Sri Lanka is Loud

Sri Lanka is loud.

it’s the choon pan tuk tuk at 6 am playing Beethoven’s Für Elise on a megaphone

it’s the squawking crows, the twittering squirrels, the chirping geckos

it’s a nest of baby bats crying all night to be fed

it’s the king coconut vendor calling “Tamalee!”

it’s the Buddhist chants competing with the Muslim call for prayer

it’s constant car horns, not to punish, but to announce “Here I come!”

it’s taxi madam, taxi madam, taxi madam every time you walk down Galle Road

it’s the commodore ambling across the roof, dragging his long slow tail

it’s the thud of the coconut hitting the grass, unannounced

And it’s all of it, all at once, all the time, until

Sri Lanka is quiet.

and it’s hundreds of kites over Galle Face Green, caught in the current for hours

it’s the swoosh swoosh swoosh of the ceiling fan in the heat

it’s the silent soft center of Viharamaradevi Park, lovers hiding behind trees

it’s the wide, open streets on a rainy poya day

It’s a family function, rows of heads eating on plastic chairs, bite after bite, in silence

it’s tea and biscuits with giggling aunties who have no idea what to say to you

it’s the hand gestures of the parking guard in the rearview mirror

it’s the humidity hanging in the air

until it swells into a hundred slate balloons, the sky darkening and then shattering into one thunderous CLAP!

And then Sri Lanka is loud again.

And it’s raining.

And it’s washing everything clean.

And it feels welcoming to me.

As foreign as I am.