Eating Curry With a Spoon

The woman at the door stared blankly at me as I stood there dripping with sweat from my hike up a mile of dusty road under the hot sun in the highlands of Sri Lanka in late July of 1985. “We don’t have any rooms for rent,” she said. “My mother used to take in travelers, but that was many years ago.” I started to panic. I’d spent the morning on the old wood-paneled train that ran from Colombo to Kandy, peering out at the tangled jungle on either side of the tracks as the engine heaved its way up the switchbacked hills, marveling at the elephants busy at work in the logging encampments, each with its own thin and turbaned handler. I had assumed that the guesthouse I’d read about in a guidebook I found in a used book store in Tokyo would still be there, and my heart sank at the thought of spending another night on a bench, trying to sleep while hunched over my backpack. At least the bench at the Colombo airport had been inside, and while the machine guns the guards carried made me more than a bit nervous, I wasn’t afraid of being harassed. But a night in a dark Kandy park sounded dangerous. My apprehension must have shown on my face, because the woman suddenly smiled and said, “You can stay here tonight. There is an empty room.” Thanking her profusely, I dropped my pack on the narrow bed draped with mosquito netting hanging from the high ceiling, splashed some water on my face, and walked back to town. I went into the first cafe I found and sat down, grateful to be out of the sun, only to realize I was the only woman there. Hoping I hadn’t crossed some sort of cultural boundary, I pointed to a random entry on the menu, and a few minutes later was given a large tin plate covered with rice and curry. Seeing no silverware on the table, I asked for a fork, and received my second blank stare of the day, from a waiter who spoke as much English as I did Sinhalese. I looked around the room and realized that the men were eating their rice and curry neatly with their hands. I had no idea how to duplicate that feat, and pantomimed eat, utensil, please? After a few minutes he brought back a foot-long kitchen spoon and handed it to me with a curious look. Holding it by the wide bowl, I was able to use the tip to get the rice and curry into my mouth, much to the amusement of the men around me. Refreshed by the meal, though abashed by the stares, I paid my bill and headed out into the late afternoon sunshine, joining the rest of the tourists headed towards the temple square, where the jewel-encrusted elephants waited patiently for the beginning of the night’s parade and the Festival of Buddha’s Tooth.