leaving yet again.

I just met a lady who was cleaning the bathrooms here at the airport. Sri Lanka tour over? She asked. Yes, I said. Going back to London. London. Ah. She said. Have you been there? I asked. But really, I knew the answer to that one. So I jumped in with India. Have you been to India? Nooo. Live Negumbo. She said. It is the city closest to the airport.

A lot of people have never left Sri Lanka. Most of the people I have met. The cultured and multi lingual guide on my tour, Lakshen, had only been to India because his girlfriend, now his wife went to university in Poona. The owner of the hotel I have just been staying in Bentota told me that it is very hard for anyone from Sri Lanka to get a visa anywhere outside of South East Asia. So Europe or America is a pipe dream for them.

I have three passports. I think it is legal. I always had a British one. I got an American one when I had been living over there for a number of years and felt that it was important to vote. I got an Irish one, based on my having been born in Dublin, last year. Because the sadness I felt over the Brexit Vote to leave Europe has not subsided. I don’t take it for granted. I remember the hard process to get my American passport and I had a lot going for me. And the present world is full of people risking everything on boats or through deserts to get to a land where they have no sure way of being able to stay. It is one of the great things about traveling the world is that the ground under you never stays stable. If you steer clear of the 5 star living, then the ground rules of the community you are visiting will show themselves quickly.

Most Sri Lankans are just so happy to smile and push their children forward to shake your hand and try out their school English.

I met a woman yesterday who got off her pink bike and after finding out where I was from wanted my address. Why? I said. Are you going to write to me? Then she started to say that she wanted to repair her house. I didn’t have much with me. What do mean? I asked. Money for a new roof? She smiled and tilted her head. I don’t know you, was my response. She didn’t seem fussed. I went on walking. She passed me on her pink bicycle and waved, saying Good bye. Smiling as she went. Odd really. Just trying it on I think. Charming in it’s own way.

Sri Lanka is really trying, with a new hard working primeminister, to take care of their own. There are no pensions and there probably will never be enough money in the depleted kitty to have any. The pay is low. The lovely lady who gave me a couple of Ayurvedic treatments works daily at a fancy shmancy hotel where she does at least 7 female customers a day and she is paid 18,000 rupees for the month. ( $61/ 48 pounds GBP)

The noble and wonderful Shiva who took us for Hikes in the mountains around Heptale used to work as a salesman in the textile industry. Before he came back to take care of his wife after she had gone into depression after losing a baby. His pay then was 3,600 rupees ($ 12.20 /10 pounds GBP) He has built his house out from a one room hut into a house with a separate kitchen and two bedrooms. So now with his salary of 600 rupees a day for the hiking ($ 2./ 1.61GBP) he told me with a quiet pride that now he was middle class.

There is an echo here of the dignity I found in the Cambodian people. Self contained. Honest. Proud. Trodden on, but intact. Gentle. Kind.

The children all go to school from 7.30 till 1.00. School is free for everyone. As are the unforms. Every child gets two every year. Here in Sri Lanka the uniforms are white , white white. Symbol of their optimism that every thing will work out somehow.