***If anyone else may happen to read this: I’ve never written a blog—have, in fact, never read a blog—and as an instructor of composition, I always stress to my students the importance of considering one’s audience. Since I’m relatively certain the only person who will read this is my mom, I’ll begin each of my posts thusly.
Hey Mom,
First, the pictures. The first is representative of the grueling slog it took to get here. The second is of one of the helpful signs posted around town. The third is of the first organization I've joined since arriving in Sri Lanka.
So, we’ve been here in Colombo a week now, and I figured it fitting to begin with general impressions of the city. There are several constants, no matter what district you’re in. To begin with, it’s stiflingly hot, always. As I walk around, your son is little more than a pasty, sweaty reminder of Sri Lanka’s colonial history (though I suppose only a reminder of the British and Dutch periods, not so much the Portugese), and after having walked around for, say, twenty seconds, I’m second-skinned with sweat and exhaust. That’s another constant, the traffic. Back home, I neglected to appreciate how things are beautifully ordered by successive traffic lights, clearly marked lanes, and wide, signaled crosswalks. While they have those things here, occasionally, they are little more than unconvincing suggestions, resulting in roads about as controlled as the explosion of fireworks, cars and pedestrians embattled in a ceaseless game of chicken. Colombo pedestrians are the bravest people in the world, and you should see them mom! Ambling across the street as if on deserted beaches at sunset, not centimeters away from death. Then, of course, there’s the filth. Colombo is an exceedingly filthy city, the likes of which I’ve never seen. There are places back home where we see litter, sure: on certain highways, for example (despite the best efforts of our Rotary and Kiwanis clubs), in the dark corners of parking lots where dumpsters have boiled over, in trash cans downtown that have reached their limit and trickle crushed coffee cups onto the sidewalk. I’ve yet to see a trash can in Colombo, however. Here, garbage is like foliage. Huge piles of it everywhere, picked over by sickly looking ravens and bone-thin stray dogs (which maraud everywhere in cowering packs), the odd person, here and there, digging through for something of worth (food or otherwise). The teeming trash adds a certain flavor to the city’s smell too, as you might imagine, something like a cross between raw sewage and toe jam. The buildings are also filthy, walls filmed with exhaust, old bills and posters, peeling and rotting, everything baked and pelted by years of intense sun and rain, so there’s something like a uniform grime everywhere you look. I realize these descriptions aren’t exactly seductive (likely not something the Colombo chamber of commerce will adopt for their tourist brochures), but let me say here that in all this there is a kind of beauty to be found, like in the brushstroke-flowering of mold, and I truly love it here thus far. Finally, of course, there’s war. As you well know (“you’re going where!” you worried), Sri Lanka is a country at civil war, and before we came, I wondered what living in such an environment might be like. I didn’t let on to you how utterly terrified I was—I didn’t want you to fret more—but I’ve been very relieved. There’s really little sign of war here, as the devastation is taking place in a tightly confined area hundreds of miles away. The first few days here, in my wanderings—knowing they’ve been targets in the past—every time I passed a bus (of which there are hundreds and hundreds), my television imagination saw them set to explode like terrible flowers, and I winced and braced for my undoing. However, the only signs are the ever-presence of men and boys with machine guns, security checkpoints every few blocks, and the helpful signs posted by the Colombo police department which remind you to “beware of bombs.” In short, Colombo is a vastly dirty, strangely beautiful, vaguely terrifying place to find yourself.
The people are the friendliest I’ve ever met. Everywhere I walk, I’m met with smiles and hellos (even from the heavily armed soldiers), questions of where I’m from, quick, fascinating conversations with other walkers, or taxi and tuk-tuk drivers. For example, the other day I had a very interesting discussion with a taxi driver about cougars. After he’d asked me where I was from, he inquired, “You have cougars in Oregon, no? I have never seen one in life. Only pictures. You call them the mountain lions, no? They are moving very quickly, yes?” Another pedestrian asked me if I liked wrestling. “I am liking the Undertaker very much,” he said. “Can you tell me, is it real. We don’t know. Some say it is, some say it isn’t. I don’t know. You can tell me, are the bodies real?” In another conversation, I was asked: “Why did the CIA kill Kennedy?” I’ve yet to have any substantive conversations with the hotel staff (with the exception of a chef), who are all very friendly to the point of suffocation. I’ve yet to open a door myself, unfold a napkin, summon an elevator, pour a beer, or open a bottle of water inside the walls of this building. They come to clean our apartment everyday (everyday! and we’re here for three months!). It’s so excessive and unnecessary that we turn them away every other day, asking only for supplies of coffee and toilet paper, so that one boy must tell the others all we do is sit around and drink coffee and shit (sorry for the language).
I had meant to post this sooner, but sadly (very sadly) I was distracted by work. Yes, work. You know how much I hate that stuff. A very generous and thoughtful (?) friend of ours, and a colleague of Sandra’s, arranged work for me at one of Sri Lanka’s most prestigious private schools, called St. Thomas College, an all boys school which boasts six former prime ministers and several former mayors of Colombo in its alumni. The second day we were here, I had an interview. An interview! I’ll not go into that business yet, as it’s still being sorted out (with any luck, I will be terminated; I’d terminate me—unless I was Portland Community College J), but for now I’ll share one thing to peak your interest: in this part of the world, ear hair is a thing to envy, and is cultivated to such lengths as can be styled. I’m currently taking vitamins to grow mine.
With Love, Your Son,
Judd
