Posted In Lara Thomas, Travel Writing, Uncategorized, Writing

My Gay Roadshow

Lara Thomas | May 25, 2016

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We each have three best friends: your past self, your current self and your future self. Each one should be kind to the others; each one should look after the others. How? I think I may know the answer. To explain it, I have to tell you I’ve been going to a life coach, which feels strange to admit but I’m trying to form a habit of admitting – of resisting the urge to appear only strong. This is how I put it to my oldest (and far braver) friend, Bee: “I’m going to a life coach and I’m going to tell him that we need to come up with a plan to help me tell all my special people I’m gay and if he doesn’t encourage me to do it, I’m just going do it anyway.”

It turned out – as is their custom apparently – that my life coach had his own ideas. I was, according to him, not entirely ready to execute my ‘plan’. He said: “There’s this incongruence. Part of you is saying, ‘I’m gay’ and the other part is looking at this person as if they’ve just been sold out and is saying, ‘I’m really not gay’”. And, so, what my life coach actually helped me create was a space where that disgruntled part of me felt comfortable enough to raise her hands in the air and say, “Okay, okay, guilty, I am gay.” It took that part of me a little longer to slowly drop her arms and cross them – more than a little pissed off that being gay was her truth. And it took a little longer for her to uncross her arms and, finally, to surrender into who she is – into who I am.

On my life coach’s couch, I learned to project memories onto a white blank wall. Some of these memories have been haunting me, some have been keeping me company – both kinds were doing me no favours. A timeline was given to each memory: a decisive point before each event when everything was okay; and a point after the event when, again, everything returned to being okay again. Sometimes I was told to run through the memories backwards, stopping only when my mind had travelled from one point of okay to the other. And sometimes I was told to run through the memories so quickly it was as if I was holding the DSTV remote, fast forwarding through the adverts to get to the Good Wife (pun intended). While I played memories only I could see, my life coach would tell me to, “Turn the scene black and white.” And then to “Scribble over it with red ink.” And then to “Make the picture smaller.” We were manipulating the memories, taking their power away, changing their configuration. At some point in the process, my life coach would tell me to imagine my current self (the one on the couch) going up to my younger self (the one that was okay before the incident) to tell her, very gently, what was going to happen to her. For the one memory, my younger self was at a bar so I sidled up to her, squeezing between the crowd and while she tried to catch the barman’s attention, I whispered her imminent future. I also told her that, though difficult, she would be okay.

“How do you know?” she asked, no longer interested in a drink.

“Because,” I said, “I’ve lived it and I’m okay.”

As I understand it, that’s how your current self looks after your younger self: by knowing things she couldn’t possibly know; by telling her that this too shall pass; by unpacking her baggage and then putting it away for good; by being stronger for the years passed.

How then does your past self look after your future self? To explain that one, I’m going to tell you a longer story. It’s set in Yangon, Myanmar. You’re probably frowning, wondering where that is. Well, if it helps, it used to be called Burma. Still frowning? It’s surrounded by – going from north-west clockwise – Bangladesh, India, China, Vietnam, Thailand and then there’s a whole lot of the Bay of Bengal and then you find yourself back at Bangladesh. After a month of travelling the country (which I highly recommend) with two very dear friends, I had about seven hours in Yangon on my own before catching my flight home to Cape Town.

I had time to kill and the only thing I had to do, besides getting to the airport, was go to the post office. My first stop that morning was Scott’s Market because I still had some Kyat (the Myanmar currency) left and wanted to buy one special token to remind me of what had been one of the best trips of my life. While I was making my way through the vendors and commuters and cafes that sprawled their miniature pink plastic chairs onto the pavement, a woman from South America – I can’t tell you which country; I’m bad with accents – stopped me on a crowded street to ask for directions. I told her to follow me. You see, I knew Yangon by then. Since arriving in the country, I had returned to the city three times – I had walked her humid and colourful streets, lit candles and hung garlands of flowers at her famous gold gold (and another for luck) gold paya; and admired her colonial buildings that have taken on colours the British would never have approved of. At the market, I bought an old, turned-green-from-time, buffalo bell. I chose it as my Myanmar treasure because I wanted to remember the sound of the cattle – each with their own bell – moving, unseen, through the green tea fields of Hsipaw as if the hymn came from the hills themselves.

Bell in my camera bag, I walked Yangon’s streets one last time, taking photos of the turquoise buildings and the impossible amount of wires running between them. In no hurry, I stopped at every intersection to witness the way the pedestrians own the streets – only occasionally and very lazily moving aside for the hoot of a taxi. And as I took it all in, I gave in to a thought I had resisted for a month. My stride quickened. My trip was so nearly over and its end meant there were no more excuses. I was in transit: somewhere between contemplating being brave and actually being it. I was scared, sure, but when I tunnelled into myself and pushed all that fear aside, there was something else there too: excitement.

For those who don’t know me, I’m not generally a scared person. I was in a foreign, pretty hectic city on my own and besides this basic fact, no one knew exactly where I was or what I was doing that morning. I had only enough currency to pay for the postage of my ten envelopes and get a taxi to the airport. My visa had expired (sorry, mom and dad, it’s true). According to the Lonely Planet a study found that one in every four food-stalls in Yangon contain the bacteria that causes food poisoning. It’s the Russian roulette of hunger. That didn’t stop me. I had eaten at way more than four places so I was either really lucky or my stomach was really strong. En route to the post office, I bought two pancakes: one chickpea and coriander, the other banana and coconut – both of them hot from the same dirty wok; both more delicious than I can tell.

I ate as I walked, suddenly conscious in a way I hadn’t been when my friends were with me that my shorts were probably too short; that my top should’ve probably covered my shoulders; that the locals were staring at me with what could have been wonder (and often was) but what was, on that morning, probably a bit of disapproval. It didn’t faze me much. There was more than enough to distract me from the attention: In that part of Yangon, every street boasts its own theme. Whole lanes are devoted to shops that sell neon lights intended to turn kitsch pagodas kitscher. Other streets are dedicated to books: open libraries spill onto the road alongside tables showing off slices of watermelon and green mango. I like to think that on that day, I chose to walk down the paper street because the idea of all those envelopes and letterheads escorting me to the post office appeals to me but the truth is I can’t really remember and when I try, a street full of spare car parts – exhausts, shock absorbers, break-pads – comes to mind and that’s not nearly as poetic.

At the post office, I bought ten stamps – each boasting Bagan’s temples in a dusty orange light. When I tried to lick and stick one, it didn’t work so I borrowed glue from the three people working at the entrance. It came in a plastic rectangle – similar to those frozen guava juices we used bite the corners off as kids and suck the nectar out of (you know the ones?). I squeezed out a bit of glue, smeared some onto each stamp and pressed one onto the corner of each envelope. I was posting for three of us. Some of the envelopes were going to Perth; one to London; some to Durban; others to Johannesburg; and a few were destined for Cape Town. One of the envelopes was addressed to me; it was also from me. In it was a card on which I wrote a few lines from one of Emily Dickinson’s poems. I’ll tell you what the card said but only right at the end. For now, you’ll have to be satisfied with this: I – my current self – was sending my future self courage. Why? Because I was afraid I’d lose my nerve. I was afraid that my bravery would need reminding; that my future self would get a little too comfortable at home, tell herself that she didn’t really need to do what she promised herself she would – she didn’t have to go to everyone she felt dear and close and special to her and tell them that she was gay; she didn’t have to choose this life that seemed so terrifyingly different.

