Colombo Again

I wasn't going to post today, but I'm in the St. Michael's office, and Fr. Dushantha is being interviewed for a newspaper right behind me. I don't really want to barge past to get out, and so I'll tell you about my last couple days in Chilaw.

I really enjoyed my time there. Fr. Sam was really friendly and very good about answering questions - and I had a lot of questions! A lot of what we were doing was going around to the cluster group prayer meetings that happen once a month. At. St. James they have divided the congregation up into clusters based on regions, so people who live near each other will be in the same cluster. Once a month they gather for a prayer meeting with Fr. Sam - they sing some praise songs (including several I knew from Sunday School, including "This is the Day that the Lord Has Made" and "He Will Enter His Gates With Thanksgiving". The services were all in Sinhala or Tamil, but where there were English speakers, they would sing one verse in English (I joined in with gusto!).

These meetings were all in people's homes, so I got an interesting look at how the ordinary people live in a rural village like Chilaw. As you might expect, there was great diversity, from some houses that were clearly very big and well appointed, through to some very very small dwellings. Everyone was super hospitable though, and happily for me, made a point of making sure I had a fan blowing on me!

Fr. Sam thought it would be good if I wore my cassock when I was going around with him, and people got quite the kick out of the fact that it was black. The priests here all wear white cassocks with black cinctures, so to see an all black cassock was quite shocking for people!

Last night we went to a parishioner's house for supper, and boy was that an inter-cultural experience! It was the house of one of the youth leaders in the parish, and his extended family. There was a young boy there who I made friends with - he brought me all his toys, one by one, and patiently showed this dumb foreigner how each of them worked! He chatted away to me in Tamil like I knew what he was saying, and I just talked back to him in English. A kid that age, I doubt I would have understood what he was talking about anyway!

Before long it was time for supper - rice and curry. There was a chicken curry, a pork curry and potatoes. Fr. Sam explained to me later that for these people chicken is a rare thing, and that they have gone all out for us. There were a couple things that were quite uncomfortable for me. The first was that I used cutlery. Now, I know that I've been practicing using my hands, but they had the cutlery out, and I was not sure if it was rude to not use it. Fr. Sam explained later that to not use it would have been fine, and that they were uncomfortable seeing someone use cutlery! Also, it made the meat, which was as usual still on the bone, hard to eat. The second thing was that they sat us down at the table and watched us eat! That is definitely something that I am not used to! When I finished, they kept giving me more, and more and more, until my natural acquiescence was overcome, and I had to say no. It was delicious, but quite hot, to the point where my nose was running!

So it was an interesting, experience, the kind that is difficult to go through, but so valuable when you're done. I seem to be getting a lot of lessons like that... I think it's time for a nice easy lesson for a change!

Today was back down to Colombo on the bus with Fr. Sam. It was quite crowded, and so I had to have my big fifteen kilo bag on my lap the whole time. It was blocking the air conditioning, and so I was dying of heat, my legs and arms were cramping up around the bag... pretty miserable! I was actually grateful for the security checkpoint where all the Sri Lankan nationals got off the bus and I could move a little. The enormous guard suspiciously checking my passport and bags was, by comparison, a tiny inconvenience!