Sri Lanka: Our first "dates"

It takes thousands of hours to find happiness. It takes less to cross the Atlantic, so I left.

At Colombo airport, I put on my childlike eyes. The security guards have chocolate-brown complexions, and a handsome guy is holding a sign. He's come to get me, finally. I look at him with tears in my eyes, but a smile that stretches across my cheeks is a testament to my already knowing I'd fall in love with his country. Sri Lanka, you've pulled me out of my November slumber, and not just a little, with your charming customs and genuine smiles. You have more to offer than I do, Sri Lanka, that's for sure.

On the first day, you dragged me to a place that was too harsh for my innocent eyes and my white Canadian skin. The narrow alleyways of Pettah market, Tamil music blaring from megaphones. The cries of the merchants in Sinhalese, straining their voices to sell me Buddhas. Or bracelets. Or a tuk-tuk ride. Or their very souls.

Everywhere I walk, your grandmothers smile at me, unashamed to ignore the dentures. Proud of the few teeth they have left, their smiles are so long and genuine that I have time to count them. In their eyes, wide with pleasure, it's as if I'm reading La Fontaine's fables every time: "There must be many lessons learned in those creases," I think to myself. And then there are your grandfathers, slumped in the sun, their minds and stomachs giving up from doing nothing. I share my meal with them.

Sri Lanka, you stole my heart when I found an elephant outside my hotel room. The two-ton beast was munching on leaves with its trunk. It had brought out its Sunday best knives. I had no choice but to fall under your spell, Sri Lanka. Never before has an elephant been invited to join the table on a first date. And when you're at the office, in a suit and tie, but you're eating with the fingers of your right hand—I've never told you, but you're losing half your bite along the way. I don't want to teach you how to use a fork; you look good with greasy fingers.

My heart is beating so fast it can barely catch its breath. On the train, I close my eyes and let the wind sway in my hair. Your shantytowns are disguised in all sorts of colors, as if they're dressing up their poverty. Cows swaying in the middle of the traffic, horns blaring. Beautiful images jostle for position in my mind. Images that will want to take center stage when I play my cassette of youthful memories.

There are also the wonderful encounters between travelers. We've all said, "So what if I take the shortcut to a good post-graduate salary?" We opted for a detour, and now we shrug it off in the future: you'll come back later. Time no longer vexes us when we sit by the sea, telling each other stories, same, same but different. We have secrets that have forgotten how to be secrets, we speak to each other with the beauty within us. Stories that made us leave home with our heads held high, long enough to eagerly live our youth.

Sri Lanka, we're going to have fun together, I think we already have. I'm a sensitive soul, incapable of holding back, an overflowing energy that rarely sleeps. I wasn't ready for the suit-and-tie kind of happiness, so I slipped into your arms for a few months. Understand me, I need a happiness that surprises me, that sometimes shocks me. A happiness that makes me dizzy when it pulls me by the hand and makes decisions for me. A compass that no longer points north, a world map that suddenly makes perfect sense.

Quebec, we'll only look each other in the eyes in the summer of 2017. I'm cheating on you while you're out in the winter. I've gone off to fall in love with fairy tales or salty seas. To chat about beautiful things with another culture and enjoy a happiness that money can't buy.

Stéphanie Bureau

Winner of the 4 destinations, 1 blogger contest.

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