I sent that postcard on 30 January 2016. There was no sign of it in February. What did happen in February was I went to that life coach for the first time and he taught me to look after my younger self. I immediately loved the idea of protecting my more reckless, more afraid, more searching self. There was no sign of the postcard in March. What did happen in March was a friend told me about those three best friends and I was grateful for an explanation for what I already instinctively understood. It turned out my courage didn’t need much prompting. I went to see my friends, one by one, in Cape Town and then I flew to Johannesburg with the sole intention of doing the same. There were moments when I felt too scared to say the words, “I have something to tell you” and then follow them up with “I’m gay.” To summon my nerve, I imagined the words I had written on that card on their way to me; and if that didn’t work, I told myself, like a sacred mantra, that I am the daughter of Ian and Moira Thomas and the sister of Clyde, and that when I felt none of my own, I could channel each of their strengths because I am of their making. In that belonging I found my fortitude. Most of the time the words didn’t come out easily. At first it involved so many tears that when I finally got it out, my audience was hugely relieved that I wasn’t dying. And on other occasions, when I started to realise that it really wasn’t such a big deal, I was a bit too casual about it and friends thought I was joking.

In the last two months, I’ve been on what I dubbed a gay roadshow. A marathon of DMCs. And though I became more and more certain that each person I told would react well, there weren’t many conversations when I didn’t feel my heart beating too strongly in my chest or as Sylvia Plath conceived it, bragging in my chest (I’m gay so now I get to drop references like that). In the last few weeks, I’ve looked many of my closest people in the eye (I’m sorry for those I couldn’t or didn’t reach) and said the words I was too scared to admit to myself for years. And then I waited, locking eyes with them, searching for their first reaction. I put myself in their line of sight (and for a while I considered it a line of fire); I did it because I didn’t want to lose them; I did it because I wanted them (read was forcing them) to come on what I considered a scary journey with me. I did it because in any adventure and in any mischievousness and in anything society has instructed that I’m not “supposed” to do, I have always looked for accomplices.

Reactions to the news varied. One said, while hugging me as I cried, “Oh La… I know”. Another, “Never!” Another, “Who’s gay?” to which I repeated with a smile, “I’m gay.” One jumped clean off her chair in a restaurant cheering as though she’d won a trip to Spain. My mother – who I told over a year ago at the dining room table – said very calmly, “Why are you crying? We love you.” My father affirmed that unwavering love in the next breath. My brother said, “It doesn’t change anything.” An aunt said, “I think it’s beautiful.” Others did not so much as blink as though I’d made a bland comment about the weather. A cousin wrote, “I am always here. I will always be here.” Another cousin wrote, “the more authentic you are, the more of you there is for the world”. One friend typed, “As in you’re happy or a lesbian?” Another asked, “Why the &$*^ are you only telling me now?” What they said and how they softened my stare was particular to each but their reactions were also all the same: They received my news with love – with so much of it that as I write this, I struggle to remember why I was so scared to begin with or what that fear even felt like. I expected to go through this incredibly difficult time. And, in some ways, it was. It was emotionally exhausting – a roller-coaster spanning across two cities (more if you count the letters and whatsapps) that was filled with a lot of fear and relief and, bless them all, love and love and more love.

I know not everyone is as lucky as I have been. I know that when I say people deserve the benefit of the doubt – a chance to rise to the occasion – that some really don’t deserve that vulnerability. I know that faced with the same news, there are some that react in fear and misunderstanding and, bless them too, even hate. I know that not everyone can go on a roadshow (even if they wanted to which they probably don’t because it’s a pretty outrageous idea); nor could they gain momentum with each person they told because sooner or later someone would stop them and say: “Cool your jets, and by the way you’re going to hell.” I know there are too many tragedies of families disowning their children and friends turning their back on someone who only wants to live their truth. And not for a single second do I suggest to be some example of the best way to come out because I am the furthest thing from that perfect template (not that I think there is one). Despite all this and with some level of fear, I want to add my story to the narrative; not because it’s worth more than anyone else’s – it isn’t – but because maybe, just maybe, one person will read this and it might make them trust their friends and their family enough to reveal their authentic selves. Or, even braver, they might not trust them and decide to do it anyway. Maybe there are others like my younger self that I can look after in this very small way.

Though often very nervous of going on my roadshow, I was, at other times, hugely optimistic. To protect me from potential heartache, my mom would say: “Not everyone is going to like this, La. Not everyone is as open minded as we are. You will lose some friends.”

Some days I believed it. Some days I felt the sadness of that inevitable loss. On other days, I struggled to believe that anyone I loved could do that to me and I’d say with a certain smile that is reserved for her and my occasional rebellions, “I don’t know, mom, I think I might have a clean run.”

My mom would follow her warning up with, “But you know, La, then you have to ask, were they ever really your friends to begin with?”

Before I told anyone outside my immediate family and my very closest friends, I hoped for a clean run. In my mind, that was the best case scenario. By clean run, I meant that no one would outright act negatively: No one would tell me to get out of their house; no one would tell me I was a sinner; no one would try convince me I was confused or that the love I sought was worth less than any conventional idea of love. A month ago, a clean run seemed like a bold thing to hope for. What I got was not clean. It was colourful and bright and funny and awkward and affirming and nothing short of magic. It was filled with more light and love and gratitude than I have ever felt. What I got in the faces and the words and the tears of the people I so adore was one fundamental message which, as it happens, one of our closest family friends uttered (she also happens to be very religious): “I love you more.” Again and again, in their different ways, my tribe rose, circled me and promised to love me more for one simply reason: they could finally see all of me.

My postcard card arrived almost exactly at the end of my roadshow: two and a half months after it was sent. With it, I got a sense that the universe was giving me a nod. And, call me crazy, but lately it has felt as though that nod has developed into a bit of a bob – as if the universe and I are subtly dancing to a song that I have only just began to hear.

As promised, I’ll let Emily have the last word:

If your Nerve deny you—
Go above your Nerve—
He can lean against the Grave,
If he fear to swerve—

—

If your Soul seesaw—
Lift the Flesh door—
The Poltroon wants Oxygen—
Nothing more— Continue Reading

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Posted In Africa Burn, Lara Thomas, Photography

AfrikaBurn 2016

Lara Thomas | May 3, 2016

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Here are my first few photos from an amazing time at AfrikaBurn 2016. More to follow. So check back for more or follow me on instagram @lara.jess.

"I've come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call "The Physics of The Quest" — a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: "If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all – to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself… then truth will not be withheld from you." Elizabeth Gilbert.

