Sri Lanka Journal - Entry #3

[Note: To begin this series with Entry #1, scroll down.]

It is Saturday and the plane is 30 minutes from landing at Colombo. This flight began like the other marathon--several minutes of seat-shuffling--but this aircraft has more leg room and so I get a better night's rest.

And now I am here. Bhante (see photo) met me outside the terminal, which is clean, air conditioned, and 1st world. His driver (see photo) Sadath was orbiting the terminal and came quickly when Bhante summoned him by cell phone.

Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital city, is Asian-metro with a touch of Mexico-style poverty. Lots of open-front workshops with sparks from men grinding metals and sidewalk sales nooks stuffed with small items, soft drinks and lotions and packets of dry noodles, like a Sri Lankan version of a convenience store. The streets teemed with motor bikes and Toyotas, plus swarms of 3-wheeled cars that seemed to constitute the local taxi corps.

We made a few business stops as Bhante organized his event for next Wednesday, February 25. One stop was the HQ of the Sri Lankan National Lottery Board, where I met Ashok Witharana, whose title is "Additional General Manager." (See photo.) The AGM is a big supporter of Bhante and it was obvious from the deference he showed that my friend the monk was indeed, as his official title indicates, "venerable." The Lottery Board is housed in a concrete edifice that looks like an old government building anywhere in the world, except it sits with its back to the beach and the blue-green Indian Ocean. I got my first glimpse of this new ocean (for me) out of the windows of Ashok's second-floor office. He exchanged a few pleasantries with Bhante, then a young Sri Lankan girl and her family shuffled in to meet the Venerable guest. (Bhante, of course, not me.) They were Buddhists, so one-by-one they snuck in a full bow to the floor to touch Bhante's sandals, a gesture of ultimate respect.

The little girl was about eight or nine, dark eyed and keely intelligent. She had just earned a Lottery Board scholarship to help her family pay for expenses as she continued her education in private school. Her speciality, I learned, was English, and she brightened when I spoke directly to her in my American accent and thanked her for studying my native language.

.After another winding trek through Colombo's maddening traffic, we arrived at the Vishva Niketan Center (see photo), which is a smaller, Sri Lankan version of California's Asilomar. Lovely tropical grounds, scents of incense and curry in the distance, and no air conditioning or screens on the windows. You get a mosquito net and a fan.

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More later...