Exodus

After our Northern Tour we had one week left in Kandy followed by two nights in Colombo. As Dan continued translation with Thilak I planned how to dissolve the household, piling yoga mats, canned food, and various utensils in the empty living room for the “free tag sale,” I had planned for the middle of the week. We had promised the blender to one friend, the water purification system to another, and the slingshot to someone else, so I arranged for everyone to come to the house two days before our departure to collect their loot. On the appointed day people came buy to collect their items and say goodbye. Delia, my friend from Goenka, came by just after lunch. After she selected the food she wanted and set the yoga mats aside we sat on the porch for tea. “What do you think you’re going to miss about this place?” I asked. She paused for a moment before replying. “The lush green,” she replied. “It’s green here all the time, the trees and bushes are always in bloom.”
“It is lush and green,” I conceded. “But I miss the seasons,” I countered.
“What do you think you’ll miss?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I replied. “Really, I’ll have to get back to you on that once I get home,” I finished, shrugging.
“I’m about ready to go too,” she agreed.
“I hope you come and visit in the States,” I told her sincerely, with a pang of sadness that I was leaving and she would still be there.
“For sure,” she replied nodding. “I am thinking about the landscape architecture
Program at UVA, so I’ll want to come and check that out for sure,” she re-assured me as the doorbell rang and I rose to let in one of the scholars who lived down the street to get the blender.

At the end of the day Malik came and took everything leftover and bought our washing machine. He lingered in our empty dining room asking us about our travel plans and filling us in on his. “Tomorrow I am going to France, my wife and daughter, they are already there” he began, “Perhaps this time I will stay,” he remarked sadly.
“And leave all this?” I teased.
“This government is very bad,” he explained, “the tourists have not been coming, they are not coming,” he finished wearily. He seemed sad, almost defeating by the ongoing problems. We promised that when we returned to Kandy we would stay at one of his hotels and he smiled. “Yes, and if you come to France, email me. Come and stay with us,” he told us happily. “We will meet again,” he added as we walked him to the door and he headed up the steps to his van waiting at the road.

We spent the next day settling the phone bill and shipping boxes. To ship Dan’s three banker’s boxes worth of books we loaded them into Manju’s three-wheeler and headed down the hill to the Buddhist Publication Society, the Buddhist equivalent of a Christian bookstore. This “Christian bookstore” was the biggest bookstore in town and government subsidized, carrying a large selection of titles in both English and Sinhala as well as small selections in German, French, and Japanese. As Dan made the arrangements with the manager I perused titles in the English section such as “A Buddhist Response to Contemporary Dilemmas of Human Existence,” and “Buddhism and the God-idea,” then “The Smile of the Cloth and the Discourse on Effacement,” followed by “Transcendental Dependent Arising,” and “Matrceta’s Hymn to the Buddha.” I realized that I had no idea what most of these books were talking about. I felt incredibly ignorant of the tradition as the title “Maha Kaccana: Master of Doctrinal Exposition,” jumped out at me. “What the hell is that?” I worried and began to feel overwhelmed. I felt as though every title came straight at me completely unfiltered, I had no ability to judge what might be an insightful book and what was likely to be garbage. I had no ability to critically evaluate whatever the author said about Buddhism. Just like my experience at Goenka, whatever the writer suggested about Buddhism would become true for me. It struck me that in an actual Christian bookstore I would probably be able to at least understand the vast majority of the titles of the books and could probably pick out something that might interest me.

“Find anything you like?” Dan asked, coming up behind me.
“I was thinking of picking up a copy of ‘Self-Made Private Prison,’” I replied. “Do you think it’s a how-to guide?” I asked sarcastically.
“Take a look at ‘Buddha: The Super-Scientist of Peace,’” Dan replied, “That’s by your friend Goenka,” he finished as I rolled my eyes. “And what about Buddhism and Sex?” Dan joked, pointing to another title.
“Hmm…”and I replied, “Is that the embodiment of the rich history of Buddhist sexuality?” I asked laughing. “This stuff is all really overwhelming,” I continued, “Some of it is crap and some of it isn’t and I can’t tell the difference, except for ‘Buddhism and Sex’ that is. Even I can tell that’s weak.”
“If you want to read books on Buddhism,” Dan answered, “Don’t worry about these, most of these are translations of Sinhala texts, commentaries on Sinhala texts, and monks trying to tame a renunciant tradition and make it something palatable for mom and dad. It’s not the best way to really learn about Buddhism,” he explained as we left and got back in the three-wheeler.