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#afrikaburn2016 #tankwatown #afrikaburn #meetsouthafrica #southafrica #nothingisordinary #justgoshoot

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#justgoshoot #nothingisordinary #southafrica #meetsouthafrica #afrikaburn #afrikaburn2016

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Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry. I who don’t know the secret wrote the line. They told me (through a third person) they had found it but not what it was not even what line it was. No doubt by now, more than a week later, they have forgotten the secret, the line, the name of the poem. I love them for finding what I can’t find, and for loving me for the line I wrote, and for forgetting it so that a thousand times, till death finds them, they may discover it again, in other lines in other happenings. And for wanting to know it, for assuming there is such a secret, yes, for that most of all. Denise Levertov afrikaburn2016 #afrikaburn #meetsouthafrica #southafrica #nothingisordinary #tankwatown

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#tankwatown #afrikaburn #meetsouthafrica #afrikaburn2016 #southafrica #nothingisordinary

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#nothingisordinary #southafrica #afrikaburn2016 #meetsouthafrica #afrikaburn #photooftheday

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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."Theodore Roosevelt.

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Posted In Lara Thomas, Travel, Travel Writing, Writing

Victoria Fell

Lara Thomas | May 9, 2013

In late 2011, seven new natural wonders were introduced to the world. The list was determined by popular vote. The idea that we are all citizens of the world is a beautiful one but belonging has layers and when it comes to land, the core of that onion grows in homes, with cities enveloping those homes, and countries wrapping around all that clings to their soil. Only once all those folds of attachment have formed does the world enter to surround them.

The natural wonders poll can be likened to a talent contest in which parents sit on the judging panel, each being entitled to a single vote. The difference comes in when only some of the children have both parents watching from the invigilators’ desk. The results become predictable. Mary Kate finds herself on the podium, ignoring her mom and dad, embarrassed in the knowledge that her victory is rigged.

The ranking of the most sort after table in Cape Town is a testament to national pride rather than an accurate measure of wonder. It is a testament to a population, that has often been divided, coming together for a singular goal. In April I was fortunate to witness the majesty of the ‘smoke that thunders‘. In an age when such discoveries are no longer hiding in forests, the idea that someone could have stumbled upon such a waterfall, filled me with what can, conveniently, be called wonder.

With a city hugging it and a cloth of cloud disappearing and reappearing, at the hands of some magic waiter, on its flat top, the mountain it is unquestionably beautiful. It is worthy of attention on a global scale but if you uproot your feet from your mother country, on an upward graph of awe, it does not reach the graduer of some of its competitors.

If you believe the new seven wonders to have supplanted the old, Livingstone’s finding has fallen along with its unfathomably volume of water. I imagine a kind soul sat Victoria down to break the news to her:

“There was another waterfall Vicky, somewhere between Argentina and Brazil.”

Listening, as the water streamed down her cliff face, over her lip, the explanation tapering off, ending gently with:

“There was only room for one.”

If you take a different stance like Engineer Walter Mzembi, the Tourism and Hospitality Minister of Zimbabwe, the list must be rejected:

“No individual or grouping can delist it or downgrade it. It is only God who can delist Victoria Falls Rainforest as a natural wonder if the world comes to an end. Fortunately, the world has not ended and therefore we still have the Rainforest as a natural wonder. God as He pleases when the world comes to an end may create the Rainforest somewhere, but for all I know it will be back in Zimbabwe.”

In at least one assertion, Mr Mzembi cannot be proven incorrect: the world has not yet ended. It has repeatedly evaded extinction. Our late ancestors named what they believed to be the most remarkable places on earth and our planet’s resilience has made it possible for later generations to decide afresh.

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Posted In Home, Lara Thomas, Travel, Travel Writing

The Luxuries of Home

Lara Thomas | April 15, 2013

The vividness of traveling accompanies you home. For a brief time, like a companion reluctant to leave, she remains with you. Her presence allows you to experience the old as if it’s new.

Landing in Johannesburg, I could feel her with me. She skipped ahead of me as I walked down the ramp. Before stepping into the arrivals hall, she impatiently waited as I attempted to contain the goofy grin playing on my face. She presents the details of a place you have always known as blessings: smothering herself in starched white towels, smiling as she drinks straight from the tap. In a gesture of gratitude to the glass that protects the bathroom floor, she wipes the steam off its surface and kissing the kettle, she laughs when it singes her lips.

With remote in hand, the thrill of the quilt covering me did not come as a surprise to me. Full and cold, the fridge was a sight I had long since dreamt of. But I had forgotten to miss the darkness and its accompanying silence. That stillness, which I had been without, swallowed me home. She held my hand as we stepped into the quiet, searching for some distant noise in the night. When we eventually found it, I kicked my legs beneath the duvet, exhilarated by its faintness.

Looking around, wandering from room to room, it doesn’t take her long to understand that she doesn’t belong. With a few parting treasures, as you begin to take the comforts for granted, she, in turn, begins to leaves you.

For her encore, she lit up the curtains in flashes of light, shook corrugated iron outside my window to make a thunder that soothed and reverberated within me, reaffirming where I was every time the light hit the ground.

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Posted In Koh Phangan, Lara Thomas, Thailand, Travel, Travel Writing

A Buffet of Memories

Lara Thomas | April 7, 2013

It has been widely agreed that travel heightens the senses. The reason for the increased concentration must surely be that new people and places demand attention by virtue of their difference. Novel smells, tastes and sights stand up and shout in a crowd, tempered and rinsed in familiarity, that remains seated. The spectrum of benefits that can be sponged from travel interest me across the board but for now, I wish to focus on just one: the gift of our memories.

This piece of writing is inspired by a single moment. In a dimly lit Koh Phangan bar, a man placed a glass jar in front of me. It was filled with silver oval openers, bent and amputated from the top of soda cans. The sight transported me to primary school. Four friends spent the hour before school rummaging through hundreds of cans at the rear of the school car park. We were searching for aluminum pop tabs. The incentive was a wheelchair for a stranger that desperately needed it. This fact is not intended to distract from the story’s intention, which is expose the triggers that instanteously project us into our past. Glistening with aluminum, the jar transported me back to my twelve year old self. The link between it and those days is obvious and indivisible but on occasion the memory has been lassoed by a subtler switch. It would be ill conceived to attribute a universal smell to garbage. There a plethora of scents that rubbish can ooze and among the hundreds, is the exact decomposition of that school dump. Unknowingly brushing past it, the distinct scent has registered in my olfactory system at least twice since I have matriculated. With it breaks a wave of nostalgia as I remember the silhouetted dull green uniforms of my three friends, in a race against the first bell, twisting silver in the early light. And so, throughout my life, that specific odour, ordinarily associated with repulsion, will bring back four young girls who promised, with the vast majority of their years before them, that they would be best friends forever. That our friendship did not map out exactly as we pinned it, brings no sadness. For I understand that a bond can unravel and somehow, simultaneously remain. That acceptance would be invisible to the eye were it not for the faint smile that briefly crosses my lips.

