To add to this little series of things that happen to me in Colombo: As I was waiting outside of my office back in December, I heard a loud crash, dismissed it as a large animal in the trees only to hear the loud smack of a king coconut hitting the pavement a meter away from me!
Last month I had to pull together a presentation about my time spent in Sri Lanka during the fellowship, reflecting on work, life and my goals. It was hard. How was I supposed to synthesize this important time in my life into a quick 10-minute presentation? Instead of trying to fully describe what I considered my “rollercoaster of emotions” during this experience, I decided I would graph it. Using my personal journal as a guide, I plotted my level of happiness against the last 6 months.
Although the graph is pretty self-explanatory, below I’ve provided a little more detail to fully understand the ups and downs of what you see:
July: I’m here. I’ve made it. Finally. What’s that smell? I don’t care!
August: A creeping dread starts to settle in that I am going to miss everyone and everything, including the NBA.
September: Have I made a huge mistake? I’ve made a huge mistake. What am I going to do after this? It’s at this point that I started to get really nervous because I had left my long term job behind with no concrete plan for the future. It’s also at this point where a work opportunity presented itself for me to extend my stay. I went back and forth in my mind 100 times. Did I want this? I think I did.
October: I asked two important people in my life for advice and they hit me with: “Don’t come back” and “It’s okay if you don’t fit in.” Hearing those words I was immediately freed from a lot of the anxiety I was feeling. There was a reason why I came here and I didn’t need to change who I was to do it. With this newfound confidence I felt rejuvinated at work. I was finally breaking past the steep part of the learning curve of working in a new country. Things were starting to click into place. I decided I wanted to stay.
November: I was only able to pull myself out of my Trump-induced misery through creativity. I rediscovered art as a means of expression for myself. At the same time, I was gaining traction in the work I was doing, finding new and interesting ways to convey information in Sri Lanka. I felt buoyed by these constructive and good things. I started my new work visa application.
December and beyond: I never expected to gain as much as I did. I have developed strong relationships here with family I had never met and with friends I never knew I needed until now. I am sad that this part of this experience, this fellowship, is coming to an end but I feel energized and ready for the next chapter.
I look forward to the moment Sri Lanka pulls herself out of this patriarchal mess.
Decided to visualize this real life event that happened to me back in July. What a random thing to happen.
When I was a kid I was sure of a few things: Ruffles Regular were the finest chips, Orange Crush was the only liquid worth drinking and that I was going to be a cashier when I grew up. I was three and I had it all figured out.
Twenty-five years later I think about the young girl I was and feel a kind of grief for the tiny joyful bubble she lived in at that time. In the ensuing years she would learn what it meant to be a woman of colour living in a white man’s world. She would learn what true hate looked like as she watched a civil war unfold in a homeland she had never seen but felt deeply for. She would learn to tread water in a pool full of sharks.
Despite these self-taught lessons, the US election was a cold shower sending me shaking out of my delusion. Many Canadians believe they are above all of this and are better but we are not above this and we are not better. I had never fully let myself believe a result like this could happen. I imagined that the community of people who wanted to build something worthy and good was larger and louder than the other noise.
I see now how fragile this house we’ve built is. How quickly it can crumble and how much harder we need to work. I wish that I did not learn this important lesson at the expense of others.
In this world, you need to shout for what you want. Amma told me this once and I think about it now. I guess this time we weren’t loud enough. As a people we don’t love each other enough. I don’t know what’s next but what I do know is I need to fight apathy and cynicism and resist the normalization of what has happened. It feels like being in an unending ocean with no land in sight, but I have to keep swimming, even if I’m tired.
A pink sunset and the smell of the ocean greet me on my ride home from work. There are cargo ships on the horizon patiently waiting to port. Buildings along Marine Drive play host to the daily bustle – another day, another wedding. The streets are all lit up at this time but there is something obscuring the view. The picture isn’t coming in clear. Sri Lanka, where you at? Colombo life got me trippin. It was time to get out and I did.
Four weeks ago.
The city tumbles out of view in favour of forest and farm. I’m on my way out east towards Batticaloa and the journey itself is a destination. My eyes feast themselves on distant mountains and colourful streetside kadeys as they whiz by. Dense green foliage part and give way to glimpses of the ancient kingdom of Polonnaruwa. The ruins call out to lives lived long ago. This reverie is briefly interrupted by conspicuous military monuments shining in the face of everyone who drives by. Young men in training. For what? I ask myself.
