The foreign lady with yellow hair

But if thongs are called ‘slippers’ then what do you call slippers? Slippers? You know, shoes you wear at night, inside, when it’s cold... On average 33 degrees, I didn’t once stop sweating, so RR suggested a facial––booking me in, not for the relaxing kind mind, rather one where they attack your face in what’s known as a ‘clean-up’.

After a month of trailing her around and steering Ari Kujo’s chariot, I’ve become a mythical character in Colombo social circles, a point of discussion among car park attendants and baristas. ADSW would hear it from some alert G-Pa––his wife was seen today with ‘the foreign lady with yellow hair’ or with ‘Australia lady’.

One morning, preferring anonymity, RR and I went to the port area of Pettah where traders own the streets, where the frenzy is indifferent to me, the barbers of the Oriental Saloon cut hair, and mosques bow proud under pre-Eid sprucing.

With the general election set for August, campaigning commenced with the nearby soccer-field transforming into a platform for rallies where––after some speech or other, Sri Lankan baila played into the night. Opposition attack ads picture lines of cocaine, shout: ‘A drug free country needs a drug free parliament’ and RR confirms, some electoral candidates do have drug convictions, but yes, still manage to find or buy loopholes through which to throw their hat.

Said goodbye to my little Ari Kujo and after two heavy films (Leviathan and Two Days, One Night), and a grilling from border control, I waited tired and heavy-hearted for my luggage alongside other lethargic passengers. Amid the bulky, black cases a lone pair of women’s knickers scroll past, once, twice around on the conveyer belt. Then they’re gone. Everyone giggles, this will end.

Then suddenly you’re in AB’s Queens Park flat watching the Wimbledon final with ADSW’s seven spice Colombo Gin and manioc crisps and you’re not sweating and you smile because you think of Maya saying ‘very taste madam’. And you couldn’t agree more. I haven’t achieved much since I arrived in London, which I’m reminded is fine. The gang have had their work cut out just assuring me I haven’t made a monumentally big mistake. But come on, can you lot back in Oz dig some more stuff out of the ground or something? The dollar’s tanking and given I’m about to pay the bulk of my Masters course fees the timing couldn’t be worse!

What to do? Baila baby...

Lunghi prints loom large in Pettah.