The memory and its catalyst made me think that perhaps, as we age, memories pair off with tastes and scents until everything we do holds some greater significance to our past. In everything ordinary there will lie some perfect happiness, someone we once loved, a sadness that has mellowed, a hurt that has healed, a laugh that we nearly forgot. In our old age, we will continue to live but we shall also relive. Creatures of habit, there may come a time where there are not enough scents and smells for the memories. Coca-cola on ice will always belong to my grandmother. There are glasses where I can almost taste the metal of the multicolored cups she poured it into. And so, that sweetness is taken. Memories that follow and center around the caramel liquid will have to travel alone, their repetition dependent on conscious recall. The beauty of travel is that our memories have free roam to attach to the multitude of stimulants that waft through our journey. Each special moment will lay sovergien claim to its own, for there is no shortage, nor competition in countries that drip with such vivd, foreign richness.

Along with the pay cheques, the cars, the houses, the husbands, the lovers, the trophies and medals, we are all collecting, gathering and pairing off, memories. It is merely a preference, and a privilege, to intertwine those recollections with foreign countries and people. “Twenty years from now,” walking down some familiar street in a city I have grown up in, and remain in, incense from a shop nearby will infiltrate the air and, reaching me, in the middle of everything I have already seen and known, India will encircle me. For a few seconds, felt only by myself, the chaos and colour and vibrance of the incredible country will envelope me. Shyer, Vietnam will surely show itself in unexpected corners. In rice paper spring rolls and tempura prawns its presence is guaranteed. In crushed peanuts and perfect turquoise water, Thailand will always announce itself and traces of Sri Lanka will drift towards me in the steam of tea strong enough to produce the scent of smoke. And these are only the identified triggers I am fortunate enough to look forward to. Most will lie dormant, hidden gems lodged so deep in my brain that I am unaware of their existence. Revealing themselves, as presents from my past, in years to come. That possibility appeals to me.

Layering memory upon memory in one place makes it sacred. That sanctuary is more often than not called home, or some offshoot of home. There is splendor of a different sort in memories that hold exclusivity. When I look back, I want my life, and the memories that combine to make it what it is, to spread before me like a buffet, some rising from silver platters as impossibly high tiered cakes, while others, like pancakes, lie flat and delicately thin, covering the plate so closely that the two appear one and the same.

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Posted In Lara Thomas, Thailand, Travel, Travel Writing

Thousands of Silver Flints

Lara Thomas | April 4, 2013

Near the beginning of my own trip, I met Anna, who was near the end of hers:

“I think a part of me is already home,” she told me.

Her legs wound up steep hills to peer over tea plantations, but her heart didn’t see the view. Her heart saw home beyond the horizon. At the time I understood what she meant but it would be two months before I felt it. It didn’t take 10 weeks for my heart to skim across the ocean and land, cushioned, at home. That round trip happened throughout my journey. It took 10 weeks for me to want to follow it. Drifting off the coast of Railay Island, I felt a part of me paddling for home, with the intention of staying there. Thrown like a net from my subconscious, were e.e cummings’s words describing the three saddest things, the last of which is:

‘the constant traveler saying ‘anywhere but here.’

The mesh hit its target. Floating on her back, with breastroke kicks, she slowly made her way back to the beach then, with her eyes still fixed in the direction of home, she sat beside me on the hot sand. Determined to keep us grounded, I sank an anchor into the sea bed. The luminous green water, the limestone peaks stained orange and the joy of new places ripening in the faces of my friends, fixed me to the ground beneath my feet, anchoring me to where I was. The strong current pulled. The thick rope held fast.

Railay, Thailand

Railay Island, Thailand

Less than forty eight hours later in Phi Phi, six out of seven were violated by food poisoning. In our four bed room, we tag teamed for the bathroom. Trading the white round baton with seconds to spare. The shower hovered directly above the toilet, washing away any comfort that may have been sucked off the cool floor. The intense waves of nausea snagged the rope of my anchor, pulling at its foundation in half hour intervals. Heavy breathing was my only defense against the impulse to heave. Slipping in the previous patient left, I knelt on the dripping tiles, urging the poison to leave my body. My captor mocked me, feigning desperation, then leaving me to worship the dirty bowl.

Water dripped on me from above. It was a discomfort I could control. With what energy remained, I reached to close the tap. The faucet fell into my hand, releasing a torrent of spray. For the next minute, resisting the reflex to gag, I fought the gushing pipe. My gray pajamas cowered and clung to my skin. Somewhere in those sixty seconds, while I fought for a place to vomit, between being dry and wet, the rope holding me in place snapped. The momentum of the break sent the better part of me home.

She didn’t look back. As the toxins began to clear, I tried to coax her back to me but she barely noticed my flaring arms. And so I carried on without her. And as with so many things that we chase, she only drew nearer when I stopped searching. She came closer when it wasn’t forced. Unaware of her presence, she watched as life absorbed me again. Unlike her departure, I didn’t feel the exact moment she returned. All I know is that somewhere beneath the water, surrounded by thousands of silver flints, she was with me once more.

Phi Phi, Thailand

Phi Phi, Thailand

Phi Phi, Thailand

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Posted In Shadow, Travel Writing, Writing

Shakespeare’s Shadow

Lara Thomas | February 4, 2013

Shadow was born during October, 2002. A Staffordshire Terrier, with two islands of white in a sea of pitch black. Two puppies were left when my mom and I made the trip to the breeders, one black, the other speckled shades of brown. Nuzzling my leg and then falling asleep against it, Shadow was the calm to his brother’s boisterousness. Before leaving home, my father had warned ‘not to take the first puppy you see,’ but his words were forgotten in the warmth of this miniature body against my own.

For the better part of my 16 years I had been waiting for him, pleading with my parents for years on end. When he finally arrived, he instantly became the ‘noor of my eyes’. We let his nature decide his name: following closely at our heals, disappearing into the night both in colour and quiet temperament, the name Shadow stuck. He grew quickly. Coming home from school one day, I found him as an adolescent, having transformed while I was away. It did not take him long to surpass the expectations that his parents had set in height and stature, growing taller, with the build of a rhinoceros and the potency only found, if at all, in a single dog of a litter.

The third line of Pablo Neruda’s Sonnet XVII reads: I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

In the negotiations leading up to his arrival, it was agreed that he would be well trained. Foregoing my one day to sleep in, we rose early on Saturday mornings to attend classes. Eager to please, he learned to sit, lie and heal easily. Taking the lessons home with grace, he lay in his place on the carpet, presented his paw when asked and sat still for long solitary minutes with just the mention of the word “stay”. It was not long before he was sent to the advanced class, where reacting to slight gestures of hand, he performed dance routines, dragging himself on his stomach then rising into a series of turns. The contrast of his power with the fragility of the poodles that spun next to him was enough to pull him out of the class, such activities were not fitting for such a specimen of a dog. So we took our Saturday mornings back, and used the hours to teach him other tricks. The most impressive being the balancing of a treat on his nose, including the tolerance to leave it there, then, on command, a subtle flick of his head which sent the biscuit into the air for him to snatch on its way down.

