Lord Buddha’s Wish

When I am in the house watching a movie I feel like I could just as easily be at home, but then I will remember that the mosquito on my leg might give me denque and, if I want to wash my dish I’ll have to go outside which means I must first find my key to unlock the door, along with the 2 bolts.
Rich is so different here. As I said with the poor people dressing very well and having cell phones, the rich people have mould on their walls, ants on their kitchen counter, and cockroaches in their bathrooms.
I was talking to Rohan (or Aiyaa, older brother) and he was explaining to me they eat meat because the Buddhist writings say they can’t kill another living thing but doesn’t mention eating it if someone else has killed it.
Lucky for me both my weekday and weekend families eat mostly fish only in their curry so it suits me well. The food blows my mind at every meal. Most of the time Pearl spends about 2 hours making red rice, dhal & coconut curry. For a change she makes rotti or hoppers (like a thin pancake with an egg in the center). The meals are very healthy if you avoid the sugary tea and ice cream they try to load you up with after. They also LOVE to feed you plantains. “Eat some plantains” they say after almost every tea, which is 4 or 5 times a day.
The gender thing is bugging me a bit, mostly the fact that men drink and women can’t (they say they don’t want to but if it was that simple then they wouldn’t be criticizing the ones that do). Sometimes I hold my tongue, more because it will take more effort to translate my opinion than to avoid offending. Pearl understands that there are pros and cons for both cultures. For example, she doesn’t judge what Western girls wear because I think she gets that women are safer in Canada. But, she did say that her daughter and the INDECOS girls would never be silly enough to wear a bathing suit.
And she also made a comment once about how they would not be silly enough to marry an uneducated man. It’s hard to explain that my bf is not university educated and that I am. I guess the fact that University tuition is covered by government scholarships means that University graduates have more money, rather than less, and are guaranteed to get a better job. You definitely see the caste system still, showing up in how people talk to each other and where they eat, but mostly in marriage. Even more powerful than the caste, though, is the horoscope. Parents would not permit “children” to marry unless the horoscope matches well.
Pearl and Conrad were actually an exception because they dated secretly for 10 years, not caring what anyone said, before they finally convinced their parents to let them marry. The problem for them was not the usual horoscope dilemma but the fact that they are first cousins! I don’t think they think as much about this because believing in reincarnation it just makes sense to them that they would know each other already. Part of Pearl’s prayers every night actually includes asking to be with Conrad and her children in the next life. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s throwing me in the prayer mix now too because she says that travellers like me are people looking for family from the birth before.
Partly this experience makes me want to volunteer everywhere and partly it makes me not want to go to any other assignment – another country or even town, because I think I am being spoiled to the max with this one. It’s partly the Sri Lankan People’s hospitality in general but, in addition to this, I think it is this particular family that I somehow was lucky fell into.
Pearl always laughs when I talk about luck, “Not luck. Lord Buddha’s wish. We tink like tat.”