Sunday 17th June 2012 - Colombo, Sri Lanka

Today was the day that I would go to a wedding with Gayan. I needed to meet him at 9am as the wedding started at 10.30am outside of Colombo so I got up at 7.30am to try and give myself enough time but somehow still managed to be late. It was 9am and I was still at Anjali's house so I had to quickly grab my bag and run out the door leaving my room a mess but closing the door to avoid Anjali seeing it like that. I jumped in a tuk tuk to Borella Junction where Gayan was waiting. He jumped in with me. It took maybe 20minutes to get to the wedding as opposed to a supposed 45minutes so we were like an hour early.  Gayan took me up to the hall to take photos before everyone got there. The hall looked nice and was decorated with white and red accessories but there was a sign saying "The homecoming of..." I asked Gayan what that meant and apparently this wasn't the actual wedding, this was the welcoming home party after the honeymoon. The hall was set out like a wedding reception though. It seemed like a lot of effort and money for a homecoming especially given that they had already done the wedding and reception weeks before but this was the Sri Lankan way and I got to have a great day out of it so who am I to say anything. So Gayan and I sat at a table and waited for the bride and groom to come. Their arrival was signalled by drumming in the distance. The drumming got closer and closer and louder and louder and then through the entrance came five Kandyan Dancers performing the traditional dance whilst the bride and groom followed behind. It was a pretty cool entrance. The groom was wearing a black suit with a reddish coloured tie to match the bride's red saree. She looked beautiful. So apparently after a couple marry and go for their honeymoon they are supposed to bring their bedsheets out of the room for the family to see to prove that the girl was a virgin. If she passed the test she would then wear red to the homecoming. If she failed she was chased out of the village by the people!  The bride and groom took their place on a sofa surrounded by immitation flower arrangements and guests could go and say hello and give monetary gifts. After maybe an hour they went around to all of the tables and welcomed each guest as the photographer followed them around capturing the moments.  The food was delicious and was served buffet style. There were loads of different dishes including plain rice, vegetable rice, pea curry, vegetable chop suey, black chicken curry, devilled fish, fish sambal, salad, eggs, poppadoms, and all the different cakes for dessert that you can imagine.  Throughout the day all of Gayan's friends were coming over one by one and introducing themselves. We ended up moving closer to them and they kept making sure I was ok and asking if I wanted to dance. I already stood out like a sore thumb and had loads of people looking at me curiously and I didn't want to bring anymore attention to myself so I said no. I noticed throughout the day that random people were taking photos of me from afar and then Gayan's friends started but they atleast asked. The homecoming was finished by around 3pm and I was supposed to be going to meet Rudi and Farizeh as it was Rudi's birthday today. Gayan only gets one day off a week though and today was it and then tomorrow morning I would be leaving Colombo for a few weeks so I wanted to spend some time with him before going to meet Rudi and Farizeh. Gayan had told me before that he had never tried bowling so we planned to go bowling and have some shisha.  We first headed to Cioconat to have shisha and then we jumped in a tuk tuk and went bowling. Bowling was a lot of fun but after teaching Gayan how to play he ended up beating me at both games!  I called Farizeh after bowling to see if her and Rudi wanted company and whether it would be okay to bring Gayan. They said they would love the company and were at Ministry of Crab at the Dutch hospital so we went and met them there.  We were having a lovely evening chilling and drinking beer when I got a call from Anjali saying that she was feeling really sick and wanted to know what time I would be back. I told her that I would finish my drink and then go to the train station to check my train times for tomorrow and then I would come. She said 'oh so you are leaving tomorrow, but are you packed?' I said that I was pretty much done. She then said well why can't you check your train times in the morning. I explained that I would be catching the first train so needed to make sure I was there at the right time. She then said 'well why don't you check the times online'. I said that my phone was dead and also that I didn't have Internet on it either way. She was like 'But i'm sick, i really need to sleep. Rudi has the Internet on his phone - you should use that.' I was really quite shocked that she was acting this way. I didn't think it was reasonable for her to just call me and expect me to drop everything and be back within minutes. I calmly responded that I would see if I could find the train times online but that if I couldn't I would need to go to the station (which was only 5minutes away from where I was).  