In every way he was exemplary behaved save for where he chose to sleep. A large wooden kennel sat in the backyard but he was not fond of it, preferring to sit on one of the wide patio chairs facing the garden. Finding him there, we told him off. Shadow has always been human-like in his sensitivity to reproach, shaking and cowering sheepishly away from the chair he loved. Though he knew it would result in further scolding, each morning we found him sitting there with his ears pinned back, waiting for the reprimand. Eventually the chair became his in the way a borrowed piece of clothing becomes yours if you wear it enough, all trace of its pervious owner consumed. On a daily basis he reaps the reward of his one stubborn choice, sitting next to us in the afternoon sun as we sip hot tea.

Living up to his physique, Shadow has seen his fair share of fights. By his own choosing, the odds are mostly against him, dismissing snapping Jack Russells in favour of more challenging larger breeds. Though fighting is an unattractive attribute, you cannot help feeling a sense of admiration when, after being ambushed by a pair of Rottweilliers, the underdog more than holds his own. Outnumbered and outsized, a sense of pride filters through the anxiety left in the aftermath of a fight. Determined to exert his dominance on his own kind, he is the polar opposite in his relationship with people. Submission in the extreme, he will sit still as you lift his gum to inspect his teeth, roll onto his back for you to check for ticks and without prompting, stand near the hose to be rinsed off.

On the beach in Plettenberg Bay

Demanding only in his desire to go for his daily walk, he watches the hinge of the kitchen door, full attention on the lead he sees through the gap. Julie, who has worked for our family since I can remember, adores him, monologing to a content dog that watches her clean from close by. This ongoing conversation may be the source of his surprisingly wide vocabulary.  Taking him for walks, she has dubbed him Shadow ‘Celebrity’ Thomas for the way cars slow and pedestrians stop to watch the thickly set dog pass by. Though he is gentle in nature, his disproportionately large head, as the breed intended, and a build that makes body builders reach for more creatine, creates a different impression. The consequence is that not everyone is as taken with him, many crossing the road as he approaches. Encouraging this perception, Julie keeps him at a distance to hide his temperament. Going to great lengths to avoid crossing his path, a man once shouted to Julie:

“Hey, that dog looks like it could kill someone!”

“Yes. And he has,” she responded without hesitation.

Afraid that he may drown, we taught him early on to find his way out of the pool.  Interested to see what he would do, we lowered him into the pool. Panicking, he went straight for the nearest side, sinking in his efforts to pull himself out of the water. True to our predictions, had he fallen in, he would not have lasted five minutes. We put him in again, this time attaching a long lead to his collar, dragging him in the right direction. On his third swim, remembering the safety of the step, he headed straight for it. It is not the water that Shadow fears, but the loss of control which frightens him. He is willing to venture to the edge of the pool, both interested and concerned, to watch us underwater or wait, neck deep, for the waves to bring his stick to shore. Following the example of many school girls, it is the lengths he dislikes. His swimming days did not stop when he learned to clear the step. Returning from his walks with my dad, Shadow walks reluctantly towards him to be thrown into the water. The explanation given is that he must not forget how to get out, with the overriding factor being that he must never grow bored. Walking the suburb, my father has seen one too many dogs whose only entertainment is barking at anything and everything within sight of their gate. He feels strongly that his own dog should never suffer the same fate.

The constructed reasons aside, we all love to see him swim, in determination rather than stroke, his strength on land is present in the water. Powerfully paddling with his front legs, dragging his sinking back legs to safety. If the creepy crawly pipe obstructs his path, he lifts his one paw to hit it forcefully under the water. At first we thought this was a chance encounter, with the timing of his stroke conveniently moving the floating pipe, but in subsequent lengths no one could argue that the movement was unintentional. A consistent man to his core, my father always swims after Shadow, explaining that:

“It would be unfair if I made him swim and I didn’t.”

To say Shadow grew accustomed to the swims would be to ignore the rough heaving and evident relief that follows each occasion. What did happen was that he came to realise that swimming was an inevitablity. In time, my dad would call Shadow and he would slowly walk to the edge, hesitate for few seconds, then leap into a belly flop of his own accord. Understandably, he prefers to jump in rather than being thrown, but the main reason he does it is that it is what my father wants. So desperate to please, he sets aside his greatest fear to win favour with a man he has long since won over.

Shadow and Clyde

During my time in Sri Lanka I received the news that my dear Shadow had his ears tested and that the vet’s diagnosis is that he is near deaf. Though his loss of hearing did not come as a complete surprise to me, the confirmation tore at me. In the weeks before I left he was slow to follow our feet on the wooden floors. As suspected, the reason he did not follow or go to his place when we asked him to, was that he could not hear us. It was not that his age had brought with it disobedience. The vet also noticed cataracts beginning to form on the perimeter of his dark irises. On reading the news, tears for my magnificent dog slid steadily down my cheeks. It is rare to witness every stage of life in something so close to one’s heart. A puppy and then an old man in the blink of a decade. There is plenty of life in him yet, his taught muscles reassure me of that but for a little while, I have allowed myself to mourn his youth. To mourn his descent into a world of silence and the slight fading of the light in his eyes. Though he may no longer hear the words we whisper as we put him to bed, he will certainly know the content, for we have repeated the same words to him since he arrived in our home: that he is good, that he is loved.

In Sonnet 73, Shakespeare spoke of old age with reference to three metaphors:

 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

There is beauty in old age, in the slowing of a dog that used to be fast, in the silver that replaces the black.  We are with Shakespeare in this – welcoming his autumn, bathing in the twilight of his day, warmed by the embers of his fire and in seeing this change, and as our inevitable loss draws nearer, our love for him grows ever stronger.

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Posted In Lara Thomas, Sri Lanka, Travel, Travel Writing

The Tea Game

Lara Thomas | February 1, 2013

Ceylon and tea. So intrinsically connected are the two that they earn a place alongside other famous combinations: Belgium and chocolate, France and wine, Coloumbia and coffee. The link became increasingly stronger when, on reaching independence, the island happily let go of its former name in favour its new one, Sri Lanka. With the fading of its primary association, for many the word Ceylon became an exclusive reference to a brand of tea rather than to an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean. But this was not always destined to be the country’s most celebrated asset, before Ceylon was to produce what became known as the world’s best tea, it was coffee that left its shores in abundance. In 1852 the thriving coffee beans and the opportunities that came with it, brought a 16 year old Scottish boy that would alter the island’s fate. His arrival marked a change in the tide.

Original tea packet in safekeeping at the Tea Museum, Kandy.

In the height of the coffee run, James Taylor’s visionary employer bucked the trend by instructing the young man to research the merits of growing tea. Taylor was later described as being married to tea and in those early days the country reaped the benefit of a man in love. He shifted through lessons of cultivation and process from nearby North India, turning his verandah into the first Ceylon tea production line. Using the potential of the ideal climate and soil, he experimented with the leaves, rolling them by hand, spreading the leaves out to ferment, tasting every batch to perfect the blends in his makeshift factory. The favorable results and his enthusiasm gave birth to the first Ceylon tea plantation, covering a mere 19 acres of the island’s land. Unbeknown to him, in sowing those seeds, he was to change the country.

Recaptured photo from the Tea Museum, Kandy. Taylor’s passion met Sir Thomas Lipton’s business mind to form a perfect union.

