JAFFNA PENINSULA

...miles and miles of mangroves and mudflats, all manner of seabird and eagles fishing. turn the corner and a marsh appears with sacred cows grazing, crows hitchhike rides on the backs of not-so-sacred goats. elsewhere in the dry lands and windblown fish-reeking villages, donkeys roam.
30 years of civil war and the 2004 tsunami have not been kind to northern sri lanka - there are bombed out dutch churches and temples, hindu and buddhist alike, and many deserted and bullet-riddled ruins of houses, their people having fled long ago. still, it is a testament to the will, spirit and industry of the people who have returned, that this land again vibrates with exquisite patchworks of rich brick-red soil with lush green fields of onions, beets, carrots, “like-a-potatoe-but-not-a-potatoe” (“same same but different” with head wobble) - a fertile geometry of toil and commitment. before the war this area was the breadbasket of sri lanka, it is a slow road to bring it back around and lessen sri lanka’s import of food. 
another astounding feature of the landscape between anduradhapura and jaffna has been the number of military camps, ludicrously named “special forces units”,  and police barracks scattered throughout the otherwise deserted savannah-like plains - little else to be seen for certain stretches on our journey, which started in peacock-dotted ricefields, morphed to these dry plains, and then into the marshlands.
the tamils seem to me to be a very friendly and curious people, though i think the fact that this time around i travel sporting a decent head of hair and can be more readily identified as a “normal”, if white, female, is opening a lot more social space to me. whatever the reason, i am delighting in the friendliness of adults and children alike. i am in a constant drooling-with-appreciation state at the beauty and grace of the tamil women, whose gorgeous saris and perfect composure put the peacocks to shame. meanwhile, i have as my “target”, as dinesh would say, to be able to wear my hair like the sweet 4 yr old tamil girls - short on all sides, with the rest pulled up into a cute topknot on the crown. i’m sure it will look just as cute on a 52 yr old white chick, no? ha ha ha…

saturday 7/30?
so, today we arrived at this wonderful isolated beach hotel to the west of Jaffna - half bollywood/disney land and half sri lankan The Shining!!! there is a cool breeze off the ocean right into our room, and with any luck it will keep the mosquitoes at bay this evening (from the waist down i looked for a while like i had chicken pox!!!). time here to ramp up my daily yoga practice, to write, and best of all tomorrow we take a boat to the little windswept and white-beached island where the wild ponies roam!!! apparently they are the descendants of horses the dutch brought with them when they colonized these parts. now some ponies and a few decrepit churches remain. the british, of course, left a far more lasting footprint, the lingering taste for hyper-bureaucratization of every detail of life most obvious of all! here, too, various flavors of christian / evangelical missions have taken root - catholics, pentecostals and jehovah’s witnesses. instead of the massive stark white buddhas that punctuate the hills throughout much of the rest of sri lanka, giant jesus’ are more likely here, and the roads are studded with little virgin mary shrines… perhaps equal in number to the crazy technicolor ecstasies of the hindu temples and ganesha shrines.
on a more personal level, things are good. i am however, really struggling with what a cliche i have become/must seem… the rich (however ill-fitting a suit it feels, by local standards of course it is completely true) old(er) white woman and the young foxy sri lankan boy… augh - it’s creepy, no?… however it feels internally to us, that is what we are to onlookers, and i find it embarassing and hard to bear at times. well, it’ll either get to me, or i’ll get over it, i guess…!