One cup of tea

Bill and I exercise pretty much every day. Usually, I run and he walks, but sometimes, especially when we are travelling, we just hike or walk together. Such was the case on our recent trip to Tangalle. Each morning, we cruised away from our hotel down this rutty, dusty, rocky road in order to get to the main road. On this path, we dodged insolent water buffalo, hissing and huge monitor lizards and rebellious cows. Just as an aside, the buffalo and cow branding on these animals requires a humane society to step in. The brands cut across the entire side of the animal and are four scripted letters about 1.5ft in width and 1.5 ft in length. The script itself is about an inch wide. Strips of flesh dangled from these poor animals. Anyway back to the story.

A few homes sit along this path that we walk each day and each day, people greeted us from these small homes: people sitting outside their homes, standing in the doorway of their homes, or hanging out the windows of their homes. People invited us to tea.

Now, firstly, Bill and I are wary of these invites. When we first arrived in Sri Lanka, many people appeared to be helpful but then just demanded money from us, so we got a bit wary. Secondly, in our culture, we tend to develop a bit of a relationship with someone before you invite them to your home for tea. You certainly don't invite a stranger walking by your house in for tea, and especially one that doesn't speak your language.

Just the same, each and every day, this one particular family was so friendly and so insistent we come for tea that I finally agreed to come into their home for tea. Bill was surprised at me, but gamely accompanied me inside. There, we met the amma (mother), her four adult children, her teen age boy and her two grandchildren. Each of these people, one by one, kissed us both on each side of our cheeks. They served us delicious milk tea (tea loaded with cream and sugar) in chipped English china tea cups and along with many types of store bought cakes and desserts, a bundle of bananas sat on the tray.

One of the boys, likely in his late teens or early twenties told us that while none of his family was killed or injured by the Tsunami, their home was ruined by the giant wave of December 26, 2004. Despite not personally suffering human loss, they remained very frightened for a long time after the Tsunami hit. Their current home is a block from the beach and was rebuilt through the help of a British Aide organization. It is of rough cinder block construction and we only saw the front portion or the living room of the home. It was long, narrow and rectangular, filled with plastic lawn chairs and the about the size of a large bathroom. The home had a smooth concrete floor, window openings, but no glass and we can't remember if there was a door or not.

One adult daughter worked as a cleaning lady at the hospital, and the rest we met were not working, save the one boy who worked part time at the hotel where we stayed. One adult daughter was planning to go to Saudi Arabia to find work. Despite the modesty of their home, they exuded warmth, amiability and a sense of fun.

We munched, chatted and then thanked them for inviting us. They invited us back that evening for New Year's Party. We declined. They invited us back the next day. We said we'd see. They all kissed us again. They wanted our contact numbers. We expected they would ask us for money. They didn't.

We didn't get back for tea again, but we did stop there on our way out of town. We were kissed again and the Taata (Dad) of the clan was home this time. He kissed me too. The relationship was genuine. Our first cup of tea!