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shit on my banana leaf
Friday, July 4 2025
location: room 27, Fox Jaffna, Jaffna, Sri Lanka
This morning after another reasonably good breakfast at the Fox Jaffna, we piled into the bus and were taken to downtown Jaffna to get a feel for open air and other markets. The first place we went to was the vegetable market, which was a large area under various roofs where numerous vendors sold various vegetables and a few fruits. Interestingly, the vendors had largely left their shoes (which were uniformly flip flops) in the aisle between the stalls and were sitting with their vegetables barefoot as their flip flops were randomly kicked about by passersby. We could've gotten a good sense of the place in five minutes, but for some reason we spent the better part of an hour there. Towards the end there, though, we were in a part of the market where vegetables gave way to handmade spoons and knives, and at that point Gretchen's father made a few purchases. There was also one place up near the street where a woman had put out a cracked-open jackfruit for the crows some distance away so they wouldn't try to steal the fruits she was trying to sell, and, with one brief exception, they mostly seemed to be sticking to the deal.
Next we went to the part of town where fabric is sold. But this was just a collection of individual retail shops. It didn't seem like something anyone would actually make a point of going to see, and, again, we spent way too much time there. The only interesting thing I saw there were a number of beggars, some with missing body parts. (Jiva handed money to at least one of them.)
We ended up at someone's house with a big enough kitchen to serve all of us lunch. It was, unfortunately, a banana leaf lunch, and I noticed right away that the leaf I'd been given had a blast of bird shit on it. I was cleaning it off with water and a napkin before it would serve as my plate when we were instructed to first clean our banana leaf, so it seems they've already accounted for such possibilities. Gretchen and I already had visceral dislike for "banana leaf meals" just from the association with our illnesses earlier in the week and the weird off-putting flavors Sri Lankans put in their food. But at least when food is served family-style, you can curate what ends up on your plate. Today, though, staffers came in a line and put dollops of whatever on our food before we could sample it, and it was difficult to keep them from doing so. And then everything we've been disliking about Sri Lankan food was present in it. I ate a small amount and then tried to get out of the rest of the meal by folding my banana leaf shut, which I was told was the protocol for pulling the ripcord on a meal. But then some guy demanded that I reopen it and came by with some disgusting dessert he insisted on putting in my leaf despite my protests. I politely took a small taste and then folded up that banana leaf like the dirty diaper it had become.
Back at the hotel, Gretchen and I had another afternoon to ourselves as we skipped out of the scheduled activity, which involved a street theatre troupe. Instead, we went out again to watch the flying foxes. I also spent some time in the room working on migrating my ESP8266 Remote Control System so that it no longer used ChartJS 2.X in a couple places but instead used version 3.7 throughout.
We didn't end up having a proper dinner and snacked on things in our room instead.
Before setting out today, we toured a bunker under the Fox Jaffna dating to the recent Sri Lankan civil war that now serves as an art gallery. Click to enlarge.
Vegetables in the vegetable market today. Click to enlarge.
More vegetables in the vegetable market today. That's Gretchen's father on the left and Myra the Patchouli Lady next to him. Click to enlarge.
A crow eats jackfruit put out as a bargain made by a fruit saleslady to keep the crows from stealing her fruit. Click to enlarge.
A Facebook shirt on a mannequin in the fabric district. Click to enlarge.
A street scene in Jaffna today. Click to enlarge.
We also visited the Jaffna library today. It once held a priceless collection of works written on palm leaves, much of which was lost in a fire. Here is a collection of old tech, reminding me of a Buddhist temple. Click to enlarge.
Socialist art in the Jaffna library. Click to enlarge.
Inside the Jaffna library today with my fellow travelers. Click to enlarge.
An astoundingly ugly concrete building in Jaffna. Click to enlarge.
A woman and a cat at the place where we had the banana leaf lunch. Click to enlarge.
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