In 1869 a rust fungus covered the island’s coffee trees and in a few short years decimated the once lucrative industry. Desperate and in need of a quick recovery, the estate owners focused their attention on Taylor, following his lead they planted tea bushes over the grave of the coffee trees. A new, lasting industry was born, with Taylor’s initial acres spreading like wild fire across the hill country of Sri Lanka. His dedication transformed the landscape and with it, the entire nation.

Overlooking two tea plantation workers from Single Tree Hill, Nuwara Eliya

Years later, 2010 to be exact, a similar pioneer walked straight off a yacht into a dingy lecture room on Hiddingh campus, University of Cape Town. On the first day, when class paused for the scheduled tea break, he said to no one in particular, just as James Taylor must have done on learning of the soil and climate in Ceylon:

“This will be perfect”

First learned at the agricultural university better known as Rhodes, he had carried the knowledge with him, across gulfs, bays and unpronounceable islands. This man had travelled the world! Against his better judgment he had returned to teach what he had long since mastered. He brought with him the T game.

There were 43 students that filled the small classroom. Unaccustomed to socialising with non-celebrities, Yacht Boy, aka JC, bided his time, sussing out his classmates for weeks before approaching the 8 players he had identified as up to the challenge. Finally, a month having passed since the lectures began, he had all 8 surrounding him as he carefully explained the rules:

‘The point of the game is to get someone to say the letter t on its own. If you say it, you have to make the rest of us tea in the break.’ he said, folding his arms as he finished.

‘Is that it?’ I asked, adding confidently,  ‘I will never say it.’

‘I know that women’s brains are half the size of mens,’ then he held up his hand to stop my protest, ‘It’s science, but for the sake of the intelligent among us, try to keep up,’ he retorted, ‘The game starts now.’

After the lunch break, I thought briefly about the T game, dismissing it as lame and then completely forgot about it during the afternoon slump. At 3pm, a few of us walked to the car park across the street. JC walked in the same direction to his house a few kilometers from the campus.

‘Whose driving the mom’s car?’ JC asked.

‘It’s mine and he is beautiful.’ I responded.

‘How old is it?’

‘About seven years. Would you like to see its service book?’ I asked sarcastically.

‘I was just wondering whether a car that old ever had one of those old yellow Gauteng number plates, you know with the…um what was it again?’

‘T.’ I say too quickly to stop myself.

‘Rooibos, no milk, no sugar,’ he said with a wide grin. As he walked away I heard him softly imitate me, ‘I will never say it.’

The difficulty with the T game is that it takes place in the full swing of life. There is no beginning or end, it continues without a whistle, pounces on your brain’s aptitude to regurgitate correct answers. It relies on our tendency to fill in other people’s pauses, impatient for them to get the words out. Amateurs, come in too strong, searching for the T from the get go. My first clumsy attempt went a little like this:

“What sports do you play Yacht Boy?” I ask JC.

“Oh you know, the usual, a bit a lacrosse, polo, the horse variety and on weekends I like to jump out of planes.”

“No, seriously, tell me.”

“If you have to know, I play tennis, golf and cycle.” he said.

I had been hoping for this, trying to act natural, I went on:

“I don’t think golf is a proper sport. I tried a few days ago, I just hit the ball straight off the grass, not a fan of those other things, you know the ….”

“The peg?” he helps.

“No, there’s another name for it. I thought you played golf?”

“You mean the grass.” he says.

“Stop it” I say conscious of what he is doing.

“Pathetic attempt. Truly,” he laughs.

Skilled practitioners of the T game use courtship: starting a conversation that seems everyday as they subtly direct you to where they intend you to go. In no hurry they casually ask a question that has you pouring hot water into eight cups: five normal, three rooibos, milk in six and sugar into whoever is lucky to get any. And in that confusion someone leans over and points to the black tea:

“Is that coffee?”

“No, tea.”

“I’ll have the same tomorrow and the day after that. Maybe just make it for me everyday, saves everyone the trouble of having to write it all down,” JC taunts, then turning to the others he says, “what did I tell you, brains the size of a pea.”

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Posted In Lara Thomas, Travel, Travel Writing, Writing

My First Friend

Lara Thomas | January 26, 2013

Excluding the one program each of us was allowed to choose on the weekend, television was banned in our home. The result was exactly what my parents intended, our attention was directed outside for entertainment. My brother, Clyde and I played two kinds of games. The first, his favorite, was set in and around the treehouse. My role was to try break in, his to stop me. If you want to play with your older sibling, you quickly learn that the nature of the game will be dictated to you. Fully on board with this sacrifice, I took my role seriously, determined to find my way in.

Predicting that he would not leave the obvious route unprotected, I nevertheless gripped the fireman’s pole between my feet, hoisting myself up with my arms, testing the weakness of his defence. Watching my movements, Clyde let me climb three quarters of the way up before pouring water down its surface, sending me sliding to the ground at a speed. On the way down, I braced myself for inevitable sharp sting that would greet my feet as they hit the sand. Our battle had only just began. The pain had barely faded when I forced to dive from my position, dodging a swinging sack of rocks suspended from the top beam. This was the kind of standard I expected from him. Clyde’s one tv program was often the cartoon version of Robin Hood. In a wonderful loophole to the television moratorium, we were permitted to tape it and press pause to freeze the frame so that we could trace the bow and arrow clad figure onto our page. Unlike the square box, creativity was encouraged in our household. In time, we were able to copy the frame with close precision using freehand. Most of Clyde’s defence repertoire was stolen from half hour snippets of his vigilante idol. As we were allowed to watch the other’s program choice, I was privy to his techniques.

He had unclipped the ladder, rolling it onto itself then fastening it with a rope at the square entrance to the tree house. The heavy heap of chain and wood served a dual purpose in blocking the small opening. Where the ladder used to be, stood a four metre drop. With the ladder removed and the pole rendered useless, there was only one more way to get up –  the tree that supported the wooden structure. Jumping from the ground my hands connected to grab hold of the nearest branch. Crunching my stomach, I lifted my legs up to the same height, momentarily hanging upside down before gathering the strength to flip myself right side up. My aim was to get in by using a side opening between the horizontal beams of the treehouse. With the difficult part over, the challenge became the element of surprise. Taking a moment to still my breath, I slide across the trunk of the tree, sidestepping between two branches to the creeper-covered point of entry. Waiting for me, he grinned from behind the intricate ropes he had zigzagged across the opening, destroying any chance of sliding through. Defeated, I retreat back down the tree, hugging the bark as I descended. When I reached the lowest branch again an idea comes to me: if I fling myself off the branch, I may be able to catch one of the visible wooden steps of the coiled ladder, then pull myself up and into the tree house. The large gap between the branch I stood on and the point I was aiming for, made the risk of missing completely or loosing my hold very real, but like most children, I had not fallen enough to let that outweigh the excitement of it. So I leaped off the tree, arms outstretched in search of the slat. Relief swept over me when I felt the wood and had the strength to grip hold of it. Hanging from a height, I began a shaky pull up, cycling with my free legs for strength. When my arms clocked ninety degrees, the rope securing the ladder in place snapped. I plummetted. Some of the blow was cushioned by the compost that was piled on the red bricks below. Not receiving any of the softness of the soil, my foot was rushed to hospital.

