Eagle i: Can do, or don’t care

John Moulton is an artist and creative designer who is spending several weeks in Sri Lanka. His job in the textile industry was eliminated when his Miami-based company closed and sold its equipment to a company in Sri Lanka. Moulton will be working for a company there training its workers and he’s writing about those experience for Marco Eagle readers.

By John Moulton / Eagle i contributor

My way to work begins at a tidal coast and ends in thick green forested hills. The driver, who I apparently own, weaves the company mini-van through shanty towns.

These become shanty villages, and the villages quickly become idyllic waysides. You wonder how people live like this. Little work, few opportunities, poor infrastructure, short supplies. But they do live like that, and they are happy. They are proud of they’re country.

Sri Lanka slaps you in the face, and then whispers in your ear. The towns are coarse and distasteful, the interior lush and inviting. It scares the hell out of you, and then beckons you to embrace her.

Life is simple here, because it has to be. Supplies are hard to come by. Articles such as paper, pens, finished goods, are difficult to secure, and dispensed with prejudice. Some items aren’t even obtainable. I love a dirty martini, and one of the basic ingredients is olive juice. Well, just you try to get an olive here. These folks knot their brows together and look at you in questioning mystery. I might as well ask them where a rod of plutonium could be acquired.

Getting a six pack of beer was a two-day fiasco. Because my driver doesn’t speak English, I had to have the guy I work with, Ravi, record a message on my hand recorder. Then I played it for my driver, Calum, who took me 45 minutes out of our way, to the Laundromat, in another town.

It was sorted out the next day because Ravi was kind enough to drive with us to this little known destination. Eventually we got to the liquor store, in a town that I’ve driven through each day, for the last week. If I passed this place 50 times, I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea that it was a liquor store. Recessed from the adjoining business stands, it had steel mesh windows, a locked and rusting iron door, which guards the prized liquids.

As I navigated my way through bare chests, and withered old men in long skirts, the owner saw me coming. He allowed only myself passage into this Fort Knox of liquor stores.

The selection was dismal, but then, I felt very lucky to have any selection at all. Cost was of course not a consideration, whatever it was; I was willing to pay it. I was determined, however to buy a brand that I recognized. That determination faded into a pragmatic assessment of my chances of finding a known brand. There were only about 50 bottles of various types of liquor in the whole establishment. The names were foreign, the brands were unrecognizable, and the bottles were hard to see in this damp, dimly light, 10X10 room.

I settled on a shiny labeled bottle named Zecuna Vidka, yes Vidka, I kid you not. My standards being dashed as they were, Lion beer was a much easier choice to make. There were no six packs, just half-liter bottles. I bought two cases.

When it was time to pay, the owner drew out a worn calculator from his shorts, and totaled up the damage.

“2980 rupees” he said.

2980 rupees? I felt like an Englishman in America, 2980 rupees. That’s about 21 dollars U.S.

“Here you go buddy … keep the change.” I said as I handed him 30,000 lankas.

I ducked out through the bottom half of the iron door, as it was being clanged shut behind me, through the crowd of tightly packed Sri Lankan loiterers. They may have been looking at me, I don’t know because I wasn’t looking at them. I weaved my way back to the waiting car, lugging a case of beer under each arm, and a bag of Vidka from my teeth. The driver was holding the side door to the van open. He looked about nervously as I threw the booty into the back. Slamming the doors shut, we sped away.

Back on the road and into the melee of vehicles, I looked at my driver. He still appeared a little tense, but I had a huge grin on my face. I felt like a pirate returning to his ship and making good his escape.

I’m starting to feel more confident now. It may be partially due to the liquor, either that or I’m settling into the routine. More likely it’s some of both. Here I have to adopt one of two attitudes: Can do, or don’t care. So as I look at a pile of laundry in the corner of my room. I say to myself, “You can do this, John. You know a laundromat, and it’s just 45 minutes away. That is of course, if your driver doesn’t take you an hour and half out of your way to a liquor store.”