2015 March 20-21: Foreigners

"Foreigners! Foreigners!"

That's what was being whispered all around Elanor and me when we went with our church women's group to go river bathing on March 5th. Sometimes in English, sometimes in Sinhala, but whispered, nonetheless. Once people realized that we were there with a large group of our friends, and that we were not there to gawk at them like some other foreigners who passed by, we were quickly included in the fun and games, and yes, even the bathing. This is the way I like to travel, fitting in as best we can, joining with our friends in their ways of doing things, learning about their culture by taking part in it.

I don't blame them for their hesitation at the beginning. After all, we could just easily have been like most others, there to gaze at the natives like they were some sort of exotic specimens there to be studied. I have seen similar situations countless times.

In Pond Inlet, we went to a feast at the community hall shortly after we arrived. We sat on the floor - like everyone else - with a couple that we knew, and sampled the food and tried to blend in. Two other couples stood on the sidelines, sometimes taking pictures, and making comments such as "I can't believe they're eating that", "That looks disgusting", and "People back home are never going to believe that this is what they eat." Pretty soon, we found that we were the only new 'Southerners' or Kablunaq (literally: bushy eyebrows, in reference to the Scottish sailors who first visited the Inuit in modern times) who were being invited to community feasts. (There were a couple of long-term white residents as well.) Others sometimes showed up if they found out about the feasts, game days, and dances, but someone always made sure that we knew about them. Sometimes we would be listening to the local radio station in Inuktitut, would hear our name mixed in among the announcements, and sure enough, within a few minutes we would have received several phone calls and a knock on the door, telling us of some community event.

This was especially apparent after a confrontation at the local 'mall'. I had gone to the Co-op store to get a few things. A woman approached me and said, "I don't think it's very nice of you to make the teachers do so much work!" Confused, I asked what she was talking about. "Your daughter is at our school and her teacher doesn't have the time to teach our children and then to teach your child everything again in English!" I replied, "Well, actually, the teacher is not teaching everything two times. I told her that we wanted Amber to learn Inuktitut, and to not teach her in English." "You want your daughter to learn Inuktitut?" was the incredulous reply. "Your son has to learn English. Why shouldn't my daughter have to learn Inuktitut?" I countered. By the time we left two years later, Amber could read primary books and write journal entries in Inuktitut, using their syllabic alphabet with thirty-nine characters. We found out later that with the exception of two families that were basically life-long residents and a principal's daughter, every other white child in the community had been home-schooled.

In China, I spent the summer in Beijing. Other members in my group traveled around China when our teaching was finished, spending a day here and a few hours there. I stayed in Beijing. Most people spend four hours going through the Forbidden City on the short tour. I spent thirteen hours there over a two day period, and when some of the workers noticed that I was interested in all the little details, they made sure to point things out to me and explain how things were built. At the Summer Palace when I showed an interest in how the ponds were built and other "non-tourist" items, people refused to believe that I was foreigner and could not speak fluent Mandarin, but could not figure out why I was white instead of 'yellow' (their word, not mine). Then they decided that I must be Russian and insisted on speaking Russian to me. I saw things that literally no other white person had seen, such as a small house museum in honour of a famous Chinese writer. In fifty years, I was the only non-Chinese who had visited. I know this because the curator checked the log book while I was inside, a logbook going back to the opening day, and in which every person who had ever visited had signed in with their full name and address. When an old woman that I knew found out the types of places I was seeing and the types of things that I was doing, she and a local teacher we both knew arranged to have me move to a different hotel. Four stars just off Tiananmen Square was not too shabby, especially when it ended up costing me nothing. The hotel was owned by a man whom the teacher had taught English classes to, and when he found out that I was interested in learning about 'real' China and not just 'tourist' China, he refused payment.