I’m brought back to the present moment by the sight of hindu temples and shrines that begin to take over the landscape. Tamil script shifts subtlety to the tops of signs and a familiarity washes over me. A great Pillayar sits atop a temple looking out over the road – no obstacles here. It’s a straight shot to Batti. We arrive safely.
Over the next five days I feel like I’ve been transported. There is a duality in every moment. A tug of war between where I am physically and where my mind takes me.
At night we take a break from work and walk about town. The lagoons follow me around every bend and curve of the road, a constant reminder of how these calm waters once brought sheer terror and great loss to people here.
At the top of the old fortifications we watch the sun set. Tamil songs from the 80s float across the water from a nearby boat and I’m hit with a pang of nostalgia. Again as we walk along the boardwalk, the same music is on loudspeaker for everyone to enjoy. In these moments I am carried to my childhood family car, a grey Ford Tempo, where the only music that was played came from a set of two cassette tapes of my father’s favourite cinema songs. At the time, my sister and I groaned. Now, while standing in Sri Lanka I think back on that time in Canada fondly.
Sari hunting the next day requires a trip to Maruthamunai. A coworker knows a place. We enter a small living room and proceed through the ritual of pulling out vibrant handloom saris from carefully laid out piles, judging the material, the colour, the weight, the intricacy of design – What would Amma think of this? – searching for the one. This could easily be any one of the basements in Scarborough where I have done the same.
Here in the east, my terrible rudimentary spoken Tamil is instantly recognized as from Jaffna. A place, up until this point, I have never been to and a language I never learned here.
The mundane becomes exciting as the differences and similarities between here and Toronto become magnified. Where is home? What is home? I’m not sure, but I think it’s somewhere between a physical place and a mental state. Definition pending.
Heading back to Colombo I can’t wait to leave again. The Colombo bubble has a way of keeping you satiated and stagnant. When I leave I am invigorated by the people I meet. A clearer picture is formed of this country and myself with every step I take outside of the city and my comfort zone. Where to next?
I tell the driver where I’m headed and step into his red tuk. Inside, pasted on to the interior to the left of me is a picture of a kitten, to the right is a photo of a cherubic white child with the words “cute baby” written above it. What? Before I’m given a moment to figure out what compelled this 30ish year old man to decorate his vehicle in such a way, the game of Sri Lankan 20 questions begins:
Do you speak Sinhala?
Where are you from?
Wait, you must be Indian, right?
You’re from Canada but you’re Sri Lankan?
So your parents are from Sri Lanka?
Are they here?
When did they leave?
30 years ago! Have they come back to visit?
Is this your first time here?
Where in Sri Lanka are they from?
Ah, Jaffna – you’re Tamil?
Reading between the pauses of this typical interaction, I can sense them connecting the dots as they attempt to place me in Sri Lanka’s history, calculating when my family left and realizing why. A brief interlude. So, you’re working in Sri Lanka? Shifting away from personal details, we swiftly move on to the weather and when the best time to visit Kandy is.
In many of my interactions with people here, when the topic of the war comes up, I become guarded and delicate with what I say. Sometimes I don’t speak at all. There is a nagging feeling that I will be judged for having an opinion because I am not from here. So I stay quiet. We need to move on, declared the young woman. People in Jaffna need to change their thinking, explained the 40-year-old Tamil man. These stories are overdone, she said.
My self-imposed silence in these moments is unbearable. I have my own experiences I cannot ignore. My father’s decision to leave in 1983 and mother soon after in 1986 changed their lives forever and resulted in mine. I am tied to this country in another way, a different way, and it is jarring to suddenly feel less than.
There is so much unsaid. Let’s just move on. With the 33rd anniversary of Black July having just passed, I can’t help but think about how far Sri Lanka still needs to go to fix what ails her. This refusal to treat the wound directly is a symptom of Sri Lankan people as a whole and is evident as the country continues to fumble with it’s reconciliation efforts.
My aunt in Colombo is quite old but her memory is sharp. She recounts her youth in astonishing detail. Between the hellish moments of the riots there was joy. ’56, ’58, ’77, ’83. She places these dates in her stories like punctuation so that she does not forget what happened and so that I won’t either. These and the many other terrible events experienced by all people in this country need to be recognized, acknowledged and discussed openly to give people the chance to truly heal.
I’m sitting in an air-conditioned minivan looking out the window watching lush green paddy fields whip by while Psy’s Gangnam Style booms out over the radio. Everyone is singing along and I can’t help but grin. Oppa Gangnam Style!
