Babarenda Central

Last stop of the trip, a bit of rest and relax with this new job at a veryvery fancy and luxurious Ayurvedic Retreat (I am starting to get the hang of working in beautiful places and being able to enjoy them while just teaching for a few hours) .
With its ups and downs, I had some time to relax, think and process. Found out just before leaving that the yoga teacher I was replacing was for instance... Miriam! The same german girl I kept bumping into everywhere. And even heavier, Sifat (the bangladeshi guy) was also in Hiriketya!! How crazy is destiny? I started to feel this crowd as my SriLankan people, and that felt quite good. So, I decided to drop by a day before to the place to settle down and enjoy Miriam's company. We went to a bar for an open mic, and how fun it was! It was literally what I needed and I didn't even know. There were two girls dancing in the front that looked so beautiful and connected, that we couldn't stop staring at them, until... We joined! It was just medicine, we felt so free and good, even one of the girl started crying saying how beautiful and empowered we all felt. I guess I've been having a hard time connecting in this place, and doing it through movement felt so good (even though you meet lots of people all the time, not everything is sunshine and roses, and quite often the conversations are superficial and finding people of your kind is not so easy).
After that, I stayed in the resort on my own for a week, visiting some places nearby, interacting with older and rich european woman and relaxing. It was nice to have some continuity with the students (because guests usually stayed for up to 3 weeks), and see their progress and motivation. But often there was not much work because the season was ending and people were leaving, and also the classes were while the treatments, so sometimes I felt a bit useless.
Last days Miriam came back and it was so nice to meet her right before leaving, and decided to give her my knife, which I couldn't take with me, so she would give it back to me next time we met, in exchange she gave me her earrings and it felt like a promise of a soon reunion.
Last days were pretty weird though, I haven't written very much about the SriLankan political and economical situation, but its been kinda harsh and present on daily life here. There was a shortage of many products, such as gasoil or cooking gas, or very silly things that were exported as sunscrean or Gin, the money currency dropped day by day, so many things were way cheaper, but also other types of things had to increase the prices because of the hard situation (as transport for example), and people felt so thirsty of tourists, power cuts were a part of the day, and there were even times when you would only have power for a few hours as 2-3, where you had to do everything that required modern life (unless you were in a fancy place with a generator), people were talking about it day and night, politicians houses were surrounded by civilians so they could not leave, curfews were imposed after every new event and protests started getting uglier and uglier. So for this last days protests got more violent, there was fire and destruction everywhere. People were angry and tired, their liders' abuse had reached their limit. So the prime minister resigned. Now the only person who was left was the president Gota. So, the last days in Sri Lanka a long curfew was imposed, so no buses to leave the place, no open restaurants, and mostly, no way to get to the airport. So I was a bit shut at the place with not much to do and no way to leave (even my lovely tuktuk driver Dishan wouldn't dare to pick me up), feeling weird about this ending point, that was mixed with some disappointments and existential crisis around me.

Anyways, nothing is fun without a bit of adventure, and even when things get harder they never get impossible. After a rapid test in the nicest and most serious place that I found (it ended up being literally a backyard), headed to my leaving point from the country.

How weird it is to leave a place were you've felt so comfortable in, understanding the culture, the traditions and the lifestyle. Even integrating it a little bit on myself. To just leave, not knowing whats ahead and if you'll ever return to what you're leaving behind.

📍Essentials: open mic in Dots, Hiriketya beachRead more