Buffalos, thunder and suicide bombs

You may need to brace yourself for this one, I know .... I have no photos from Sri Lanka. Zero, zilch, not a single one. Instead, they are all permanently ingrained in the singular confines of my memory, which is fine, except that while I usually let the pictures do the talking, you now have to put up with me doing it myself. So here goes:

One week in Sri Lanka according to my phone (received minute-by-minute via SMS thanks to the US govs travel registry, generally used for dangerous travel zones ...):

• "Ship taking food supplies to Mullaitivu, civilians come under LTTE artillery attack in Puthumatalan, no damages to ship"
• "Bomb blast in Akuressa near Matara"
• "More than four persons killed and several injured in bomb blast at a public function in Ajuressa"
• "Seven persons killed and several injured, including Minister M.W., says Minister F., adding that Minister A.A. was not injured in blast"
• "Army captures Puthukuddirippu hospital, restricting LTTE to 35 square kilometre area. Air craft tyres, engine, spare parts found buried"
• "Girl reported abuducted last week found dead in overtaken LTTE bunker"
• "Minister M.S. says strongly rejects comment by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that 2,800 civilians killed since January 20"

One week in Sri Lanka according to my peepers, my schnoz and my belly:

• Arrive expecting something similiar to India. Not that I've ever been to India either, but I've heard enough from people who have to be stuck with the stereotype of crowded, chaotic, dirty, smelly ... The little that I saw of Sri Lanka hardly resembles anything of the sort ... and the locals will be just as quick as you to stereotype India using the abovementioned adjectives.

• Humidity. Stifling humidity. At one point I walked out of my (A/C equipped) room and honestly thought that someone had just finished taking a hot shower in the adjacent bathroom. Took me about 3 minutes to figure out that was just the air.

• Thunder, lightening, tropical rain. The kind that is warm and fun to run down the street in. Except that you see the lightening at the exact same time as the thunder practically blows the windows out and you realise that might not be such a good idea. They call this rain season. Every single day.

• Yasumiri. My latest adoptive grandmother, tasked by the big boss with cooking meals for me. All day, every day. Picture Christmas/Thanksgiving feast every meal of every day for a week. Now recall that at Sri Lankan breakfast time, it is approximately 3AM according to my body clock, meaning that I have absolutely NO appetite whatsoever. No matter. My Sinhalese vocabulary includes about 2 words, and her English vocabulary included all of "EAT, Alanna Miss, EAT!!", immediately followed by ginormous second and third servings plopped before your fooded-out eyes.

• The sweat of spice. Yasumiri was not just my cook, she was my secret culinary bodyguard. Little did I know she was protecting me from all spices harmful until we had a "real" Sri Lankan meal. Take a minute and conjure up an image of a pro-basketball player post-game - that was just about precisely the state of my face.

• Buffalo. They're big, they're slow and when they want to cross the road, you just wait for them and their curly horns to get a move on ... or, if you're feeling particularly brave, you drive through them.

• Oh, yeah, we're in a war zone. Despite the trip's objective being work related, I'm sent (conscientiously) on a tourist visa. Day before leaving, get panicked call from Sri Lankan colleague saying the another very prominent NGO person was kicked out for having been working there on a tourist visa only - fan-freaking-tastic. So what do they decide to do? Tell me to "dress like a tourist", i.e. ditch the suitcase for a backpack, wear flip-flops and carry a guidebook. Not matter that my bag is bursting at the seams with a laptop and every kind of paper you can imagine with European Commission and UN letterhead and research on Sri Lanka ...and no matter that every mandatory stop-and-search at military check-point conveniently placed every 10 kilometres had me quickly trained as pro in the fine art of frantically stashing everything under the seat and then casually batting those long lashes. Even if their sandbag and lop-sided corrogated aluminum roof bunkers did look like something off of Gulligan's island, I didn't particularly care to test them ...

• Feet of iron. Or so I tried to tell myself. I understand that shoes may not be allowed in Buddhist temples, but no shoes anywhere in the vicinity?? Imagine parking half a mile away from the temple in a GRAVEL parking lot in 90 degree sun and being told that you have to leave your shoes in the car. Smile and nod, my dear! You're really feeling like the weakling white Westerner as you notice no one else seems the least bit bothered by this act of self-inflicting torture and thus suck it up best you can, concluding that walking on burning coals can't be that bad after all.

And that, my dears, was the little I saw of Sri Lanka amidst piles and piles of work ...