Our other games pivoted around balls. Soccer, cricket and hockey, were all played on the same 10 by 6 meter patch of lawn. There were no easy wins against my brother. Like a stuck record, he used to sing to me:

“Anything you can do, I can do better.”

More infuriating than the song was that he was right. We ‘competed’ and he thrashed me. A  common score was ten upwards on his side, with nothing on mine . If he ever so much as thought about letting me win, it never showed.  Any time spent outside the throws of a game was spent in the flower beds searching for balls. Our swimming pool was unusually cold, shaded over by a huge Jacaranda tree. More often than not, our balls were caught in the chill of the pool. Using the weight of the water, one of us would splash it across, while the other stood on the far side waiting for the pick up. Hockey balls are indecisive about floating, drifting below the surface then lazily coming up for breath. When it came to hockey balls, the pool cleaner was often used as a quicker alternative to splashing. It was kept behind a trellised fence, secured with hooks to the street facing wall. To avoid hitting the pretty fence or decapitating flowers, you had to lift and turn the long rod in a maneuver similar to the back bend and swivel of the hands, made famous in the matrix. In the heat of a match, we sometimes reached a truce to retrieve an illusive ball:

“Take my hand and lean across,” Clyde instructed.

“No, I know what you’re going to do.” I said.

“I won’t. I promise you, I won’t.”

Worried that the delay would cause Clyde to grow bored of the one sided match, I tacitly agreed, taking his hand and leaning far over the water, simultaneously reaching with my hockey stick for the dimpled ball in the middle. He let go. Fully committed, no double reverse arm circles could save me. Under the cold water, I let myself scream in anger. On surfacing, I remained composed, ignoring his question:

“Is it cold?”

Heading straight for the warmth of a bath, I refused to acknowledge his laughter. As I reached the coarse mat at the foot of the front door, I turned to him and shouted with all the passion I could muster:

‘You are an ASSHOLE!”

Resenting his unsporting behaviour, I got my own back months later when, in the bitterness of winter, I pushed him into the water, quickly turning to the white perimeter pool fence for safety. In mid-air, parallel to the ground, Clyde tried to pry me loose by my ankles, all the while telling my mother to make me let go. Embodying Switzerland she kept a straight face, fully aware that any sign of amusement would be to ignore her son’s rage. I too tried not to laugh, knowing that it would make my body weak, increasing the chances of taking a swim. In a rare victory, I stayed dry that day, managing to cling to the fence for longer than he cared to pull. It was a genuine victory, not a half baked one that so many girls are given by their older brothers. There was no room for gentlemanly-ness between us. He always went at it full tilt and I came short too many times to mention but when I won, even if that win was a single goal in reply to his ten, I knew it was mine.

In Outliers, Malcom Gladwell tells of the compounded advantage some children have due to being born in the early months of the year. Children with birthdays between January and March are often a full year older than some of their fellow classmates. The difference shows in their strength and ability, with the result that they are labelled more talented than their peers. The initial advantage doubles and then increases infinitely with the extra training these ‘gifted’ children receive. Reveling in the praise and attention that comes with such potential, these kids are also more likely to put in the practice necessary to become truly good at their particular strength, leaving their younger classmates in their dust. Some grow into professional athletes, the line between their original talent and the initial advantage blurring. In drawing comparison, I do not in any way contend to have that kind of aptitude or distinction, nor in my opinion does the South African school system provide the same answer when Gladwell’s equation is plugged into it, however I do know that my older brother gave me some benefit on my first day of school and on all my subsequent days, in that I arrived already knowing how to compete. With the mentality of an underdog, I knew how to brush off my scraped knees and continue playing.  More importantly, I knew how to lose and I understood the importance of leaving the game, on the trodden grass, where it belongs. On a mental level, I understood what it was to control anger, to let it sit and settle. Through him I knew how to block out even the worst taunting. On arriving I had already learned what many were about to painfully face. What is more, is that I had learned it during battles with someone who I knew with great certainty, loved me effortlessly.

In our cricket games, the batsman stayed in the creese until he went out. Not once, did my brother sympathetically hand the bat over to me. This meant that for the most part, I threw the ball for Clyde to hit it. We adopted the traditional rule of six and out. My turn to bat usually came after Clyde had smacked the ball over the neighbour’s wall, which marked the boundary. Unfortunately, it was common for the rule not to carry a lot of weight since, being short on balls, the game usually came to an end. The bullterrier next door incessantly barked for the duration of our games, quieting only to gather his muster to bark once more. Using the palm tree growing alongside the wall as leverage, it was easy to peer over at him. We could see our tennis balls littering the yard he guarded so fiercely. His barking grew ever wilder as he spotted us. We knew as we watched our balls sail through the sky, half pleased with the height and half wishing we could take it back, that our ball was as long gone as a needle in a haystack, so we christened him that. After each six, we would sprint from the pitch to the wall, screaming in unison:

“Needle in a Haystack, give back our ball!”

We shouted at him and he responded with his deep bark. From her sewing room, my mother would shout to us to “leave the poor dog alone” but despite her plea, we continued to chastise him for robbing us. Eventually the loss of our balls became too high to bare, it was stifling our everyday, preventing us from honing our ball-eye co-ordination. Needle in a Haystack was not the least bit interested in the bright yellow balls that sprinkled his territory, he only had eyes for us. An untested dog whisperer, it was decided that I would be the one to venture into the neighbour’s yard. Sensing something different, Needle in a Haystack’s barking reached alarming proportion. When my courage peaked, I slid down the wall, hanging by my fingers, waiting for my brother’s signal:

“Ok, let go. Get the balls and come back,” he said and I could hear the uncommon sound of worry in his voice.

The shooting pain in my feet hit me at the same time Needle in a Haystack reached me. Silent for once, he sniffed my legs choosing which one to savage. And then he licked me, wagging his tail frantically. It turned out that Needle in a Haystack was not ferocious but lonely. Visibly happy, he followed me as I collected the balls, throwing each one over to my waiting brother. When there were no more to pick up, I dragged the large green dustbin next to the wall to help me climb home. Patting him one last time, it dawned on me that he was unlucky to be on the wrong side of the wall, with two dog deprived children so close to him. We were a perfect match with an unkind wall between us. It was probably the constant reminder of our laughter that caused him to bark the way he did. When I reached the other side of the wall he started again and for the first time I did not misinterpret it: he was begging me to come back.

We resumed our game, with backing vocals by Needle in a Haystack. Lingering in the air between us was something that would only be properly understood in years to come. Put simply it is that things aren’t always what they seem and more philosophically, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.’

Tomorrow is my brother’s 30th birthday, an intrepid adventurer, he took to the world straight after high school during his 19th year. At 23 and 24 he returned to North America and explored South America. It was in his going that I knew that, one day, I could do the same, because that is how it has always been: him leading, pausing every so often to make sure that I had sure footing in my efforts to keep up.

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Posted In Sri Lanka, Travel, Travel Writing

First Impressions

Lara Thomas | January 19, 2013

In their timing, my arrival in India and Sri Lanka were very similar. Each journey carried with it a new year. India 2010, Sri Lanka 2013. Both landings were a few hours before first light.

