Postcard from Ussangoda:

A patch of rain, a patch of luck

Aditha DISSANAYAKE

I confess, it has taken a long time for me to write this account of the last leg of my trip to the south. Once back in Nanu Oya, I had little time to send the postcards,but this interval somehow makes the return trip back home, along the coast and over the hills, even more special. So, let me take you through that day's events.

Having spent two days in Galle, more in the water than on land, first in Unawatuna, then in the cool waters of the Indian Ocean surrounding the Galle fort, my kinsmen and I decide to head back home to Nanu Oya via Matara. Once again, the weather is just the kind every tourist from the cold misty hills of Nuwara Eliya dreams of, warm and sunny with cloudless blue skies.

The Journey

As the jeep speeds towards Matara my mind gets into rewind mode and I recall the taste of the pani donga I had tasted while rambling through the Galle fort the previous day.

Little did I know that when I sent my postcard from Galle, two weeks ago, the caption of the photo of the donga would be mistakenly published as dodang. The young man standing behind a pile of the yellow coloured fruit, unique to the southern villages, had invited me to taste as many as I like before I decide to buy some. Here it is I tell myself, another dose of the famous Southern hospitality. When I insisted on paying for the samples I had tasted he refused the money with a wink. The fruits belonged to his friend who will soon takeover when he returned from his lunch.

My final encounter inside the fort was with a young man called Anura who described himself as a cliff-jumper and who made a living by diving off the edge of the ramparts into the rocky waters below, to please tourists. He is willing to risk his life for Rs. 750 per dive. "It is nothing" he had said shrugging his shoulders. "Why bother so much about death. All of us will die one day".

Back to the present. As we drive through Koggala, enticing signboards pointing to Madol Duwa, catch my eye.

Feeble attempts

Then comes the first hitch in our journey. Camera poised, head thrown out of the window I try to take a photo of the famous stilt fishermen, to no avail. Not a single fisherman do I see with his fishing rod thrown into the water, sitting on a stilt in deep meditation. My feeble attempts to take a picture of at least the lonely stilts fail when we realize we will not be able to find a parking place on either side of the road.

Every empty space by the roadside has a bus or van parked with the long weekend holiday seekers. Young men dance to the rhythm of overturned buckets, old ladies tuck into plates of parippu and bread.

I watch with dismay the waves lapping against the solitary stilts and make up stories in my mind about the lives of the fishermen who use them.

We keep on driving well past Mirissa with the hope of finding a nice beach with less people, (for there are so many on every visible stretch of the beach, they keep getting into each other's photos) and in the process miss the turning to Hummanaya. (We had folded our roadmap with the greatest difficulty the previous day, we did not feel like opening it again).

We hope our instincts would show us the way. But not to Hummanaya. By the time we pull to the side of the road to consult the driver of a three-wheeler he says we would have to drive back for about thirty minutes to reach Hummanaya.

Determined not to let Ussangoda too turn into a hitch, we keep our eyes open for the smallest signboard and manage to locate, with little difficulty, the turning to the legendary city of Ravana, to which he flew across the sky in his special peacock chariot. But if luck had been on our side in helping us find Ussangoda the weather god's are not in a similar, benign mood.

No sooner than we step on the unusually red, barren earth, possibly the result of a meteor that struck our planet in days of yore, (or could it be that the soil turned red from the blood of a group of UFOs when their ship crashed? I shudder at the thought)dark clouds begin to gather on the horizon.

Drops of water as sharp as the nib of pencils pierce our skin before we reach the car park.

A few meters away, the rain miraculously ceases and so, to make up for our disappointment we stop by a small hut advertising pure buffaloes' curd and kitul treacle, even though ten thirty in the morning is not exactly the right time for such a treat.

When the cheekiest one among us asks Karunawathi, who seems to be in charge of the kade, "What milk powder do you use? Lakspray or Anchor?", taken aback by the sudden question she falls silent for a moment.

Karunawathi's day

But recovering in next to no time she says "My curd is made from pure buffaloes' milk. I make it myself" she slaps the wooden table in front of her for emphasis and adds "The curd is genuine but I cannot vouch for the kitul treacle which we buy from Deniyaya". As she opens a large pot of curd priced at Rs. 180 and piles spoon upon spoon of the content into plastic cups Karunawathi explains how she runs the business.

"I make about ten or fifteen pots of curd everyday.

I keep the shop open till all the pots are sold. Sometimes everything is over before lunch, but on some days about three or four remain unsold."

Though her business would never make her a millionaire she says she makes a satisfactory profit from each sale.

" I cannot increase my profits because I have to pay for the clay pots, the coir and the white paper as well" she explains showing no grudge over the meager income she makes.

"My husband grows vegetables on a piece of land we have taken on lease. Together we earn enough to look after our family".

This feast of white cream decorated with streaks of golden treacle marks the halfway point of my journey. No more room here to write about the other events of the day.

Watch out for another postcard in the weeks ahead. Next stop, Hambanthota.