Lost in thoughtLight sparkling off the lagoon and flooding the afternoon spaces with its invasive qualities. The shade is precious and shade with a fan is twice precious. Discussions of the local and the hyper local. Of dress and of observance of deals and of meals. The breath of conversation when my friend slows, slurs, holds his breath, "They put ...
Bad governance breaks peopleI stepped into the main room yesterday where my friend was reading the paper. His head was bowed, but not the way a person looks when he's reading the paper. It's the way a man looks when he's deeply disappointed, worn, weathered, humbled, humiliated, scared, trampled. I don't like seeing my friend that way. He's an accomplished ...
You told me an interesting story about someone in the village giving you lime juice and you not being able to choke it down. Come on! I'm the first to admit lime juice is an acquired taste, like lots of things we experience in Sri Lanka. It tastes a little bit like salty sewage water, dank, cranky, sour. But it ...
You had two dreams that night. Late in the night before morning. Late in the clear night before the smoky dawn of day. Late in the recesses of dark, deep in the recesses of velvet sleep. Deep in the heart of a purring wetness a pulsing aura a pulse a pulse a pulse a pulse a drift, a dive, a ...
Coming off a morning bike ride through the village and along the ocean there is no describing the dusky fragrant scooping dirt roads and concrete block pathways, the soft or loud blare of kovils the ringing and winking of cows. The smell of outdoor showers and morning soap. The grayness of the ocean and sky. The redness of the sun ...
The afternoon wind, which just started up a week or two ago, is twice welcome. It cleans the air and brings in a breeze if not cooling, at least fresher than the hot still sun dust- and smoke-clogged atmosphere. White melon vines dry and sink and are fed to the rabbits and on the back of a truck are sold ...
A laser cut plastic box This is a proposal for a project about a war carried out against civilians. The object to be made is a plastic box, actually a series of them, each one about an inch high, and hinged so you can open them like pages of a book. The pages will be about 12 inches square. Each ...
They swagger in, looking around Can the East really be this beautiful?Stay off the main road, it's too wideTwo or even three vehicles may block it offThey eat their sandwiches and their riceYou speak their language. It's a miracle. Such nice service. Get your bike out quick and make a run for it But don't get stuck in a dead ...
So many holidaysSo for me tonight is Passover and here I am in pretty much the farthest corner of Sri Lanka. Janet had the sense at least to go home for ten days so she'll be with the kids for the duration of the holiday. I hadn't thought I'd feel sad or homesick about it but I kind of do. ...
The conquerers come backThey grunt and drag their shoesAnd don't know how to order foodOr know too well how to order you aroundYou send the younger boys who speak their tongueWho didn't know them then when they were around,About and bearing downYou stay behind the wooden slats of your office They will sit on stools to order youBut as is ...
Janet bought a pair of shoes before she left, shoes she thought she'd wear in Colombo. Nothing super fancy, but decorative and fun. She spent a good amount of time thinking about, fantasizing how they'd look with different outfits, if there was ever a dry afternoon or evening in Colombo and the occasion called for their slight dressiness. She bought ...
The village is a complex place. Here I'm talking about its physical makeup. Google map doesn't do this landscape justice, imposing straight roads where there are curves and ignoring tiny lanes that connect with larger roads or more rarely, end in dead ends. The "blocks" are small. Smaller it turns out, than what I've observed when I've ridden through the ...
I recently had some back and forth correspondence with a Sri Lankan colleague who I worked with when we first got here for the Fulbright. My colleague and I had been in correspondence for several months before our arrival. I thought I was clear with him, if a bit unorthodox, about the activities I wanted to do with students. As ...
Signals deep not dimWithin the watery edgeIn full moon's light they wonder:Is anybody out there?Is anybody up there?Buzz buzz beep bleep their kineIn schools and spools they leap in timeWhirr whirr whirr ticktickticktickLike lightning fast the singing fishBeneath the bridgeOut in the openWe sailed at tenSincerely hopingWould they swim tonightAnd would they sing?Spectacular symphonyish electric blingWe wait and quieten Our ...
Strange thing to be in the middle of a conflict zone some years since the conflict petered out. Well it didn't "peter out" because accompanying its end were the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in the last days. These were Tamil civilians, just to be clear. The ending days of the war were a national trauma and ...
Conflict went on for more than thirty years. For all we know it's going on now and may stretch far into the future. Make that a Hundred Years' War, why not? Why stop just when the vanquished stop kicking? Conflict stretched back decades and decades and decades. Conflict was a side show and the main thing. Conflict hit every corner ...
It occurs to me. There were so many questions I wanted to ask you. I've brewed up answers to so many questions from the quagmire of my own observations. But these so-called answers lead to so many more questions. It's all muddy, orangy place, like the swampy parts of northern Canada where Indians dug up iron oxide for their body ...
The Shanthi Cinema is just about 200 meters from our front door. The closest we've ever lived to the movies. It took us a couple of months to start going but since then we've been regulars. At least once a week, sometimes more. The place looks like a big barn with a folding metal gate in front. Yesterday when we ...
So much of our time here in Sri Lanka we are trying to figure out what makes people tick. The impassive faces, the quietened eyes, the hidden hostilities. None of these presents us with very much evidence at all. Neither do the occasional smiles, the warm handshakes, or empty promises of following up on a visit or conversation. As Sri ...
Why the "Mahansi padak?""Mahansi padak" is a Sinhalese expression that roughly translates as "tired face." I was asked several times yesterday if I was tired and someone finally commented on my "mahansi padak." Janet suggested it was because I hadn't shaved. I know it was because I was feeling too much, too deeply, for my friend. The Talmud says that ...
