I have been in Kandy for more than 1 full day now. I am staying at a house called Gunfire. It may be the most beautiful house in Kandy. I have taken pictures, but can't post them because my computer is not hooked up. My friend Amal and his mother have taken me in as if I were a member of their family. The generosity of spirit of Sri Lankans never ceases to amaze me. I have no doubt that we in Canada would not do the same. I must have some very good karma saved up to have landed in such good circumstances.
There is no news of my friend Nirmala. As far as we know she is still in hospital receiving what we hope is palliative care. As Amal says we will probably learn of her death from an obituary in the paper.
I removed all my things from her place when I came up here and who knows if I will go back.
Kandy is beautiful. The climate is much milder than Colombo. Last night I even had to use a blanket to sleep. The odd time yesterday I even felt that I could use a sweater. Not to worry, though. I am sitting out on the veranda having my bed tea at 0830 with just my light bathrobe on.
Amal's mothers gave me the most amazing gift last night. We talked for 3 hours. She told me the story of how she married her husband and her life with him. It was fascinating to step back into another era of wealth, privilege, caste, Buddhism, custom, but mostly feeling. Sitting with her in her elegant dining room in this most beautiful of houses listening to her, I felt that we were back in the Raj.
The long and the short of it though is that she has had a very sad life. She married at 19. Her marriage was more a merger of two powerful families than anything else and for reasons that I will not go into, any love she may have had for her husband died after only 3 years. For his part, he remained in love with another woman until he died.
I was so touched that she shared her story with me. I am tearing up even now writing this. What a lovely woman. It was so good of her son to bring her back home so she could truly become mistress of Gunfire. It is a role that fits her very well and seemingly makes her a little happier in her last days.
For my part, I looked at 2 places yesterday. The first one was disgusting, although the setting was beautiful. It was overlooking the Kandy river which is dammed to form Kandy reservoir. Amal's cousin also has a house in that area that might be alright with some work, which she is willing to do but isn't available until next year sometime. The second was a townhouse sort of thing owned by the CEO of a finance company that Amal is a director of. It has some real possibilities and the rent is right. The limitation is that it only has one bedroom and it directly overlooks the rugby stadium where they have matches every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from April through July. On the plus side there is a large sports club attached the the rugby grounds which has a good restaurant form which you can order meals to be sent across and a state of the art gym. Something that would not go amiss at the moment.
I am hoping to see a few more places today, but things move at a snails pace around here, so who knows how many I will get to see in the end.
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