On the way back up the hill I thought about how life in America would be different when we got back. “Would I want to go back to the yoga studio with all of the chanting in Sanskrit and pictures of Hindu gods everywhere?” I wondered. Yoga suddenly seemed too foreign, too much like Sri Lanka and the Buddhist Publication Society. I hadn’t done yoga at home since getting back from Goenka. Yoga seemed too much like Goenka, focusing on my breath, clearing my mind, and experiencing my inner world head-on. “When I get home I just want to run,” I commented to Dan as we walked back down the steps to our house. “I want to run and maybe lift weights but not even nautilus weights, I just want to pick up heavy objects. Just really simple stuff,” I finished.
“I’d like to join the gym too,” Dan agreed, opening the door. “And maybe I should start going to church,” I mused to myself as I changed from my outside shoes to my inside slippers.

I had heard the term “reverse culture shock,” but I didn’t really know what it meant before. I had never thought of my return to the States as anything other than indulgence in my favorite restaurants and having my car back. Sitting down at my computer after the trip to the Buddhist Publication Society and looking up the worship schedule at the local Unitarian Church, I suddenly realized that returning to Charlottesville was not going to be all unpacking my favorite clothes and kissing the floor at Target. I remembered one of Dan’s professors telling me that after he came back from a year in India as an undergrad he just had to party really hard in New York, just to see if I existed. I could understand that now. I could see how he would be driven to root himself back into his home culture. “Of course I’m going to be different, that makes sense,” I reminded myself. I had just assumed that I would be different in some sort of wise, more serene way, not different in a burned-out and alienated way.

On May 12th, 2007, the hired van pulled up in front of the house. We put our two big backpacks and our two roller bags in the back, put our carry-on bags in the front, and pulled away from 65 Rajapihilla Mawatha. As we drove down the hill and along the lake I concentrated on the scenery, memorizing the curve of the lake, the tree full of huge bats, the white, rolling, parapet wall meant to evoke clouds. “I can’t believe we are really leaving,” Dan remarked. “I can,” I answered definitively. “I feel like I have been here forever. Seriously. I can remember sitting on the porch and thinking ‘when is this going to end?’” I joked. Dan chuckled, we pulled out our respective iPods, and settled in for the three hour journey to the Galle Face Hotel.

“Now here’s something I’ll miss,” I commented as the doorman opened the heavy teak door for us to enter the cream-colored Regency lobby. The porters immediately began attacking the heavy luggage. I indicated which bag should be brought to the room and explained that the other three should be stored for the next two nights as Dan went to the reception desk. While Dan checked in I sank down into one of the olive-colored raw silk couches and watched the sun sparkle on the Gulf of Mannar through the glass. “You’re not going to believe this,” Dan said coming up behind me. “They upgraded us to a suite.”
“No shit,” I replied, stupefied. “I love this place.”
“This is a great hotel,” Dan agreed, helping me up out of the soft couch. “And it is one of the few places that doesn’t have different local and foreign rates. They charge everyone the same and it seems that they reward their frequent customers,” he continued as we followed the porter with our bag towards the polished copper door of the elevator.

The Ocean Suite occupied the half of the south wing of the hotel with a straight-on ocean view along the back wall and a view of the sea as well as into the courtyard, the north wing of the hotel, and up the Galle Face Green on the sidewall. There was a sitting area with a TV tastefully hidden from view in a teak armoire against a waist-high wall. The teak headboard of the bed rested against the other side of the wall, facing the courtyard with the sea-view to the left. The red marble bathroom featured an enormous white porcelain Jacuzzi for two. A window into the bedroom allowed the bather to look straight out through the bedroom windows out over the Gulf of Mannar. “It’s amazing,” I breathed. The porter installed the bag on the teak luggage stand, Dan gave him a tip, and then we were alone in the room.

