The Price of a Memory

At 24 I found myself in Diyathalawa, a small, quiet town in the central tea hills of Sri Lanka. Without plans, a gentle voice invited me for tea. In spite of my reflexive defenses, and a healthy amount of skepticism, I couldn’t refuse a cup of tea so close to dinner.

Despite the wear of many years, Deepal Samad had a childlike sense of eagerness to him. A thin lanky figure, he had a full smile of broad teeth and partially squinted eyes, almost as if he had spent too many years mimicking men’s fashion catalogs.

His modest home was put haphazardly together from seemingly used concrete bricks, packed together with a mud, then topped off with a patchwork quilt of aluminium tiles.

Tea was his opportunity to show off the only thing of value in his home: his porcelain tea pot and two tea cups, polished daily with the care of someone who values them immensely. Before long it was time. As we shook hands, his grip held longer than it should have and with a look of anxious anticipation in his eyes - he inquired:

“Money?”

And there it was, another typical case of greed and dishonesty, another in a line of seemingly friendly raconteurs to cloud my judgment of Deepal and his country. Somewhat disillusioned, I hesitatingly produced 1000 rupees. Shaking his head and hands, he ran to the bed and reached under, producing an old, rusty tea tin. Deepal opened it to reveal hundreds of different coins spanning the world.

Quick to show me his U.S. and Canadian coins, my misconception had melted into apology as I dug out a few coins left over from my travels. Poland, Norway, Indonesia.

I wondered if I would see his eyes again as he fervently scrutinized the coins, feeling the smooth and rough edges in his fingers. Abruptly, he grabbed a handful of coins from a corner of the box and shoved them into my hands. Different shapes and colors, all older, local coins.

“Please, please” he offered.

As I left Deepal’s home, he shouted in a voice, I can never forget, “You help me travel too!”