, and he is in big demand for all sorts of Hindu ceremonies and rites.  Amma is a large, strong-bodied, grey-haired woman.  She doesn’t speak a lick of English, but we get along famously.  Part of it is because I enjoy her cooking so much, in particular her Brinjal (eggplant) curry, which is the finest dish I have tasted in Sri Lanka to date.

Vihas and Nicke, the boys from next door, will frequently sleep over at the house.  That’s what families are like here; you sleep wherever you happen to be and no one even thinks about it.

Anyway, next door is Naden’s family.  And by next door I mean that their house abuts our house.  Naden is Siva’s younger brother, Thiru being the youngest of the three siblings.  Naden currently is a driver for the NRC (Norwegian Refugee Commission).  By coincidence he’s the driver for Marit, a Norwegian gal who is one of my two Western friends in Batti.  Naden suffered greatly during the civil conflict.  I don’t know the exact details, but he was either involved with a Tamil group or was thought to be.  At any rate he was picked up several times by the security forces and repeatedly tortured.  I know this for a fact because I’ve seen the scars myself.

Naden’s wife is Sujihala (Suj-ala), the one who made the pineapple curry.  She’s very pretty, and looks a lot younger than I suspect she is. I like her a lot; she’s always been super nice to me.

Of their kids, first comes the oldest, Vihas.  Vihas is uncommonly, even a little scarily, intelligent.  He speaks really good English, and is fascinated by electrical things and motors and the like.  He’s always prying things open and fiddling around with them.  I heard he fixed an old laptop monitor just by messing with it until it worked.  I myself have seen him completely take apart and fix a dead cell phone. The problem is that a kid of his intelligence is easily bored if not mentally challenged.  Resources here are limited, and so he is frequently restless.  So far this hasn’t resulted in particularly bad behaviors or habits, for which I’m grateful.

Of all the various and sundry kids, Vihas is the one who has most latched on to me.  In fact, it has been noted by everyone how attached he is, and that normally he’s politely indifferent to the foreigners that come in and out of the house.  But for whatever reason, he has chosen me.  I take this pretty seriously, and try to keep him as engaged as possible.  I also try to instill ideals that will prevent any future trouble.  For example, once he got hold of a squirt gun, and started pointing it at me.  I immediately ordered him to put the squirt gun down, telling him I did NOT approve of him aiming it at me, even if it is a harmless thing. In a land rife with gun violence I didn’t want him to grow accustomed to pointing such a thing at people.

However, Vihas is a good kid at heart.  I just hope it’s enough.  As the smartest person in the whole family, he’s under huge pressure to perform, and get a fantastic job and raise the entire family’s level of prosperity.  It’s a lot for one small boy to face. 

Nicke (Nick) is about a year younger than Vihas and couldn’t be more different.  Whereas Vihas soaks up knowledge like the proverbial sponge, Nic hates studying and sometimes has to struggle.  Nicke too is under a lot of pressure, although of a different sort.  Constantly being in the shadow of a brilliant brother must be hard, especially since they are so close in age.  I’m sure that “Why can’t you be like your brother?” is a constant refrain in his life.  Already I see some rivalries formed, and I hope they never reach the point where the boys come into real conflict.

Lastly, there is little Thithisala (Tee-tee-shala).  She was born late last September.  It’s too early to tell much about her personality of course, but the entire extended family pays a lot of attention to her and she is very much adored by everyone.  I’ve never seen a child smile so much.

Of course when I returned to Sri Lanka in March, I made the mistake of rushing up to greet her wearing a pair of reflective bright yellow sunglasses.  Naturally she didn’t remember me from last year, as so these giant yellow bug eyes rushing up to her terrified her.  Assuming, as did everyone lese, that she was tripping out on my skin and hair color, I continued to wear the glasses for my first month here, not thinking they were the problem.  Finally I had an epiphany and started taking off my sunglasses when I saw her.  It took her a little time to get over the glasses, but now she’s a lot more comfortable and smiles when she sees me.  She still cries when I hold her, but one step at a time.

An aunt and uncle live in the house next to Naden’s.  I’m not exactly sure how they are related; although I think it’s through Amma’s side of the family. They have three adult children, a man named Gobi and two young women named Preeya and Sathiya (Sha-tee-yah), a college age boy, Suhi (Sue-he) who only seems to like being with his college friends, and two young children, Dilakhan and Darshikka.  Gobi just finished his degree in civil engineering, and now lives and works in Kandy.  Dilakhan is right on the verge of manhood; you can see him in conflict as he navigates between leftover childhood impulses and newly discovered manly responsibilities.  I have a soft spot for Darshikka.  She’s cute as a button, sweet as sugar, and smart to boot.

On top of all this is the rest of the extended family, who are coming in and out of the three houses all the time.  To give an example: Sujihala, Naden’s wife and Vihas’ mom, told me she’s the youngest of 10 kids.  Ten kids!  Yikes!  And that’s just the spouse of one of the three siblings. 

And here’s the thing: relations, no matter how far removed are well known and visit frequently.  And there’s none of this calling ahead of time to see if you’re home, they just show up and whoever is around at, say, dinner time, is fed.  If a relative is at the house and its bedtime, he or she will plop a mat on the floor and sleep. This is all perfectly accepted as normal and raises no comment. It’s all par of the course. Very different from us in the West, huh?

For me, it means that there is always someone around to talk to if I want.  It also means that there is greater security, in terms of theft or any problems from outside the house.

In fact the extended family structure is so wide and varied that the Tamil language has a specific term for where each person stands in relation to another.  Take for example, the kids of my cousin Mary Katherine.  Out of convenience we refer to each other as cousins, although that’s not strictly true. In Tamil there’s a specific word for the daughter of your mother’s sister, and there’s another one for the daughter of your father’s sister as well. Within the immediate family there’s a word for the oldest brother, another for the oldest sister, for the youngest brother, and so on. 

It makes me wonder.  Remember I described in a previous dispatch how there is a different letter for every sound in the Tamil language, as opposed to Western languages, where we combine letters to create a new sound?  I also talked about the Hindu religion, which has a divinity for each aspect of the human experience.  I wonder if this specificity of family relationships comes from the same impulse.

Thursday, June 12, 2008 (next day)

Before I send this off, I wanted to tell you that this evening I drove my motorcycle for the first time.  Murali stopped by and offered to give me my first lesson.  So he drove us to a low-traffic road nearby, and we switched places.  I drive a stick shift car in the States, so I’m familiar with changing gears, what the engine should sound like and all that.  So I guess I have that advantage.  Of course with a motorcycle, the clutch is a lever on the left handle bar and the accelerator is the right.  So it does involve learning a new set of coordinations, as it were. The gear shift is on the left foot, but instead of pushing down like you would the clutch, you bring it up with the top of your foot.  So there is enough new stuff for me to learn to keep me on my toes.  However, I expect that as with learning to drive stick shift, driving this bike will quickly become second nature.

But I gotta say, it was FUN.  I got back to the house with a big grin on my face.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

B.