Family Life

If you go down any street in a Sri Lankan town you will see fresh and not so fresh seafood for sale. The fish sellers gather by the sides of the road and place the day’s catch out for everyone to see. Sometimes you see other fish out of water too. In Tangalla we always spot other foreigners a mile off – not only by the colour of their skin, but also because of the complete bemusement in their faces as they have their first encounter with a Sri Lankan bus or a three wheeler.

When I first arrived in Sri Lanka, I felt most like a fish out of water when Olof and I became the ninth and tenth members of a large family, living in one house. The family we came to live with were so welcoming and kind, but it took me some time to get used to my new waters. I had been used to the western lifestyle of independence, individualism and privacy. Now, once again I had to get used to becoming part of more than just a household, but a family too – and not my own family!

Three months on, I have realised that when you take a fish out of water and put it into a new and different sea, at first everything that is different seems hard and alien, but gradually there are pleasures and benefits that you couldn’t see at first.

One of these pleasures is experiencing festivals and traditions with the family in a way that you just wouldn’t get if you were a tourist or a short term visitor. The package tourists that we see in Tangalla town will never get the ups (or the downs) of traditional family life here.

One of these festivals that took place recently was the Sri Lankan New Year celebration (yes, you read right – it was New Year last week). This is supposed to mark the time when the southwest monsoon begins and the horoscope year changes. It is celebrated by lots of time off work, the giving of new clothes, and fasting during the “nonagatha” – the time between the end of the old year and the start of the new. Firecrackers are set off at the “auspicious” times - fasting had to start at 12.05pm, boiling the auspicious milk at 6.54pm and eating the traditional coconut milk rice at 8.05pm.

To us some of these traditions were bizarre – and at times I really did feel like a fish out of water. But experiencing a day like this as part of a big family was a once in a lifetime experience. And this fish is glad to have changed her water for the warm, welcoming ones of southern Sri Lanka.

Chandi and Ranil setting off firecrackers in the garden






The boiling of the milk at the auspicious time (spot Olof in his sarong - something I never thought I'd see!)