shock & awe

the other morning i woke up on the wrong side of the world… a kind of delayed onset culture shock overcame me and suddenly i was quite disenchanted with the sketchy hotel rooms, permanently wet bathrooms and toilet seats ( not good for lady health), general grime, diesel, flies, gnats, mosquitoes and ants ( a weird swelling of their ranks in the bathroom, like pheromone-a-palooza, manifested a seething mass of them in the corner of the shower 10,000 strong. .. i kid you not!)
a cranky camper, for sure…! this coupled with a sense of floundering, of ‘wasting time” not knowing WTF i am doing, etc…. the heat here really presents a challenge - methinks one does not come to the tropics to Get Things Done….!!! 
i struggle with this. in the mornings, i have established a good rhythm of tea, yoga, swim, food… but then this time of heat and stupor and apathy… i just can’t get it up! evenings again are  about revival; this wilderness wonder or that, and then sleep, too hot, fan on full, prayers to fall and stay dormant long enough to start fresh the next day. perhaps it is significant that this culture shock comes now, after what might by some standards be a vacation period. i am NOT on vacation. i am on a Search. as such, there is work to be done, research, a pounding of “pavement” (red dirt roads)… yet the feeling of this place is what must ultimately tip the scales - “should i stay or should i go now” styley… i need to feel and absorb and imagine.
today i saw a piece of land that could very well settle the question for me, altho’ i know any such endeavor is a hornet’s nest of troubles…

but then…. 

… a late afternoon safari to Minneriya State Park, catching the last light of the day with 2 herds of elephants, each 30+, by the vast lake and under the almost always amazing sri lankan sky (i don't know what kind of atmospheric conditions are responsible, but the sky here is really awe-inspiring)… just another peak life experience served up by this extraordinary country!