When we went to Muthurajawela, we saw a different type of foreigner, the kind that tries to get every last penny out of a people who are already poor. The entry fee at the marsh was about 1000 rupees per person, but about half that amount for children. (It works out to about $7.50 each for a two hour tour, with personal guide, boatman, the boat, and gas. Similar excursions back home typically begin at $50 per person.) When another couple heard that Elanor was getting the child discount, the husband quickly quipped, "Hey, my two kids are children too! They should get the discount, too!" and his two children chimed in. I am sure he was joking, but when you don't speak English well and are used to being taken advantage of, it creates awkward situations, especially when the 'children' in question are obviously in their late teens. It's a difficult situation for people to be in. Do they treat it as a joke? Maybe he's not joking. Do they give the customer the benefit of the doubt? What if he then tells everyone and they demand discounts? Do they say no and perhaps lose that business? Do they say yes and then take a loss for that tour in order to keep the customer happy? Did they actually understand what was said, given that English is a third language for most people?

We see it in the stores, too. We are used to getting charged the tourist price, although some of my regular places now charge me less. At one vegetable stand that I frequent, I used to get charged 100 rupees (76 cents) for a particular vegetable, still only a fraction of what I would pay back home. Then I was charged 50 rupees (38 cents). Two days ago I was charged 30 rupees (23 cents). Another day I bought two dresses - one for Elanor and one for me - for 2400 rupees ($18.18). I knew I was getting charged more, but back home this would have cost me $40 for Elanor's dress alone. At the same time, another couple in the store were haggling over the price of the two dresses they were buying. I stood there at the counter as I listened to them haggle back and forth, trying to get every last rupee they could out of this shop owner. Their dresses started at 2400 rupees, too, and they managed to get it down to 2200. I could have done the same, but honestly, the $1.51 I would have saved was not worth it.

People notice things like this. As we were leaving the store, the woman stopped me and said, "You didn't bargain." I said, "Did you give me a fair price?" "Oh, yes," she replied, "I give you morning price. Morning price always cheaper. I no make enough money, evening price is higher." I smiled and told her we would be back when we were ready to buy more. She then went over to the cabinet full of purses that Elanor had been eyeing the entire time we were there, pulled out a few and asked Elanor which one was her favourite. When Elanor told her, she presented it to her. I took out my wallet again, and was quickly told by both her and her husband that it was a gift, and that when we come back, we would get the morning price or better even if it was evening.

When we went to the natural area in Kandi, Steve was signing us in at the entry gate and paying the entry fee. He began speaking to the woman in Sinhala and mentioned that we were here for several months. After conversing for several minutes on a variety of subjects including what he was doing in Sri Lanka, she asked him what kind of visa we had. When she found out that we had resident visas, our fee dropped from 600 rupees ($4.55) per person to just 30 rupees (23 cents) each.

A third type of foreigner that we have seen is the type that smacks of the old colonial attitude. When our order came during breakfast in Kandi, the bread was not toasted. We just assumed that there was a miscommunication with the waiter or a misprint in the menu and didn't think anything of it. As we were eating, an older man sat nearby. The waiter approached him and the man started talking. He didn't want anything on the menu, he just wanted toast, orange juice and coffee. The waiter looked unsure and asked again what he wanted, as he pointed to the menu. The man repeated himself, then added, "Is that slow enough for you? Do you understand?" (Remember that while many people here speak English, many do not. That is why in restaurants with menus, you order by pointing at the number next to what you want to order. That way there is no confusion.) The waiter again pointed to the menu, which, incidentally, has a note on the top that tells patrons to "Please order two hours early to avoid disappointment". The man very loudly said, "Get me a manager immediately. Do you understand? I want to talk to your manager immediately, and he better be able to speak English!" The poor waiter ran from the room.

A few minutes later, the manager came in and asked what the problem was. "Your waiter does not speak English. That is the problem. I told him that I just want toast, orange juice and coffee for my breakfast, and he cannot understand that." The manager replied, "No problem, sir. I will bring you some bread..." "Toast," the man interrupted, "I. Want. Toast." "There is a problem, sir. I cannot bring you some toast. Our toaster broke this morning. But I can bring you some nice fresh bread." "Well that doesn't help, does it? Having a broken toaster is not very useful, is it?" "I am very sorry, sir, it just broke this morning." "Can you get a new one?" Silence. After all, it was 7:30 in the morning. "Well?" "I will get you some toast, sir." "That wasn't so hard, then, was it?" was the response.

