Multi-colours

I was hoping to find some people to share a safari trip to Yala East national park today but unfortunately it didn’t work out. So I’ve had another day reading and walking on the beach. Arugam Bay is next to a town whereas the beach I went to near Tangalle was more isolated. There’s a lot more litter on this beach but that could be the tide bringing it in rather than locals dropping it and I've seen a few efforts to clean it up. There’s a vibrant fishing community using the beach so there’s lots to watch. The current isn’t as strong as Tangalle so swimming is possible and it’s popular for surfing. The waves are vicious though! You can be standing in shallow water reaching to about your knees and a wave will crash over your head and send you flying.

As the sun started to go down I walked up to the fishing end of the beach. This is just one of the many fishing boats pulled up on the beach. I liked the colours in the net and the rough paintwork. There were a couple of young Sri Lankan guys surfing and the extra is of one of them.


I’ve been thinking that it would be fairly easy for tourists to spend a couple of weeks travelling around Sri Lanka and hardly speak to any Sri Lankan women. The vast majority of hotel staff that tourists interact with, like reception staff and waiters, are men. The kitchen staff at beachside restaurants I’ve been to have all been men too. You do see women working in the family-run places but in all except one place I stayed, they hardly interacted with the guests, possible because of lack of skills or confidence in speaking English. On buses, all the vendors selling food and drink have been men too. I did see one woman selling drinks on a train though. There have been women working in a couple of the cafes I’ve been to but they’ve mostly left talking with foreigners to their male colleagues. But some of the schoolgirls that you see on their school trips will say ‘hello’ and a few ask to take photos with you.


Overall, the accepted gendered employment roles seem to be different compared to some of the other countries I visited such as Vietnam and Laos. There a lot of the hotel and restaurant staff were women and most of the vendors on buses were women. Here, apart from my friend and her mother, the places where I’ve spoken to most Sri Lankan women have been on my trips to the hospital! Three out of four of the doctors I’ve seen have been women and then there are the nurses who gave me the injections and the assistants who’ve helped me with the paperwork.