Challenge

This post could be an interesting one.  I have had about a million thoughts floating around in my head since I arrived in Sri Lanka; the sheer volume of which hasn't really allowed me to process all that I am thinking.  I have done a little bit of journalling to try and make sense of what I am experiencing here, and this is kind of a continuation of that: a sort of verbal purge of all that is in my mind in an attempt to lay it out before me (and you), step back, take a look, and see if I can understand what's in my head.

A day or two before I left, my aunt asked me, "David, what do you hope to gain/experience from your time in Sri Lanka?"  Without hesitation I replied, "I want to be challenged."  Yikes.  If I only knew the full extent of what those words would imply as I threw myself wholly into a different world, to live and love and experience for three (or more) months.  Yes, I am being challenged.

No matter what anyone did tell me, or could have told me, despite what I read and studied, I don't think I could have prepared myself for my first experience living in a different culture.  Everything here forces me out of my comfort and requires me to alter the way I think about things.  I was trying to put my thoughts into picture form: I feel like I have suddenly been forced into a wheel chair after a lifetime of knowing how to walk.  I look around and see people walking, even running, and I know that I know how to walk and run as well, but here I cannot.  Rather, I am stuck in this wheel chair, being pushed around by those who can walk and run freely.  My mobility is limited, I am restricted to studying these walkers from my wheel chair, hoping that I can pick up cues and habits that might enable me to walk with the same strength that I formally knew.  But for now, I simply go where I am pushed.

Obviously, the biggest challenge is the language.  There are plenty of people here who speak English with enough fluency that I can have uninhibited conversation, however, the feeling of being "on the outside" is never far away.  If I am in a group of people, the likelihood of all of them speaking conversational English is slight, so the conversation naturally falls into Sinhala.  I have a little Sinhala-English phrasebook that has allowed me some hilarious conversations, in which most of the time is spent flipping furiously between pages, trying to piece together some semblance of communication.  They are usually quite pleased with my efforts.  I have found a "Learn Sinhala" website that I hope will be allow me more conversation and a less time blankly staring at people.

I think I am pretty much over my jet lag now.  But fatigue is never far away.  It is incredibly exhausting to live in a completely different culture.  All my natural, Canadian-born inclinations, must be checked, adapted, and then evaluated to make sure that my actions were culturally acceptable.  Some of the adaptations I think I am doing quite well at.  For instance, I don't use utensils anymore.  Everyone in Sri Lanka eats with their right hand.  My first attempt to eat Sri Lanka style involved diving in, North-American-hamburger-and-fries style, with both hands.  Quiet laughter and a gentle rebuke informed me that I should leave my left hand in my lap.  The left hand apparently has a historical function that is not conducive to eating!  Lesson learned.  Despite wanting to eat with my hands my entire life, it is a lot more difficult than expected!  Believe it or not, there is a proper way to put food in your mouth with your hand...maybe I can give you a demo when I get back.

Other things that are culturally "other to me:
-A girl asked how old I was and I replied, "22," to which she replied, "I thought you were older, about 27 or 28, because you are so tall and so fat!"  hmmm....I don't think I have ever been called fat in my entire life.  My host figures she meant "in shape."
-It is not uncommon for men to hold hands
-Average meal times: Breakfast - 9 am; Lunch 2 pm; Supper 9 pm
-They don't really eat meat here
-I have eaten rice for every meal since being here, except yesterday I ate KFC for lunch
-Schedule?  What's a schedule?
-I have seen a grand total of 3 white people since I have been here.  I visited a village where some little boys ran around yelling "SUDHA, SUDHA!" My host informed me that I might be the first "sudha" (white man) that they have seen.

One difference that has really quite affected me is there views over how one should dress and look.  Imagine with me a country where the the temperature is usually over 25 degrees Celsius, and the majority of work is done outdoors, or in open air shops.  You would think that shorts and t-shirts would be a common sight....WRONG!  For whatever reason, most of the men where dress pants and dress shirts.  The older, working class men wear sarongs (skirt like garments), and a lot of the women dress in saris (just google it), but the majority of men wear hot cotton dress pants and collared, stifling, button up shirts.  I think most of you know me well enough to know that this is NOT MY STYLE!  I have been able to get away with shorts and t-shirt most of the time (I think because I am a young white man, given some allowances because I am obviously not part of the culture) but I feel as though I might eventually have to give in to this uncomfortable looking fashion.  It did not take me long to realize that the "clean-cut" business-man style is the norm here.  Once again, not my style.  However, I made up my mind long before I set foot on this island, that I wanted to try to be a part of their culture as much as I could.  This meant gut check time for me (some of you might see where this is going).  I made a thousand arguments in my head to try and get my own way, but basically, as such a stranger to this culture, I don't want to offend anyone, without understanding anything that people were saying I want to know that when they were staring, it is because I am white and not because I have/had dreads.....

see post below