The kind of foreigner you are while traveling can have a big impact on the way that people treat you. Steve and I have both seen this during our travels separately, and now, together. For both of us, it has led to some amazing experiences as people share their lives with us. For Steve, it has meant being welcomed into homes wherever he has traveled. The last time he was in Sri Lanka, it meant becoming welcomed into a Tamil fishing community as well as his church community. This time, he is garnering respect among the gypsies of Sri Lanka. He met with a family last Friday and Saturday. They were very reluctant at first, and told the tuktuk driver that they couldn't help because they don't speak English. "No problem!" the driver replied. "He speaks Sinhala!" They quickly welcomed Steve into their home, and after a discussion about what his project here actually entails, they are eager to help him because he wants to actually learn about their language and culture. So eager, in fact, that early Sunday morning the father called Steve to find out when he was coming back and to make sure that Steve knew that they want to help him, and that Elanor and I are welcome too.

Looks like Elanor is in for yet another huge culture shock.

We can't wait.

2015 March 21: Buffalo Curds and Walrus Meat

I've eaten a lot things I never thought I would eat.

In Pond Inlet I ate raw seal, raw frozen char, caribou jerky, narwhal, beluga, polar bear and aged walrus. To make aged walrus, catch your walrus at the floe edge in April. Butcher it and cut it into football sized pieces. Wrap the pieces of meat in the skin and tie it shut with the intestines after squeezing out all the offal. Bury the whole thing under a big pile of rocks so that animals can't get to it. Go back to get it in October. Eat frozen.

I didn't actually want to eat aged walrus, but when you are at a community feast and one of the oldest elders in the community offers you some, it would be very rude to turn it down. Besides, he looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself, slicing off bite sized pieces as fast as he could and just wolfing them down, smiling and nodding his head and smacking his lips. How bad could it be, right? So, when he looked at me, sliced some off the hunk in front of him, and held it out to me on the tip of his knife, and said in halting English, "You want?", I couldn't say no. After watching me swallow it practically whole, the elder held his side as he laughed so hard that tears flowed freely down his face. With a smile, he leaned towards me and said, "You want more?" "No thanks," I replied, which sent him into further gales of laughter, and which led to him telling everyone that I had tried it, and which then led to everyone else offering me little bits of everything else that was being eaten. Hence, the seal (looks like beef, tastes like fish), char (dip it into soy sauce and it ain't half bad), caribou jerky (pretty good actually), and polar bear (looks like pork, but don't eat the liver). I passed on the seal eyeball and caribou fly larvae, though.

Amber didn't care much for some of the food in Pond, but one thing she loved was char. I could not feed that girl enough of this fish that is similar to salmon in colour and taste. I took her two best friends - Heather and Amina - and her to a feast one evening, and I could not cut up the char fast enough for the three of them! Two other ladies nearby and a man next to me starting tossing the three girls char as well. They could not get enough! Word soon got around just how much she loved char, and rarely more than a few days went by without someone knocking on my door with fresh frozen char for Amber.

Another evening, my parents had come to visit from Newfoundland. When Heather and Amber learned that we were having char for supper, they ran around the house yelling, "Yay! We're having char!" in English and Inuktitut. With supper ready, I called the girls down from the bedrooms, and they eagerly ran to the table, then stopped dead in their tracks. "What's that?" they asked, as they surveyed the gorgeously baked char with lemon and onions. "It's char," I replied. And both girls ran sobbing back to the bedroom because "You ruined it! You cooked it!"

And when Amber and I moved to Ontario, there was a seafood restaurant that she loved to visit because they served char. The first time we went there, they asked how she would like it cooked. "Raw and frozen," she replied. You have never seen such a strange face made by a waiter. "Is she serious?" he asked me in disbelief. "Oh, yes," I said, "She is quite serious." Every worker in the restaurant - and not a few patrons - hovered nearby to watch her eat her raw frozen fish with absolute gusto.

