ABDF

Hi Everybody!

Well, this is my first dispatch from Sri Lanka for our 2009 season. As many of you know, this will be the first of many updates. I certainly hope you enjoy them, and maybe even find them a little educational.

So I left Los Angeles Saturday evening. The flight to London is a long one, but I made it feel much shorter by taking a Sominex and having a glass of red wine. I woke up just in time for breakfast, about two hours before landing. Made the entire flight feel only three or four hours long, not the 10 it actually took.

I had a good full meal in Heathrow, then spent the rest of my layover reading a book. Heathrow is one of the weirdest airports I’ve ever been in. My impression is that the entire place is a series of long empty corridors. You know how, when you get off a plane, you walk directly off the plane, down the catwalk (or whatever it’s called) and you’re in the Arrivals terminal. Not Heathrow. When you get off the plane, you follow a long series of winding passageways; go up a level, down a level, along more passages… It would be the perfect place to film some sort of dystopian future sci-fi movie. And moving between terminals is the same, except that the tram takes you through the back parts of the airport; long blank walls, loading docks, round fuel tank looking things, etc. The only nice parts of the airport are the actual Boarding areas. I don’t know who planned the airport, or if it just a jumble of add-ons as the airport expanded, made more complex by all the new security issues.

I do know that security is MUCH heavier than at LAX. For example, I had bought a small bottle of cough medicine a couple days prior. Security at LAX, if they noticed it in my carry-on bag at all, ignored it. The guy at Heathrow noticed it immediately, and made me throw it out. I mean, I’m glad the folks at Heathrow are on the ball, even though it can be a pain in the butt.

The flight to Sri Lanka made a stop in Male, the capitol of the Maldives. Most Americans have never heard of this country. It is literally a long thin collection of coral atolls a bit west off the southern tip of India (Sri Lanka being east off the tip). It is an independent country. The largest atoll contains the capitol of Male (Mall-eh), which covers the entire island, as is only one or two square miles. It’s quite a site to see a city complete with tall buildings, rising right out of the ocean. The rest of the country is made of tiny barely populated islands. It is a very popular tourist destination for Europe, the tourist industry there being entirely the all-inclusive resort type, like we have Sandals in the US. Some day I’ll get off the plane and explore Male for a day or two.

The flight from Male to Colombo is short, only 1 hour and 15 minutes, like the flight from San Francisco to LA. I arrived on Monday afternoon, local time.

Sri Lanka’s one and only international airport is about 30 km north of Colombo, and despite the rush-hour traffic, I made it to my destination in town in only an hour.

When in Colombo, I stay at the Ministry Office of a Cabinet Minister friend of mine, Muthu Sivalingam. On the top floor of the building there is a spare room where I can stay. It’s hot, stuffy, and pretty basic, but it suits my needs just fine. Plus it saves me from having to go to a hotel. Minister Sivalingam is an Estate Tamil, meaning he hails from the tea plantations of the Hill Country; you will remember my description of the different types of Tamils in Sri Lanka in my last dispatch. Although the primary focus of our work is in Batticaloa District, he has asked our help for a couple different projects, most notably in recruiting volunteer teachers. We’ve agreed to expand our horizons beyond Batticaloa, and try and help the Estate Tamils whose living conditions are even worse that the Tamils of the East. So if any of my readers are interested in an adventure vacation teaching in the gorgeous Hill Country, lemme know! I guarantee you’ll have the experience of a lifetime. Also the Hill Country has largely escaped the current conflict and is quite safe.

Speaking of safety, several of you have already heard about the big bomb blast Tuesday and have emailed me about it. Basically, several high-value political targets were visiting a mosque. An LTTE suicide bomber approached them, but the bomb went off before he got close enough for the kill. A lot of civilian worshipers were injured and killed.

I’m not sure that the target was specifically the mosque or Muslims. I think that this is where the targeted politicians made the softest of targets. So I don’t know if it was specifically an anti-Muslim act. But tensions are high between Tamils and Muslims (see my previous Dispatch or read the ones from last year) and so intended or not, the bombing has made relations that much more difficult. It’s really too bad because these two communities are natural allies and should be working together.

Security has been tightened in Colombo, and I’m sure that more attacks are coming. The battlefield in the north between the LTTE and the government goes very bad for the rebels; they are currently confined to a tiny strip of beach some 20 or miles square. That’s smaller than San Francisco, to give you a comparison, and SF is only 7x7 miles (ie: 49 square miles).

On Tuesday evening I was invited to a birthday party.

John is a friend of mine who works for Minister Sivalingam. He’s a really good fellow and a great host. His best friend is a man named Raj. I’ve mentioned to some of you the guy who is building the luxury high-rise condos on the beach. That’s Raj. And the birthday was for Raj’s first child, his son Sanjay, who just turned 1.

