Reflections below made during a trip to Sri Lanka with other student affairs professionals where we interned with Habitat for Humanity, learned how to lead international service trips, and built the first of two houses in a large 50 house complex that would be the first neighborhood after the civil war where both Tamil and Sinhalese people would live together.

 

Curving along pot-holed one lane Sri-lankan roads, we slowly make our way back to Negombo from Sigiriya, an ancient civilization built atop a massive rock in the sky.

This weekend has been a breath away from the arduous, but rewarding work building the first home of the first house in a huge future neighborhood shared by previous enemies in the civil war. We finished the house on friday and were soon the prized guests of a beautiful blessing ceremony in the center of the new concrete home. Dancing light of fresh candles illuminated brilliantly colorful pictures of multi-limbed animal spirits on the walls where we all gathered  in the main living room.  The matriarch of the family kneeled on the new floor, building a fire under a clay pot, the other family members swarming around clapping in glee as it boiled over, signifying the transferral of the home from our hands to theirs.

Yesterday we went to an elephant orphanage, where many of the elephants were blind or missing limbs as a result of the civil war here between the two ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and Tamils. After feeding the elephants entire pineapples and watermelons, we watched the pack of 40+ march into the river to bathe. So bizarre how bizarre it is to see animals actually living their lives in wide open spaces. No fences, no artificial pond. So strikingly beautiful, but sad, realizing how rare that sight actually is.

We then headed to spice island- a ridiculous shop that included a nature walk where we saw trees/bushes that grow vanilla, cardamon, saffron, cinnamon etc. while the most energetic tiny homeopathic student raved about all the natural concoctions possible ( who knew lime zest and honey could make you lose weight and lower your cholesterol!). We continued to a tea factory, a Buddhist temple, and then proceeded to a traditional dance where men ate and walked on fire. Not bad for a Saturday.

Yet admist the endless distraction, the seemingly continual newness of each moment,  the day froze still as we halted in traffic and I gazed out the window at a tuk tuck just as two women turned and our eyes locked. Me, in my white tank top, hair down, feet perched up on the seat beside me. Them, black gloved hands folded over full black burkas, their eyes glowing visible, a bright white slit of skin surrounded by darkness.  A small girl, maybe six years old, sat on their lap and the mother and I continued to stare, frozen in that one moment of rest, lives pausing for those extended seconds between glass.  Suddenly, our bus pulled ahead, then their tuk tuk, then us again. I nodded in respect, in a greeting, and she nodded back. I then waved at the little girl, staring at me in wide eyed wonder.

With a little nudge from her mom she waved back, a bewildered look on her face, our two entirely separate worlds touched and locked together for one brief moment. What must these women think about me- Envy? Disgust? Pure curiosity?

Traffic cleared. They were gone, and I turned back to the Americans on the bus. And just like that, our worlds ricocheted off of each other, each of us falling back into our own opposite universes.