friend$hip

…interesting talk with Dinesh this afternoon, about money and friendship Sri Lanka. I’ve been thinking about it lately in relationship to my “friendship’ with CC here at Blue Paradise. It feels like we have really good rapport - we joke a lot, he shows me surf breaks, I make him fruit juice, the 3 of us have tea and meals together… it feels like he really likes me, and I certainly like him, his impish humor, his batshit craziness… but there are things taken for granted here in Sri Lanka, expectations that lie below the surface of every interaction between Sri Lankan and Foreigner, and I find this makes things murky for me. I cannot trust that what feels like a good human-to-human connection is really, and just, that. Talking about it with D this afternoon, though, I realize the cultural bias that underlies my unease - the value system (BOURGEOIS!!!) that says “this is Real friendship, this is not”, or the kind of chafing I feel when it is just assumed that I will pay for a meal when we are out with CC or one of D’s friends elsewhere. It certainly isn’t the money - in certain places I can feed 3 people breakfast for the price of a chai latte back home!!! It’s just the assumption that ruffles me ever so slightly, that makes giving something feel “unspecial” (perhaps exacerbated by the fact that saying “thank you” is totally not part of Sri Lankan custom)  or gives me the feeling I will never be sure of anyone’s friendship in this country. There are 2 counterpoints here that give some perspective; one is that, to some degree, Sri Lankans are the same way with one another - if one of The Boys has a bit of money, then it is he who pays for the bottle, for smokes, for food, whatever - next week, someone else’s ship will come in (“money comes, money goes” is a heartfelt and popular refrain, I have noticed), and also, as Dinesh explained today, I am mostly meeting people whose livelihood is entirely dependent on the ever-changing winds of the Tourist Industry. From this, 2 further points emerge - one, there is NO security for these people; one bomb blast somewhere, one mudslide or tsunami, and it’s game over for every person and family who depends on the tourist dollar to buy their rice and pay their electric bill. Two, the only way anyone gets the least bit ahead in this industry is when some tourist gives them a little leg up - none of the people who now have their own jeep or hotel or restaurant or tuk-tuk or whatever have gotten there by any other means, unless they come from money already. So yes, everybody harbors the hope that one of these tourist “friends’” will be the one who says “hey, let me help you “, who will value the service they have bent over backwards to provide and demonstrate it by giving a little extra, within their individual means and as dictated by their own conscience and sense of propriety. It was so good to talk openly about this with him…much to think about still, but a very interesting vein to explore, in my opinion…
I also have to examine my choices around how and when I spend money, the effect and appearance of the impulse toward “generosity”. That I feel I “need” a few nights in a hotel with A/C to spare myself death by organ failure, and so do not stay at the Harsha home - am I flaunting my options, my freedom to choose a level of comfort beyond their reach? How does that feel to D’s mom? I cringed when Dinesh presented his mom with the blender that I bought in Arugam Bay as a gift, because it felt excessive,ostentatious, embarrassing, and again like a potential judgement of her kitchen, her life. I wanted her to have it if she had a use for it, but it was not meant to be another conspicuous display of my relative Wealth and Benevolence.