Sri Lanka Road Trip - Part Three, Jaffna

After leaving Mannar, we continued driving northward until we reached the northernmost tip of Sri Lanka and the town of Jaffna.  Before even coming to Sri Lanka, Elise and I wanted to follow in Anthony Bourdain's footsteps, even if he did seem thoroughly miserable during the entire taping of his trip to Jaffna.  Bourdain took a nine-hour train from Colombo to Jaffna which, though I am sure it was incredibly scenic, I am equally sure got old after about an hour.  

Having spent two years in Tamil South India, we were anxious and curious to see the Tamil north of Sri Lanka.  The vestiges of a lockdown seemed pervasive, but not a pandemic lockdown as one might expect.  The shadow of the Sinhalese majority to the south loomed over the city.  Police check points into and out of Jaffna were numerous.  In fact, they were sprinkled throughout the north, and the only time we have ever been stopped after almost three years in Sri Lanka was as we were departing Jaffna two days after we arrived. 

Prior to the civil war, Jaffna was Sri Lanka's second most populous city after Colombo.  The civil war left the city damaged, with large swatches of its population missing or killed.  Historically, Jaffna has been a contested city; it was made into a colonial port town during the Portuguese occupation in 1619 who lost it to the Dutch, only to lose it to the British in 1796.  

As mentioned in a previous post, I completely screwed up our accommodations in Jaffna, having made a reservation at a similarly named property miles away in Kandy.  Fortunately, they were still able to accommodate us for one night.  The first night we would have to stay in the Jetwing which actually ended up being the nicer of the two.  

Our mission in Jaffna was to experience some different Sri Lankan cuisine.  This proved surprisingly difficult for various reasons.  All we really wanted were dosas.  (and Jaffna's signature dish, crab curry.) We are used to having dosas for breakfast or lunch, but no one seemed to serve them before dinner.  Elise had bookmarked a few restaurants for us to try, so we left our car at the Jetwing and set out in a small taxi to grab a late lunch at Mango's Indian Veg.  Hoping for dosas, Mango's was sold out of everything except biriyani.  So, biriyani it was.  

All Elise really wanted to do was wander and explore, much as she did freely when we were in Chennai. The kids had other ideas.  After ice cream at Rio, more or less the Dairy Queen of Jaffna, we marched a mile back to the hotel, directly into the late afternoon sun.  Back at the hotel, we stretched put and cooled off, then decided to head up to the rooftop swimming pool. 

We all changed into our bathing suits, slid on our flip flops, draped bath towels from the rooms over our arms, and took the elevator to the roof.  We stepped onto the roof and looked around for the swimming pool.  We couldn't find it, nor did we see a sign directing us to the pool, so we asked the bartender atthe rooftop bar where the swimming pool was. 

"There is no swimming pool, sir?" 

Really?  Well that was embarrassing.  Rather than return to the room, we chalked it up as a happy accident.  Elise and I ordered Lion lagers, the kids had French fries, and we played cards as the sun went down.  

Neither Elise nor I would fight the kids' momentum on this one.  We stayed in, ordering Pizza Hut to the room.  So much for the heralded Jaffna food scene.

Sri Lanka Road Trip - Part Two, Donkey Sanctuary

The second leg of our trip, from Kite Beach to Mannar Island, should have been shorter than the previous day, only three and a half hours, but there was a bridge out on the highway in Wilpatu National Park, and we had to drive an hour inland, around the bridge, to get to our destination.  

As we drove north, we noticed a slower pace to life.  Traffic was thinner and more phlegmatic.  Herds of cows were more evident, lazily drifting across the highway or stopping all together to congregate on the asphalt.  The white concrete of Buddhist stupa domes was replaced by the more colorful and decorative Buddhist temples the further north we traveled. 

The island juts out of the western shoreline of the island, a hand reaching out to India.  In fact, most believe a land bridge, Adam's bridge, did connect the two countries.  The island was flat, sparsely shrubbed, with rich red earth.  

After spending the night, Elise and I rose early for a short run to the ocean.  There, we happened upon a small fishing village.  Conical shells with long protuberances, items right out of a boardwalk gift shop lined the beach.  I asked the few fisherman who emerged from their thatched roof huts at that early hour if there were any fish, but they shook their heads sadly. 

