It’s true what they say about Sri Lanka. It is a beautiful country. Its landscape is varied and luscious, with incredible beaches and abundant tropical fruits and coconut palms. But as Olof and I arrived here on Thursday after our ten hour flight from Heathrow, we quickly realised that there was a lot more that we had to learn about this island.
The first thing we encountered was the “interesting” style of driving. There are no motorways or dual carriageways here ( some roads are ok but most are FULL of potholes, cows, dogs, people, tuk-tuks) and people take risks on the roads that we wouldn’t dream of in the UK. I say we, but as people know I can’t actually drive. I’ve decided that this is categorically a Good Thing, as I am not too bothered by the fact that Sri Lankans don’t wear seatbelts, overtake into oncoming traffic around blind corners, and that the rules of the road are “big is best”. All I know is that they are better drivers than I am so that’s fine.
En route from Colombo with our host Ranil, the learning continued. We learnt that there are two main varieties of coconut in Sri Lanka and that the juice of the king coconut is delicious to drink. Ranil demonstrated this to us by buying us each a king coconut from a roadside fruit seller. As we drank the delicious soft water from these huge yellow fruits, I thought to myself “I think I’m going to like it here”. We also learnt that bananas are delicious and varied and bear little resemblance (in taste or appearance) to the hard yellow bananas with thick skins that we get in Scotland. Instead they are smaller with thinner skins and taste like buttery toffee.
With all the news about the Sri Lankan civil war in the headlines, we had expected Colombo and the surrounding areas to be full of armed police and soldiers. We did pass through some military checkpoints, and people here talk about the war and its impact upon tourism, but so far this does not feel like a country at war. People are busy making a living in the towns and villages of Sri Lanka, selling fruit and vegetables, driving tuk-tuks, taking children to school. In Tangalla, we have encountered a sense of optimism about the future and a view that peace is “around the corner”. We will wait and see if this view is well founded.
Learning about a new country is inspiring, exciting and broadens your mind. But in learning about a new country, it helps you learn more about your own country. I had never thought about the fact that in Britain people live very clearly in either the town or the country. Here, you cannot go far along a road without meeting people living and working close by. We were unsure where towns ended and countryside began. This throws up new challenges. In Britain we are very used to having independence and privacy and take for granted that people give you your own “space”. Here it is very difficult to go anywhere where there are no people. Because we are practically the only white people around, we sometimes feel like we are minor celebrities in the village, and this can make us both feel quite shy! I’m sure we will get used to it though!
So, there is a lot of learning to come – I start work on Tuesday and we are off to Galle tomorrow for our “cultural induction” with Challenges Worldwide.
