When we stopped to pick up food near the beach house, I decided to get a 2 liter container of ice cream to share. Of course, I considered just getting a half pint and making everyone watch me jealously as I ate it, but decided to be mine. As it turns out, "freezer" is a very loosely applied term in Sri Lanka, and by the time we opened it the net day it was mostly soup. Delicious, cold soup. For dinner on Saturday we were served crabs, which were amazing and unbelievably spicy. This was the first time I literally could not eat more than 2 bites because I was burning and tearing up too much. Jade mentioned milk, but although they put milk in their tea it's from a powder and nobody drinks it here. That's when I remembered the leftover ice cream soup. We brought out the container and a few others and I would cut the spice with a spoonful, eat crab until we cried, wash, rinse, repeat.**
The weekend begins with a "4 hour" car ride. Our driver tells us, "oh, we'll be there by half past 9." We arrive at half past 11. We didn't hit traffic or anything, this is just the way time is told in Sri Lanka.
Can we have some more tools for the garden, please?
"Sure, I'll pick some up next week."
Nope.
"4 hours."
Nope.
Can I please stop to use the bathroom?
"Sure."
45 minutes later...seriously, I'll accept a small shrub to duck behind at this point.
Nothing is hurried or urgent. It's great, except when the drivers says that the really bad patch of road (worse than the rest of the road...which is saying something) that might make me carsick is 30 minutes long. An hour of actively trying not to be sick in the van and we're still on the road.
Once we get to the beach house and get out of the van, I'm fine, and the weekend is going to be amazing. We're somewhere along the eastern shore at a house walking distance from a beautiful beach. The house is adorable and the architecture so fitting for the climate. The bottom floor has no walls on the outside. Only pillars to hold up the second floor. The heat is able to be tempered by full exposure to the breeze. The second floor has walls with huge windows, but they seal off and have air conditioning if you prefer. We just open the windows. Sara, a higher up at Millennium, shows us around the area eagerly. Our weekend is full of beach trips, temples, sunburns (none for me thanks to my gallon of SPF 50 I brought, but although I shared generously there are still some minor burns for others.)
The weekend is relaxing and wonderful. Sara takes us to "the best spot in Sri Lanka" which is a very specific part of the ocean. It flows through like a wide river and in 1 spot (about 2 meters wide) the current is strong and you can lean into the current and just relax. Sara calls it a natural spa, what he doesn't mention is that about 10 meters away from "the best spot in Sri Lanka" is the area we've dubbed "the worst spot in Sri Lanka." There are a lot of rocks around the area and 3 of us cut our feet on them. Leiah and I not so badly, but Shay's is going to need my first aid kit's gauze...eventually. She stays in the water for another half hour anyway, swimming happily. Eventually she has it doctored by Sandeth, the head of Millennium, who has driven up to join us.
We go to 2 Hindu temples and get blessed. The temples are beautiful, but I find the crowds a bit distracting. I prefer the Buddhist temple I saw in Galle, and found it much more...I can't think of the correct word, not holy, but more like God could be present there, more inclined to worship there.
Snorkeling is available here too, for a small price. And I really mean small, like 500 rupees or something. Everything here is soo cheap! I can get a mango across the street from Millennium for 10 rupees, a sandwich for 30, or a beer for 200. A rupee, by the way, is less than 1 cent. The snorkeling equipment is pretty bad, but we have fun and stay our for hours.
Sleeping 10 people in a 2 bedroom beach house is interesting, to say the least. There are mattresses (if you can call what we sleep on here "mattresses") on the floors so that we all have one, and 2 people in each bed, but only the beds have mosquito nets. Electing not to take a bed, I get a bit bitten overnight. Not too badly, but I miss my mosquito net. The second night I figure if I don't have a net anyway, I might was well sleep in one of the hammocks outside. 30 minutes in the hammock proves me wrong, and bites drive me back into the house to sleep in the slightly less buggy bedroom.
The area where we are living at Millennium is not a malaria area and when I arrived I found that nobody is taking their malaria pills. I stopped taking mine too a few days in (how often does peer pressure work to convince someone not to take drugs?) Waking up with so many bites I have a small fright that maybe this area is malaria ridden. Naturally I begin writing my will immediately, but then Sara assuages my fears, saying that we haven't been to any malaria areas.
Altogether the weekend is quite fun, but I am in desperate need of some alone time. I love being social with everyone, but too much exhausts me and I need to recharge alone. I feel like I haven't been alone in over 2 weeks, and here it's significantly more pronounced. I take a nap and feel a little better, but I'm looking forward to getting back to Millennium where there's more space to go by myself when I need to. I also start to get a slight bit homesick. Well, not exactly homesick, because I really don't want to go home yet. Mostly I really just want to hear my parent's voices instead of just texting and emailing. I miss my friends too, but talking to my parents on the phone for a few minutes when I get back to Millennium on Sunday makes me feel much better.
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