I think back to life in Canada and how some of the best moments I’ve had with friends have happened during a drive. Whether we are scream-singing along to Beyonce, giving each other relationship advice or laughing at the hysterical bad luck of a best friend, these moments have always been special to me.
The past week has been full of little interactions like this with colleagues all while driving in and around Colombo. With each ride I learned a bit more about the people I work with and by extent my fellow Sri Lankans. Despite language barriers, I connected with people through kind smiles, a love of music and chat over movies.
Picture this: A car packed to the brim, four in the back seat (a typical sight) where everyone is feverishly discussing the new Rajinikanth movie: Kabali! It comes out this Friday. Do you have tickets? He’s going to actually play his age for once! The action scenes are going to be out of this world. Where are you watching it? KABALI-da! I haven’t seen a Bollywood film in years, but I enjoyed watching how Rajinikanth’s name still brings people, young and old, out in droves, uniting them over the love of an over-the-top action movie. For those who have no idea, the teaser for Kabali will give you an idea of what I mean by over-the-top:
All the while there is usually a soundtrack to these interactions. Music is a strong part of life here. I hear my coworkers humming songs constantly. There is nothing more revealing than the music you choose to listen to while driving.
A 5-minute drive to Nashville: I am getting dropped off by one of my senior colleagues after a long day at work. As we pull out of the driveway he flicks on the radio and a crooning Jim Reeves singing ‘I Love You Because’ floats out over the airwaves. I had to stifle a giggle. It was so unexpected to hear that distinct voice and sound here, a genre of music I never associated with this place. I chalked it up to a unique taste in music. I quickly came to find out that Jim Reeves is actually extremely popular in Sri Lanka! Imagine my surprise.
Although I spend most of my time at work with colleagues that are well into their 50s, I had a chance to work with a troupe of Sinhala-speaking 20-somethings on field visits just outside of Colombo for three days. Spending about two hours stuck in traffic together will connect people despite any language barriers and especially over music.
Journeying to paddy lands: Day 1 in the minivan consisted of polite smiles and good morning‘s. It wasn’t until the radio was tuned into 92.7 Y FM that I began to understand the cast of characters I was travelling with. Full of boisterous singalongs and laughter overs stories I couldn’t understand, I could tell this was a light-hearted bunch. By Day 2 I became familar with the top hits on the radio, one of which was completely stuck in my head. I had tried to google the song but my attempts proved fruitless. I finally asked and was excitedly told it’s a song from a new band called Civil Voice. By Day 3 every time the song came on they would point at me – it’s your song! By the end of my small trip with this team we became one voice exclaiming Bappage Akkage Duwa!
A week spent driving around gave me a glimpse into life here. With many more car and bus rides to go, I’m excited at the prospect of discovering more. Now excuse me while I try to get that Civil Voice song out of my head.
It’s been two weeks. The city is intoxicating with it’s mix of heat, sweet fruit and cool ocean breeze. But I’m on twitter and I can’t stop refreshing. I hear the sounds of waves crashing against the quay wall. Honking horns and trains blast by below. Next stop: Wellawatte Station. I can see the sun setting, tamil songs float into my apartment and the city is just starting to come alive. But I’m on twitter. I can’t stop refreshing.
Brexit.
Anti-immigrant sentiment.
Anti-Black Lives Matter rhetoric.
Innocent Muslim lives taken.
Anton Sterling.
Philando Castile.
5 officers shot dead.
I can’t stop refreshing.
A lot of what has happened has happened before and will happen again but this feels different. I read in horror as I watch people I know and respect disguise their anti-Black Lives Matter thoughts in backwards thinking that lacks any notion of intersectionality. I feel angry. I feel upset.
A friend here pointed out to me, Do you think that’s how our parents felt? This helplessness of watching your home start to fray at the edges; it’s hidden turmoil bubbling to the surface. Our parents lived a world away while they watched Sri Lanka descend into chaos. I can remember Amma and Appa glued to the TV, waiting for every bit of news, every update. That same yearning to feel connected, to try and make sense of it, I feel it now. I came here to be productive and help build a stronger country, but I feel pulled in two directions.
It’s morning now and I’m rushing out the door for work. The tuk driver is trying to rip me off. Turn right here! Walking briskly beneath ancient trees, I hear unseen birds coo loudly overhead. I sit down at my desk. Colleagues giggling over morning tea. I’m trying to focus but I’m on twitter and I can’t stop refreshing.