After resting in the room for the afternoon we met Elaine at the bar of the big modern hotel across the street. We all got drunk on mojitos and discussed the worsening state of frustration and ineffectiveness that plagued her current project for a large international NGO. She explained that the problem was more on the level of the regional director as opposed to her native staff in Colombo. “I mean, after all, most of my staff is Muslim,” she explained, which I knew meant that her local staff were hard workers and weren’t at fault for problems with the project. I understood her comment the same way as if she had told me her staff was all-German I would have known they were on-time and precise. I realized that if she were trying to explain the situation to someone from America, someone who had never been to Sri Lanka, that person would not understand that Muslims are considered the most conscientious workers and it was a major bonus to have a majority Muslim native staff.

“Do you ever speak Tamil or Sinhala when you aren’t at work?” Dan asked her after our third round arrived.
“No, never.” She replied immediately. “I speak in English except when I am in the field. And to my three wheeler drivers,” she added.
“When I first learned Sinhala I used to speak to everyone, hotel staff, waiters, grocery store clerks” Dan replied, “because I wanted to practice. I wanted to reach out to people and charm people. But now, I only use it when I am interviewing for my project or with our drivers. No matter how well I speak the language I will always belong to another place. I will always have that ticket back to America and they don’t,” he finished as Elaine nodded in sympathy. I marveled at how completely the three of us understood each other and how effortlessly we could process the environment amongst ourselves. “Pretty soon we are going to be in a place where people don’t understand why it’s good to have a Muslim hotel owner,” I commented. “When we get back to America it’s not like anyone is going to understand how creepy it was to see young Sinhala men with Russian women falling all over them at the high-end hotel near Sigiriya,” I continued.
“Going back is tough,” Elaine confirmed.
“Not too many people really understand what you’ve been through,” Dan explained. “They think that it’s been like a really long vacation and maybe you’re homesick, but what you’ve gone through is so much bigger.”
“Right,” I replied. “And I’m not going back to where I came from,” I explained to Elaine. “Dan and I didn’t live together before moving to Sri Lanka, so I’m not going home to my old house and my old job. All my stuff is in Dan’s basement and I’m not going to work nights anymore. That was fine when I was single, but it’s tough when you are in a relationship.”
“It sounds like you have some transition ahead of you,” Elaine agreed as we finished our drinks.

When Elaine called her driver we walked her to the carport of the hotel. “You guys have been my support here,” she told us, “I’m really going to miss you.”
“You know,” I replied, “We’ve been saying goodbye to people for days. I had no idea we had so many friends here until it was time to leave.”
“It sneaks up on you,” she replied laughing as her driver pulled up. We hugged her goodbye before heading back across the street to our suite at the Galle Face. “I hope she isn’t here when we get back,” I remarked to Dan once we were back inside the Galle Face lobby. “Even though it would be great to see her again, I hope she has moved on to a better country, some place she can have more fulfilling work and be happier.”
“Everyone wants to leave,” Dan replied. “And I do think it would be good for Elaine to get out of here,” he agreed as the climbed the teak stairs to the Ocean Suite.

We spent the next day sleeping in and lounging by the pool. After watching the sunset from the Jacuzzi we enjoyed a final dinner at The 1864 restaurant with all of our favorites. After our final breakfast buffet on the terrace we packed the bag and loaded into the airport express van for the 30-minute trip to the airport. The driver took a shortcut through some of the most decrepit parts of the city. Even though it was depressing, Colombo had become familiar. Somehow going home to Charlottesville seemed like just as much of a leap as coming to Sri Lanka. “Remember how when we first met I was all nervous, wondering if you would ask me to come to Sri Lanka with you?” I asked Dan as our van sat in gridlock traffic next to a vacant lot that had become a local landfill.
“I bet you think that’s pretty funny now don’t you?” he joked.
“Yeah, I do,” I confirmed, smiling and taking his hand.
“Now do you understand why I said that before I met you I was seriously considering turning this grant down?” He asked.
“Yes, I get it now,” I replied. “I couldn’t have imagined it before, but I get it now. You’d have been so isolated without me.”
“It would have been terrible,” he agreed as the van started to move again. “Right now I just want to get home and start writing,” he finished, leaning his head on my shoulder.