If you are lucky, India will test you from the first pitch. Make you tired, hot, and jaded. Pounce on your jet lag by putting you in a queue with no real line. In the hours that you watch some sneak and others blatantly push past you, you will be forced to make a decision. The sweat, the heat and the unrelenting questions about taxis and Jonty Rhodes and marriage, will make you want to go home. You may consider me weak for thinking of home so soon after touching Indian soil but if you have spent some time there perhaps you will understand, if only a little. People told me what to expect, but I dismissed their warnings with the arrogance of someone who thinks they are stronger. When the thought of home comes to you, you have to decide whether to give in to India. You must instantly learn what Kipling meant when he said ‘if you can wait and not grow tired of waiting,’ because there is no time for adjustment. You must accept it at the outset or you should rather go home. For if you don’t, you will return to your routine and speak only of its dirt and squalor, of its poverty and claustrophobia, with no mention of its splendor. It asks its visitors for something, refusing to reveal itself to those too timid to let go of the obvious. The filth is blatant and takes nothing to see it, even less to call it what it is. But to look past it, beneath the layers of dust, towards its more subtle beauty demands something from you. It can be likened to signing, where the same sight to one is a combination of hand movements and to another, a language. Only those who are willing to learn its art will unlock the hidden nuisances of its meaning. What is more, is that she will keep making you work for it.

Finally through customs, my friend and I found refuge in our pre-arranged taxi. If our peace of mind lasted 20 seconds, it was a lot. Chaos is too light a word to explain Delhi’s roads. The side mirrors of cars are folded to hug the windows, allowing them to pass closely. And that is all there is on these streets, close misses. Moving deeper into the city, our taxi took a turn for the worst. We curved with a road that narrowed suddenly, the lights overhead disappearing, our casual, almost bored, driver dodging tuk-tuks in the dim light. And then it stopped. The road. Unperturbed, our driver got out of the vehicle and began to take our backpacks out of the boot:

“Now we walk.” he said.

Picking up our belongings, we walked the next hundred meters to our ‘hotel’ which tried to save itself by inserting the word ‘international’ in front of Rakk. The only thing international about Rakk was that its standards would have failed global health regulations. From the doorway of our room we could see that the linen was dirty. We recovered from this setback when we remembered our neatly folded sheets that each of us had packed. Before our reassurance settled, we found the bathroom. There was a particular growth of orange and brown that monopolized the wet floor, spreading onto the lower half of the toilet like an infection. Mocking us, a piece of chlorine blue anti-septic soap sat in the far corner. Without question, each knew that the other was questioning our choice of destination but we were civil enough not to speak of it. So we did the only thing we could, we covered what we could with sheets and sarongs and put our developing flu to bed. That’s when the pheglming started. In your ear loud, it molested us every second minute. Like a switch, it woke the rest of Delhi. The scooters and jackhammers. The tobacco chewers and screeching babies. They all came to life as we tried to fall sleep. Somewhere between the pheglm and the hammer our exhaustion won and each of us drifted off. In the mid morning when we woke, we parted the dull curtains to find something that resembled beauty.

In adjusting to its difference, I have found Sri Lanka kinder than India. It would be easy to say, since I have been vocal about it, that I am at ease with being alone but that is not wholly the case. I wake with a few seconds of calm and then I am shaken by my aloneness. Then slowly, that fear is replaced by something similar to amazement. Every time I wake it is less though and soon I will wake fully aware of it. The definition of rally that attracts me most is, ‘an act of returning to a strong position after a period of difficulty or weakness.’ In my experience, the ability to make a sharp rise after a decline is the determining factor in the fine balance between tears and laughter when things appear bleak. On that first morning in Sri Lanka, unable to fall asleep, my ability to gather my strength, to rally, must be attributed to the proximity of the ocean, which will forever sooth me. Its soft break upon the shore somehow became more than the overpowering squawk of what I recognised as crows and eventually I was asleep before I knew that I was even falling.

The sight of it in the morning, reaffirmed me. The water in Negombo is not clear. It is warm and mirky but pleasant nonetheless. The shore starts like any, a continuation of the soft shore and then transforms into a firm velvet carpet beneath your feet. So much so that I wondered whether it was one, the Sri Lankan hospitality deep enough to consider it. I may not have admitted to that thought until a Canadian farmer who, with an offering of a hard-to-come-by cold beer, responded to my suggestion:

‘Maybe it is one,’ he said, making us both laugh, knowing that the possibility could only exist in this part of the world.

It is hot here. Sweltering. The first gift of my day was the sight of a woman’s bareback on the beach. She stood and confirmed my hopes, she was wearing a bikini, which meant that I could abandon the idea of swimming fully clothed. Though there are a fair amount of tourists here, my presence on the streets is nevertheless an anomaly. Never before have I had such a winning smile, with each receiver entirely delighted by it. Out of the corner of my eye I see glimpses of children with caramel skin imitating my wave to their amused mothers. Walking is an insult to the tuk-tuk drivers, who I have to decline every 20 meters, which refusal makes known my second gift: the word ‘no’ holds currency here. This acceptance is as welcome as the lukewarm water I sip on every few steps. The significance of it may be lost to those who have not ventured to India. Motivational snippets like ‘you have not failed, you have just a thousand ways that won’t work’ seem to have been whispered into the very earth of the country. Though that kind of persistence deserves admiration, it can be harrowing and unrelenting to travelers. It would be incorrect to conclude that I have no affection for the place, for I have found it to be like liquorice to me, unsure whether I liked it or not. Each day when I tasted it, I decided anew that it is not for me but when my initial reaction faded, I felt a craving for it again. For all its hassle, starring and uncomfortable attention, India is in equal parts full of wonder. It is a girl who tries to recover with her second impression after failing miserably with her first. And if you let her, you will find that, like liquorice, it is completely unique.

The gratitude I feel for my second gift frees me to take in the quaint houses whose families overflow onto the dusty streets, sharing their lives with neighbours and then a temple, that a rainbow vomited on, catches my eye. Occasionally I pass groups of learners sitting quietly at a table working and I feel the common pull to teach as I reluctantly walk by. The faded, chipped and then reapplied bright paint is the natural effect copied on over-expensive frames from home. The artificial creation of old has not been contemplated here. The lives of animals and people intertwine in a way that is lost to the western world. Crows pick at the remains of pineapples, competing with clay coloured cattle for small bits of nectar. A tiny monkey is held captive on a leash, replaced by a snake whenever their master feels the audience bored. Manged dogs, as loved as any, guard their makeshift fences. Circling around the ocean and the fish it offers, its people tie lines of gut together with the anticipation of a bite, rest in the slim shade after the morning catch and assemble at the fish market with a stench so thick it leaves a layer of rancid oil on your skin.

Cleaning Boat: Negombo  Little girl: Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has recently been listed on the ‘top countries to visit in 2013′. That is how I meet Sri Lanka: full from fish, dripping in colour and with the self confidence that comes from always knowing something that the rest of the world has only just figured out.

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