By jeep and by tuk tuk through Sri Lanka - A traveller's vignette #3: a roof with a view.
Our driver's level of English was good, but not excellent, and he struggled with our Aussie accents. It took some time to develop a rapport, but he warmed to us when we began asking him questions about his life, his family and so on.
What happened next was a little disturbing to begin with. Instead of driving through the town we were in and back to our hotel, he ducked down a side street and stopped outside a small bakery. Without a word of explanation he went in and made a purchase, returned to the van and drove on, still with no explanation of what he was doing. Then we were in the back streets of the town and we really were flummoxed as to what he was doing. We pulled up outside a small house and he announced we were at his family home and that he'd like us to see it and meet his family. A little concerned that our polite enquiries had been interpreted as a request to see his home and family, we cautiously went inside, where clearly we were expected. One of his numerous phone calls must have been to call home and ask them to prepare for guests.
The front room containing the comfortable chairs had been vacated for our benefit, and glasses of refreshing cool drinks handed to us. Cake that he had purchased from the bakery was sliced and handed around as well. We met his father, who was staying with him at the time, his sister and her two daughters, the girls both extremely shy but smiling and giggling all the while. Having western guests was something out of the ordinary, it seemed.
The hospitality was cheerfully extended to us, but they themselves would not participate in the eating of cake or of the drinking, and we all wondered how much cost and trouble we were causing them, especially as it seemed to be possibly the result of a slight misunderstanding. They all seemed quite comfortable with the arrangement however and went to some pains to show us the roof of their house: it was all very modest by our standards, but they were very proud of it and the view it afforded, and we did our best to show our admiration of their home.
Out the front of their home as we were leaving I pointed out to Mrs MLCMM a thorned fern growing beside the house that also grows as a particularly obnoxious perennial weed at our house which we're always struggling to get rid of. This gesticulation was mistaken as a request for a cutting, and more trouble was taken by them to cut the best part of the plant and present it to us as a gift, which we accepted with the best grace we could muster. Funnily enough, the next day, having left the cutting sitting in our hotel room, we returned to find the cleaners had taken the trouble to place it in a glass of water for us. We didn't have the heart then to throw it out until we left, carefully hiding it among other rubbish lest it was seen and thereby labelling us as callous, heartless bastards from Australia.
This generosity and hospitality among relatively poor people was frequently in evidence and really very humbling. There seemed to be no limit to the amount of trouble they would go to for us. As another example, one of our drivers had to attend a wedding in the evening, but despite our protestations wouldn't countenance leaving us until he was quite certain there was nothing more we wanted to see or do and that there was absolutely no other service he could provide for us that evening. By western standards the level of hospitality extended to us in Sri Lanka was beyond belief. That it was freely given even by complete strangers who really have every right to be a little aggrieved at the economic disparity between themselves and the west, wonderfully restored my faith in the basic goodness of humanity. And this is in a country ravaged by 26 years of civil war that killed tens of thousands, and a devastating tsunami that killed 35,000 more.
As I stood on that rooftop of our driver's home, I tried to come to terms with the contrast between the pride our host showed in his modest house and my embarrassment at what we would consider little more than a rather ordinary beach shack; but I also had to recognise that this was actually middle class by Sri Lankan standards, hence their pride and willingness to show it to us. It was a world I didn't, and perhaps can't properly comprehend. They were happy, and grateful for what they had, perhaps because of the troubles the country has been through in recent decades. It's a proud country, and rightly so. They're now getting back on their feet, and whilst there aren't too many signs of overt wealth, the first hints are there. The occasional Mercedes, the glitter of gold iPhones and the flash of designer clothes can certainly be seen in Colombo, the biggest city. Chinese money is pouring in, and western fast food outlets and chain stores are proliferating. The wealth this brings is overdue, to be sure, but we will have to hope the innate pride and hospitality of the people remains untarnished.
Fab Fun Feb
