Peculiarly Sri Lankan Customs

Many of you have emailed questions and asked us about what life here is like and so I thought I would oblige you with a brief list of some of the cultural customs.

• I am always offered a chair and a drink, even if it means an elderly woman has to sit in the sand and people have to run for several blocks to buy the drink.
• People don’t throw out their garbage they burn it in the streets
• Men hold your hand while they talk to you about important matters
• Men will stroke the back of your head or back as a sign of affection. (My red neck background still has a little trouble with this)
• Both genders will place their cheeks to yours and make a sniffing sound. This is repeated on each check. Kind of placing a blessing on you.
• Old women unashamedly belch loud enough to be heard several houses away
• It is considered rude to blow your nose. It is better to snort back your snot through your nose.
• It is rude for men or women to cross their legs in public
• We eat with our hands and not with utensils
• We drive on the left side of the road
• Men wear sarongs (tube like skirts and No I don't wear one)
  

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• Women wear Sarees, Shalwars, Burkas
• The people here have an incredible capacity for hard work in the heat
• Alanna is often referred to as Madam and I am called sir and on occasion master (very similar to what my students used to call me)
• Also, Alanna is sometimes called Mrs. Alanna Scott because of the way they give married women the man's first name rather than last name.
  
• Every church, temple, dagoba, koivu have loud speakers that blast chants and music, many days starting at four in the morning!
• Everybody is religious
• Dogs, goats, chickens, and cows roam wildly through the streets
• The cows brands take up the entire side of a cow and look like written paragraphs and not brands.
• Herds of cows will rampage fresh garbage piles
• People don’t get mad in traffic
• Quite frequently I am told that people like the colour of my skin
• Cricket is played on every street corner and alleyway
• Total strangers will invite you to their house
• People will transport hundreds of pounds of goods on the back of a peddle bike
• There is no toilet paper in the outhouse only a bucket of water
• The toilets are the fun little squatty things in the ground
• Elephants roam about
• It costs about two dollars to eat a meal
• There are always soldiers with guns around
• There are more peddle bikes and motorbikes than cars
• The most common building materials are brick and corrugated tin
• People say yes by bobbing their head from side to side (like they are saying no) this can be quite confusing.
• Small children stare at my whiteness in horror, young kids run, wave and yell a few English phrases, and the elderly smile and bob their heads
• Door frames are built for people that are only 5 feet tall (I bang my head almost daily) If you doubt that the picture is actually me or some giant stand in just look at the skinny white legs. They are undeniably mine. Now I might remind you of the earlier statement that many people comment on how much they LIKE the colour of my skin. My legs and their colour are to be adored and admired, not mocked. I already know what the comments page will be filled with.
  Make it a great day