Culture Clash: Earth, Air and Storms.
Apr. 12th, 2008 07:55 pmIt's storming here beautifully. I was sleeping and the crash of thunder woke up me, dragged me out of bed to press my nose against the window mesh. I've got both windows thrown open to their utmost and I'm waiting, waiting, waiting for night to fall so that I can see the lightning crash against a dark sky instead of the pale yellow-grey that the sky is now.
It makes me miss Sri Lanka. No country has storms like Sri Lanka does, especially during the monsoon season.
It's cold here in Wellesley, but the storm makes me want to put on a reddha (basically a piece of cloth wrapped around your body, kind of like a tube dress but casual and made of cotton) and dance under the rain.
You can do that in Sri Lanka. I did that at my grandmother's house for the first time. My mother and I both wore reddhas -- it wouldn't have been as much fun in a t-shirt and shorts -- and went out into the garden. The dirt is red in Sri Lanka. It's not brown like Vienna or Wellesley but red, like cinnamon powdered into the earth itself. When the rain came, it made the mud terracotta red-brown as well and I stomped my feet against the ground and watched it splash up and cling to my ankles.
I whirled in circles under the rain. Again and again and again and I remember how the rain felt. I was only seven, but I remember the sheer joy of being out there in a storm and being warm and drenched and laughing. My mother danced with me and my grandmother watched.
Then the jugguru-jugguru driver came and my mother ran shrieking inside the house, embarrassed to be seen in a garment that clung to her so. I stayed outside and talked to the driver because I love riding in jugguru-jugguru's. My mother hates them but every trip to Sri Lanka, I insist on being allowed to ride in them at least once. There's no air conditioning, the roadside dirt can hit you so easily, the drivers take crazy risks and my mother once saw one get hit by a van and bowled completely over but... They're part of what makes Sri Lanka Sri Lanka to me. That, and the way that the air smells different to Boston and Vienna.
Boston and Vienna both smell the same unless you head down to the seaside in Boston. Sri Lanka's different. It's hot, it's humid and people burn fires in their backyards. Or front yards. The smoke fills the air and the cows and cats and dogs wander the streets freely. Whenever I step out of the airport, one of the first things that hits me about Sri Lanka -- after the heat -- is the smell. My nose adjusts quickly and I forget it within a few hours but the first physical shock of the air being different is one of those things that makes me know I'm in Sri Lanka now.
There are a lot of things that drive me crazy about Sri Lanka but the air smells different, the dirt is red and you can dance in the rain.
It makes me miss Sri Lanka. No country has storms like Sri Lanka does, especially during the monsoon season.
It's cold here in Wellesley, but the storm makes me want to put on a reddha (basically a piece of cloth wrapped around your body, kind of like a tube dress but casual and made of cotton) and dance under the rain.
You can do that in Sri Lanka. I did that at my grandmother's house for the first time. My mother and I both wore reddhas -- it wouldn't have been as much fun in a t-shirt and shorts -- and went out into the garden. The dirt is red in Sri Lanka. It's not brown like Vienna or Wellesley but red, like cinnamon powdered into the earth itself. When the rain came, it made the mud terracotta red-brown as well and I stomped my feet against the ground and watched it splash up and cling to my ankles.
I whirled in circles under the rain. Again and again and again and I remember how the rain felt. I was only seven, but I remember the sheer joy of being out there in a storm and being warm and drenched and laughing. My mother danced with me and my grandmother watched.
Then the jugguru-jugguru driver came and my mother ran shrieking inside the house, embarrassed to be seen in a garment that clung to her so. I stayed outside and talked to the driver because I love riding in jugguru-jugguru's. My mother hates them but every trip to Sri Lanka, I insist on being allowed to ride in them at least once. There's no air conditioning, the roadside dirt can hit you so easily, the drivers take crazy risks and my mother once saw one get hit by a van and bowled completely over but... They're part of what makes Sri Lanka Sri Lanka to me. That, and the way that the air smells different to Boston and Vienna.
Boston and Vienna both smell the same unless you head down to the seaside in Boston. Sri Lanka's different. It's hot, it's humid and people burn fires in their backyards. Or front yards. The smoke fills the air and the cows and cats and dogs wander the streets freely. Whenever I step out of the airport, one of the first things that hits me about Sri Lanka -- after the heat -- is the smell. My nose adjusts quickly and I forget it within a few hours but the first physical shock of the air being different is one of those things that makes me know I'm in Sri Lanka now.
There are a lot of things that drive me crazy about Sri Lanka but the air smells different, the dirt is red and you can dance in the rain.
