Cycling, cricket and curry in Sri Lanka

by alice cooper (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection United Kingdom

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It’s 11am and already roasting when I leave my hotel in Hikkaduwa. I’m heading south to Sura Medura Artist Residency a few kilometres away, just outside the small fishing village of Dodanduwa. I am cycling there on an ill-fitting hire bike wearing my shortish, sturdy cotton dress with it’s excellent, sun-shielding, collar. I am lacquered in suncream. I steer out onto the Galle Road, an old highway that stretches south from Colombo to the former Portuguese Fort of Galle. I share the road with Tuk Tuks, cars and buses, all going considerably faster than me. I stay focused on the road and try not to get killed. Such attention to staying alive makes the three kilometre ride pass in minutes, and before long I am greeted by the remains of Dodanduwa’s morning fish market. The sea creatures may already have been caught, bought and sold, but their odour lingers. I cross over the bridge and turn left onto Dammissara road where houses crossfade with palm trees. Ahead, I spot kids playing cricket, a sport I love. I slow down and screech my breaks to stop. The children run over and inspect me and the too-big-bike I’m now awkwardly straddling in my too-short-dress. I need to get off or keep going. I can’t bestride this high bar much longer. Looking to the tennis ball in one boy’s hand, I ask, through gesture, if I can play with them. With their smiling consent, I go to assume a fielding position by the garden wall. But as I do, the oldest boy outstretches his hand and places the ball in mine. Okay, we’re on, I’m bowling. With the first delivery, I realise how inappropriately dressed I am for the game wearing my short dress with old flip flops that twist as I take my run up. Of course as soon as my arm swings up and over to bowl, my dress follows suit. We play, and as we do, speak a shared language of cricket ‘6’, ‘4’ and ‘out’. I learn their boundaries – a six is over the high wall, a four, the low fence – out is the same as at home. As we play, families from nearby houses assemble to watch. I share smiles and laughs with the adults as I bowl poorly and try to keep my dress down as I do. One of the women watching, invites me over for lunch. I politely refuse. I don’t want to impose myself on anyone. I am given the honour of batting and proceed to laugh at myself as I try and hit the ball with a piece of wood the size of my forearm. After about half an hour, I feel my dress heavy with sweat and bare arms on the verge of crisping. I gesture I must go and head toward my bike, but again food is offered, this time more insistantly. I relent and say yes. And so cricket pauses for lunch. I am ushered off the street and into the cool of a house. This, I will later learn, belongs to the Fernandez family where Dulika, Arosho, Thyomi, Chiara, Malisha and Gimante live. I am led into the main room where the table is set for Royalty. A colourful printed tablecloth provides the backdrop to three plates of curries, rice, a salad, a bottle of chilled water and a little bowl of water and a large blue napkin. I am overwhelmed with gratitude and try to show it with my ‘impressed’ face and gestures, and by repeatedly saying one of the five Sinhalese words I know, “Istuti”, thank you. I try to show how I feel, who I feel like, by taking the napkin and folding it into a triangle and placing it on my head- surely the international symbol for a King I think. Six people look at me smiling but perplexed. I drop it and take my seat, the only seat at the table. Momentarily, mum Dulika disappears and returns with what I can only deduce is a large bib. I smile. My serviette ‘crown’ hasn’t been interpreted quite like I had hoped, but playing along, I tie it around my neck and eat like a Queen.