When I went to China with a group of teachers as part of a course at Brock University, we ate as a group. We sat around a large round table, and the hotel restaurant just brought us about twenty or more different dishes every day. Most people tried to figure out just what each dish was before eating it, but after the first few meals, I quickly learned that you don't ask, you just eat. Chicken stomach tastes like oyster mushrooms, but chewier. Duck tongues were pretty good except you have to be careful of the bone. Chicken feet are rather rubbery, but it's the way that you eat them that can be a little off-putting: hold the claw between thumb and first finger, put the foot in your mouth, and use your teeth to strip the bone as you pull it out. I almost ate scorpions, but was put off of the idea by the girl next to me saying, "It's pretty good except the legs are stuck in my teeth."

One day I found a real treat on the table - deep-fried caplin! I took the whole dish and finished them all myself. It was such a treat to get something directly from home.

In St. Pierre I had horse steak. Enough said.

Now that I am vegetarian, I eat lots of things that I never ate before, but none so exotic as my previous meat-filled adventures. Here in Sri Lanka I am trying all sorts of fruit and vegetables that are new to me.

And buffalo curds.

When Elanor and I went on a church ladies trip a few weeks ago, one of the men who came along asked me if I had tried buffalo curds yet. I had not. For more than five minutes he extolled the virtues of buffalo curds and honey, telling me how wonderful it is and how healthy it is.

When I say buffalo I mean water buffalo.

To make buffalo curd, first milk your water buffalo. Then, bring the milk to a boil and simmer for ten minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let cool. When cool, add a little plain pure yogurt, yogurt starter, or a little leftover from a previous batch. Put into clay pots, cover and let sit for ten hours. Eat soon, or refrigerate. To eat, add a little honey or brown sugar or jaggery or palm syrup or molasses.

Buffalo curd is sold in supermarkets and road side stands throughout Sri Lanka. When buying it, buy it early in the day if it is not refrigerated, and make sure it is white, not yellow. Yellow is old; white is fresh. But, if it is not in a clay pot, it is not considered real buffalo curd! 

Courtesy http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/what-is-sri-lankan-food-like-cuisine-guide-international-travel-curry-string-hoppers-coconut-sambal.html

You can make a reasonable facsimile by using pure unflavoured Greek yogurt, instead. Don't use the North Americanized versions of yogurt, though - most of them have been tainted with gelatin, sugars, flavours and colours. Astro makes a Balkan style yogurt that would also work. It's even better if you drain off any liquid from the top so that the yogurt is a little thicker - buffalo milk has twice the fat content of cow milk. Or, if you are really ambitious, you could substitute sheep milk and make it yourself from scratch!

Like I said, I have eaten many things I never thought I would eat. Homemade water buffalo curds is one of those things that never even crossed my mind!

But, boy, it sure was yummy!

20015 February 21: A Murder of Crows

For as long as I can remember, I have loved crows. Ravens, too. Most people find these birds annoying, with their unmelodic and unnerving caw caw caw and their propensity for wreaking havoc with garbage. Birders and birdwatchers - yes, there is a difference, I am told - consider them 'trash birds', not worth noting in any detail on bird lists. But me? I have always been enthralled with this species' seeming enjoyment in their interactions with humans. And, like many Native American groups including the three whom I have lived among, I am fascinated by their intelligence.

Crows and ravens belong to the Corvidae family. In many cultures they bring fear and loathing to the hearts and minds of people, seen as pests by farmers and homeowners alike, a harbinger of death to be avoided and eradicated.

In 1992, there was some consternation in Kentville, Nova Scotia, near where we lived and where my daughter was born during the summer of that year, due to the desire of some residents to cut down a dead tree near the hospital. By night, this tree was a sight to behold, with its many branches weighed down by the hundreds of crows that roosted there. In the end, the tree was saved and the crows continued about their business for the time being.

http://ca.epodunk.com/profiles/nova-scotia/kentville/2001100.html

By 1994, the situation changed. The crows had multiplied, and others had moved in from more rural parts of town, and by some counts, they numbered forty thousand or more. Having outgrown the tree, they took over the downtown. A novelty at first, the townspeople were soon overwhelmed by the noise and the mess and the garbage created by this huge roost, and non-lethal measures were taken to encourage the crows to go elsewhere. These worked for a time, but in the end, a few dozen crows were shot, and this, combined with the continued non-lethal methods, succeeded in ridding the town of its crows.

