Let me introduce you to Jeevan (he's the one on the right)
Jeevan is the livelihood driver, and one of our favorite people in Sri Lanka. He takes us on any trip we go on to Colombo or wherever and he has a great sense of humour. He is learning English so quickly although he still struggles from time to time. (Of course his English is always good enough to make fun of Scott and I, which seems to be his favorite pastime right now…)
He has this constant joke going with us about how we are old and he is young (He’s 25.) He calls Scott Apapa and me Amama which means Grampa and Gramma. And frequently tells us “ I am young man no?” Usually in response to us asking him if he’s tired but sometimes just in relation to anything at all that means he can make a joke. The other day he and Scott came back from some trip and Scott was telling me how Jeevan kept purposely hitting all the bumps while Scott was trying to drink out of his water bottle (the roads on the east coast are such that not hitting bumps would not be an option) so of course, I jumped to my husbands defense and told Jeevan just how mean that was of him. And he said that it was because Scott was so old that his hand was shaking so he couldn’t drink. His mime of an old man trying to drink out of a water bottle was hilarious.
Less hilarious of course is his mocking of my cooking. I once invited him to join us for pizza and he said (clutching his stomach) “Oh no, sometimes, I eat your food, I make vomit”…! Since then it’s been a running joke, anytime I offer him food he asks if I made it.
The other thing that gets him going is how Scott continually falls asleep on any drive longer than 17 minutes, his typical response is “Some people…always sleeping.” I usually get, “some people, always sleeping, always eating, always lying.” (the last one is usually in response to me telling him that I am a young woman, or a good cook.)
I think Jeevan is a wonderful example of the Tamil people. He has grown up and come of age during two and a half decades of war, he has never known his country at peace, he, his family, and his people have been oppressed for years, yet he is a happy man. He likes to laugh, he cares about his friends, he looks for the best in everyone and all races, he is polite to the soldiers that hassle him and I think his ability to laugh and love his country is brave. We’ve been trying to teach Jeevan the very funny joke “are we there yet?” (which has actually turned out to be very funny because it gets him every time. Two hours into a 7 hour trip I ask “Jeevan, are we there yet?” and he looks at his watch and looks at me like maybe 28 is actually old enough to be senile and says…”no..maybe 5 hours?”) Anyway, there’s something sad about a guy who doesn’t know “are we there yet?” but knows the word oppression.
And despite what this photo may suggest, he really is quite intelligent.
Also, he will be driving us around for the next couple of weeks as my parents and one of my best friend's Heather Macpherson come to visit! And probably in April when Scott's parents come to visit! Most of you probably know that we have visitors coming, but if you didn't, now you do and you can only imagine how excited we are!