Raj and other Tamil businessmen present an interesting paradox in Sri Lanka. Generally speaking, the Sinhalese majority doesn’t trust Tamils, and suspects them of being LTTE sympathizers. While there is legal equality, there is a lot of informal social discrimination. Think black folks in the US. However it is possible for a smart and ambitious Tamil to succeed in Sri Lanka. It may be three times as hard but it is possible. Again, like black folks in the US. Raj is one of this small group of successful Tamils. He is highly respected in the Tamil community, and very rich. Very rich by our standards even.

I can’t imagine the pressures that are put on him. Wealthy Tamils are regularly kidnapped and held for ransom by a variety of groups, especially because as Tamils they make easy targets. The LTTE supposedly uses the threat of kidnap to solicit “donations” from wealthy Tamils. And many Singhalese believe that all Tamils businesses are LTTE fronts to fund their rebellion. This leaves wealthy Tamils in a very vulnerable position; not trusted by the government or security forces and easy prey to organized crime and/or militia groups. Raj himself has never said anything to me about this, and I have never asked.

But on Tuesday night all this was put behind us as we celebrated Sanjay’s first birthday.

It was held in the banquet room at the Global Towers, a fancy-schmancy hotel on the beach. The large room was done in all white: white table cloths, white chair covers, and so forth. There were photographers, videographers, a DJ, and an open bar. Oh, and it was air-conditioned. There was a large buffet spread of all sorts of tasty Sri Lankan dishes. Lovely.

John and I hung out with all the bachelors at the bar. John has a wide circle of friends, who I have been slowly meeting during my stays in Colombo. They’re all good guys, easy to talk to (the English is very good), and most are highly educated. So during the family part of the night, we ate, hung out, and toasted each other with rounds of Jack Daniels. As there was dancing to follow the meal, I was asked repeatedly if I was gonna dance. I knew I had to, so I said yes.

So here’s the thing: I was being asked to dance by men. Now before you go off imagining wild and wooly things, I have to explain to you that in Sri Lanka men dance with men. Society here is very conservative by our standards, and women are socially unavailable to men. So to Sri Lankans, the idea of mixed dancing is a scandalous Western thing. No self-respecting Sri Lankan woman would get up and dance with a bunch of guys ESPECIALLY at a public function. In a very private setting amongst close family and friends, they might. But it just isn’t proper in a public place. So men dance with each other.

The music, of course, was Bollywood film music. I like Bollywood music, but the style of dance is different from what we know. Fortunately, I know how to salsa, so I can readily gyrate and swing my butt about with the best of them. It’s a different hip movement than how they dance here, but that’s OK: I’ve got music, I’ve got rhythm. So I wasn’t embarrassed to go out on the floor, especially since we’d all had several rounds of drinks.

However, you can imagine the pressure when I got up to dance, led by some of my new friends. I don’t exaggerate when I say that every eye in the room was on me. Everyone, from the littlest kid to the oldest gray-haired amma was watching to see how the white guy would do.

I am happy to report that I was probably one of the best dancers on the floor that night, to everyone else’s surprise. Yup, I did us white guys proud.

Today (Thursday) I got most of my Colombo errands done. I went and extended my visa. I registered at the US Embassy where I was recognized by the staff (I register there every year) and spent the afternoon relaxing at my favorite hangout, Barefoot.

Barefoot is a café and shop run by two Colombo friends of mine, husband and wife Dominic and Nazreen Sansoni. Those who read last year’s Dispatches will recognize them as the couple who had me over for that fancy dinner; I also helped Dom get good pictures at the Mamangam temple festival in Batti. The café part of Barefoot is in a beautiful outdoor courtyard; the place is an architects’ dream. It’s a quiet, restful oasis amid the hurly-burly of noisy Colombo. When I have the time I go and spend the afternoon. There are two tables in corner where Dom and Naz’s friend all meet everyday and chat, work on their laptops, and drink tea. I’ve gotten to know many of them, so it’s fun to sit with them and catch up.

Oh, and on top of this, there is free high-speed wireless internet! Huzzah! So when I write to you from Colombo, I'm at Barefoot.

In fact, other than Barefoot, I don’t particularly care for Colombo. Colombo may be Sri Lanka’s capitol, but it has little to recommend it. It’s big, crowded, loud, polluted; it has little old or interesting architecture, and is not the cultural center of the country. In fact, most tourists skip Colombo altogether. If it weren’t for my friends, I would not like coming here at all. I don’t HATE it, but for me it’s just the place I have to go to before I can get to Batticaloa.

Speaking of which, I have made my arrangements to get to the east coast. I’ve hired my friend, Nallaratene, to pick me up in his van and drive me out. If you’ve seen my slide show, you’ve seen the picture I took of him and his family. He gives me a good price, is reliable, and has been a lot of help to me in Batti. He’s to pick me up Monday morning at 9 in the morning, meaning we’ll arrive in Batti around 6 PM. It’s a long, arduous drive.

So that’s all I have to report at the moment, and other than despite being a bit jet-lagged, I am very happy to be back, and excited about our upcoming season. Hurrah!

xoxoxoxoxoxo

B.