We joined the kids for breakfast before driving out to the westernmost tip of the island and a glimpse of India across the strait, but the road to the tip ended at the gate of a resort, locked with a padlock and chain, closed due to the pandemic.  We settled for a visit to the donkey sanctuary.  The real reason we stopped at the donkey sanctuary was for the t-shirt, but, sadly, they were all sold out. 

Sri Lanka Road Trip - Kite Beach

Instead of flying back to the States as we had originally planned, we decided to take an old fashioned road trip around Sri Lanka.  

We don't usually travel this way.  We typically like to get where we're going, stay there for several nights or a week, then head back to Colombo.  But this would be a road trip in the truest sense of the word.  We would drive, spend one night, then drive on the next day to our next destination.  We did this for the first three nights.  Even when we reached Jaffna, the northernmost point of Sri Lanka, where we would spend two nights, we had to change hotels because I made a mistake when I booked the hotel there, having accidentally made a reservation at the Fox Resort in Kandy instead of the Fox Resort in Jaffna (oops).  At least they had one night available, but Fox Resort ended up being kind of a dump anyway, and we ended up liking our backup better, the Jetwing.  

We left Colombo on Day One and drove to Kalpitiya, about four hours north, and stayed at Kite Surfing Lanka.  The beach off Kalpitiya, at the end of a long peninsula, is known as one of the best kitesurfing beaches in the world.  

We arrived on Sam's birthday, and I had naively signed him up for a kitesurfing lesson later that same afternoon.  I had heard -- and knew well on some level -- that kitesurfing wasn't one of those things you just showed up and did or picked up easily.  It could take many lessons before one learned how to handle or fly the kite.  You may never even get out on the water at all for several lessons.  The French instructor running the school told me as much, so we had to be content sitting on the beach watching the kites go by, not difficult to do. 

Happy Anniversary

 No good conversation starts, "How quickly can you be home?" 

Elise called me just as I got off the treadmill, covered in sweat.  I would need to dry off, change, pack up, then ride my bike home from work.  "If I left now, 30 minutes?" 

For the past several days -- if not weeks -- Peter and Sam had been excitedly preparing for Week Without Walls, a weeklong school field trip to a point of adventure somewhere on the island.  Peter was going to a resort camp in the jungle foothills just outside of Kandy.  Sam was going to the beach near Weligama, a familiar locale, but he would be camping ("real" camping, in a tent) on a bluff overlooking the ocean.  Two weeks ago, Sam even asked if he could start packing.  Preparations were made, itineraries poured over studiously, devouring, absorbing, perseverating over every detail.  

There was a lot riding on this trip.  No one knew if the school would even be able to pull it off.  The relative calm between the Delta and Omicron waves was wearing off.  We were coming out of the trough in between waves, the good ship Sri Lanka slowly climbing the steep side of the Omicron wave which threatened to crest and come crashing down on us any day.  But the school was plowing ahead with planning, setting high expectations they'd be able to pull it off.  

There had been no Week Without Walls trip last year (the entire school year was wiped out by the pandemic).  Everyone was tentative.  Would this be the year things return to normal?  We all wanted this so bad.  For the kids.  For us.  I don't think anyone could take one more disappointment.  

The only thing left was for all the kids to get Rapid Antigen Tests at school Friday afternoon, greenlighting them for an early Monday morning departure. 

"You said you wanted to know, so I called.  Should I leave now?" Elise asked.  

"Go ahead and go," I agreed.  "I'll be home by the time you guys get back." 

The school had called Elise.  Sam tested positive.  She had to come get him from school.  Right away.  Can you test Peter, too? she would ask.  He wasn't supposed to be tested until later in the afternoon, but the school is 45 minutes from our house in good traffic, and she wasn't going to drive out there twice.  And can you get Clementine ready to leave, too? she would also ask.  Clementine was not a first contact of Sam and would have to leave school, too.  

Then, Peter tested positive. 

Elise texted me from outside the school, "I just got here.

"I'm so devastated for them." 

She may have double middle fingered ("two birds to the sky") an aggressive Sri Lankan motorist on the drive home, and I'm fairly positive I slammed our front gate into the side of a Mahindra SUV illegally parked in front of our house, blocking the gate.  We had to be calm for the kids, but no one said we had to be calm for strangers.  

I did get home before them.  I sat and waited.  I heard the garage door open and rushed to meet them at  the front door.  They trudged in, eyes red and swollen, a march of misery.  They dropped backpacks and lunch boxes to the floor dejectedly. 