Rudi and Farizeh had heard the whole conversation and were like 'wow!' Farizeh told me that Anjali had come out with them during the day to Mount Lavinia hotel to hang out at the pool. Anjali had laid there like a damsel in distress the whole day saying she was too sick to join them in the pool but as soon as they saw one of the other girls from the expat association Anjali apparently jumped up so fast and was magically better. Drama queen came to my mind! Rudi and Farizeh said they would drop me back but it was really unfair for them to do that especially given that it was Rudi's birthday - I didn't want them to cut their night short because of me. As usual they insisted and said they would take me to the station first. Gayan came to the station with us and helped me try and find tickets but everywhere was closed. I had been feeling really fluey for the past week or so but since cricket I had started getting worse. The plan originally for tomorrow was to head to the hill country but because it is cold there and I was feeling ill I decided I would go to Trincomalee instead to try and see the whales and dolphins. My train was at 6.15am though so I would have to get my tickets in the morning. I said goodbye to Gayan and then jumped back in the car with Rudi and Farizeh.  On the journey back to the house Anjali had texted Rudi saying she was feeling really bad and needed him to come into the house when we got there. Rudi and Farizeh both told me to keep calm whatever happens because it is only one more night and then tomorrow morning I will be leaving first thing.  We got to the house and I rang the bell. She opened the gate and pulled Rudi into the courtyard and then just started shouting at me!  "Rudi, I need you to be here to hear this. Natalie how can you tell me that you are packed and leaving in the morning when your room is in such a state. How can you expect to leave your room like that. This is not a hotel, this is a home and you have left empty bottles everywhere and a coke bottle. You know how I am about leaving rubbish in the room and you left a coke bottle which is going to attract cockroaches. You know the rules of the house. After I introduced you to all my friends and took you to all these nice places, this is how you treat me! Rudi, come and have a look at the mess. Come and see!'  I tried to respond and explain that I was in a rush this morning and didn't have time to tidy my room that was why I closed the door. She screamed at me that I should arrange my timetable better so that I have time to tidy my room. Also that my bags had been a mess in the corner since I arrived.  I just thought it was ridiculous. If she had a problem with how I was keeping my room since I arrived then she could have spoken to me on a level and I would have fixed it. But to shout at me like this infront of Rudi at 1o'clock in the morning and try to parade my room to him was just obscene. She even said she has taken photos.  Everytime I tried to speak she cut me off and said she didn't want to hear it so I firmly said to her: 'shouting at me and saying everything you want to say but not letting me respond is not how communication works. I do not need to put up with you talking to me like this, I will pack my things and leave.' Rudi said I could stay at his but I told him it was fine and that I would go to the YWCA. He said he would wait and drop me there.  I packed up all my bags and put them in the car and Rudi and Farizeh said they were taking me to their house. I insisted that I really wanted to go to the hostel as it would make it easier for me to get to the train station in the morning. They said "no way, you will stay at ours and we will drop you to the station in the morning." Farizeh hadn't seen anything that had happened because she had been in the car but she said that she felt that Anjali was just sad because I hadn't been around while she was sick and hadn't stayed at the house to nurse her. I think she was probably right but I was just glad that I hadn't been completely stupid and spent all my money based on Anjali's promises of work and accommodation because I would be completely screwed right now! We arrived at the house and Farizeh showed me to my room and told me not to be upset. She also opened up to me and said that she noticed that Anjali was always speaking for me and some other things too.  Farizeh told me to wake her up at 4.30am for her and Rudi to take me to the station. I really didn't want to because it was now like 2am and they had helped me enough already but I had no idea to get into Colombo at that time of the morning because they lived quite far away. She said  I could leave whatever I wanted to leave in the cupboard and could stay at the house whenever I wanted. She is such a beautiful person.  I arranged all my bags and tried to sleep but my mind was just all over the place so I slept for maybe an hour in total.