Elise and I turned them right around.  We piled back into the car and maneuvered through traffic to the hospital parking lot.  The tents set up there were easy to find.  The queue was short.  I paid for five PCR tests.  I'm not an epidemiologist, but had heard PCR tests were more reliable than RAT tests.  At any rate, we had to know now if Elise and I had it, too.  

A few minutes later, one of Sam's classmates arrived.  There were five kids in Sam's grade who tested positive and about the same number in Peter's grade, too.  Sam and his friend joked and laughed, leaning against their dad's car, teenagers, either acutely aware of what was at stake or completely oblivious, or, most likely, a preternatural combination of both only able to exist in one place inside the body of a teenage boy.  Nonetheless, joking won out, anxiety releasing, palms slapping denim clad thighs, bent double, clutching guts, kids at play.  Elise waved to the boy's mom across the parking lot.  The hospital parking lot almost took on a festive atmosphere were it not for what was at stake. 

We were all handed labelled vials.  The kids may have dropped them more than once, but at least none of them broke on the parking lot asphalt. 

I went first, stepping into the small tent, opening my mouth, sticking out my tongue on command.  Head back.  Hold still.  Here it comes, a cotton swab to the brain, tickling the back of my cerebral cortex.  Then, Peter, Elise, Sam.  Clementine was last.  I didn't have to hold her down, but it was touch and go there for a second. She recoiled as if stung by a bee.  I looked at the nurse skeptically, asking with my eyes, "Did she get it?"  Swathed in layers of baby blue PPE plastic bags, it was difficult to discern a response.  I tried to see a smile in her eyes, some recognition, anything.  Finally, I thanked her, scooped Clem up and exited the circus tent. 

At home, Elise promised them all big toys.  We may have cried some more.  Peter and Sam were quarantined from the rest of us just in case.  They hung out in Sam's room, playing video games, watching movies, and listening to music.  They were given an all access pass on their devices, unlimited screen time.  They could have asked for much, much more.  We were prepared to pay.  There was seemingly no price to be placed in trying to buy them out of their disappointment.  Elise made tacos.  She, Clementine, and I watched a show downstairs while we ate while the boys watched a show upstairs on Sam's computer while they ate.  We wore masks when we tucked them into bed and said goodnight. 

I woke up to Elise hitting me on the head with a pillow.  

"What are you doing?" I complained sleepily, unsuccessfully warding off her blows with wild gesticulations of my arms, broken windshield wipers swiping crookedly at thin air. 

"Go check your e-mail," she ordered.  "I haven't slept all night." 

I pulled myself from bed and checked my phone.  The text messages came at around 12:45 a.m. but, of course, we had been long asleep, drained by the emotions of the afternoon. 

There were five in all.  I tapped on the first one and downloaded the report.  Peter.

"SARS CoV-2 Real Time RT-PCR

"Result

"Not detected." 

What?  Was I awake?  Was I dreaming?  Is not 'not detected' positive or negative?  Is this good news?  Or just affirmation of bad? 

I tapped on the next text message.  Sam. 

"SARS CoV-2 Real Time RT-PCR

"Result

"Not detected." 

I tapped on the next one until I had downloaded all five reports.  All negative.  We didn't have the virus. 

I ran upstairs. "They're negative," I reported breathlessly.  "They're all negative." 

Only Clementine was awake.  "You don't have the virus," I told her form in the dark.  "None of us do.  The boys are negative, too." 

Elise told Peter when he woke up and he cried because he wouldn't be able to watch TV in his room by himself all day.  I woke Sam up a little after six to tell him.  He immediately started texting his friends. 

As the morning wore on we learned none of the kids who tested positive in either of the boys' grades was positive on a PCR test.  We don't know what happened.  Maybe the school got a bad batch of RAT tests, but I'd be lying if I said I cared.  I'm just glad it turned out the way it did.  They could all go to Week Without Walls.  

And Friday, January 21, 2022, our 16th wedding anniversary, will definitely go down as one for the record books. 

Much Mistletoing and Hearts will be Glowing

Our housekeeper was thoughtful enough to get gifts for the kids.  Unfortunately, she calls Sam "Alex", the name of her previous employer's son who is about Sam's age, and...well, you can see how she spells "Clem".