In 1998 I moved to Pond Inlet, an Inuit community of about one thousand two hundred people on northern Baffin Island, Nunavut. We loved watching the ravens as they hopped about, able to subsist in even the coldest weather by devising ingenious methods of finding food and shelter. Forget to tie shut the hatch on the back of your skidoo seat? Don't be surprised to find a raven or two in there in the morning, hunkered down for the night. One evening we watched as one wily creature untied the knot and climbed in anyway!

http://ca.epodunk.com/profiles/nunavut/pond-inlet/2001835.html

But attitudes are changing in the north as well, as human populations grow and with them, raven populations, as food sources become more abundant:

Raven mad in Pond Inlet

Birds' prevalence causes problems for residents

Peter Worden
Northern News Services
Published Monday, February 18, 2013

MITTIMATALIK/POND INLET
The Baltimore Ravens may have won the Superbowl, but many Mittimatalingmiut are not raven fans.

The common raven is a frequent site in Nunavut communities, but recently the birds have become too much to bear.

Concerns surfaced on the hamlet's Facebook public announcement board over local ravens preying on small birds such as ptarmigans, and the ravens' prodigious populations growing out of control thanks in part to its scavenging, omnivorous diet of food waste.

"There's more ravens here than usual that's for sure. It's causing trouble and people are not happy about them because they go through so much garbage," said Jeannie Maktar, a clerk in the hamlet office.

"Every day there are more. We see a whole bunch coming in. I don't know where they come from. They're bigger, much bigger than before. They're very active even up around -40 like it is today."

While the common raven has coexisted with humans for thousands of years, many Mittimatalingmiut now see them as pests.

The birds can live up to 21 years in the wild and are still loathed more than revered by many in Pond Inlet.

"We really need to reduce the numbers of ravens," reads the public announcement Facebook post.

"Do whatever you can to protect your garbage. That way the ravens will starve and naturally reduce their numbers."

Aside from simply securing trash, another poster suggested hanging a dead raven to ward off others. Maktar said one elderly person in the hamlet does keep a dead raven near his garbage area.

"I think it works for the other ravens not to come around. They read that as, 'Well our friend is gone now and this might happen to us,'" she said, adding that the hamlet's dogs and ravens work together to break into garbage.

"That's one thing we're noticing, that the ravens and dogs help out together, saying 'There's garbage here, open it and we'll eat it,' I suppose."

Ravens are now ahead of dogs as the most numerous animal in Pond Inlet, said Maktar, who couldn't say whether there were now more ravens than people in the hamlet of about 1,500.

While the hamlet is outside of a park, Garry Enns with Parks Canada, speaking about ravens, said Parks Canada's primary mandate is to preserve and protect nature.

"Ravens are part of that," he said.

In 2002 I went to Beijing, China, for the summer. When I wasn't teaching, I spent my time wandering around the streets of the city, sometimes walking fourteen kilometres or more as I meandered through parts of the city that most tourists rarely venture, taking in the sights and stopping at every little attraction that I came across. At one little house museum for a famous Chinese author, I was told that in fifty years, I was the first non-Chinese to take an interest in their establishment.

http://www.vacationstogo.com/cruise_port/Beijing_(Xingang)__China.cfm

Many times I walked the famous side streets of Wangfujing, an area known for its alley markets, modern shopping centres, and street vendors. Come dusk, the poplar trees were home to many crows, watching over Chang' An Street, as this photo from January 2006 shows:

http://www.danwei.org/2007/12/11/xinsrc_1620103030936812507555.php

In 2007 I moved to Fort Resolution, a Dene and Metis community in the Northwest Territories in Canada's western Arctic.

http://ca.epodunk.com/profiles/northwest-territories/fort-resolution/2003976.html

Again, ravens abounded. I was greeted by them every morning as I walked across my street, past the neighbours' dogs, through the patch of trees and into the school yard. I don't know how many raven pictures I took that year, but there were many. I loved sitting on my back steps, watching them interact with each other, share food, talk. I loved watching them fly, swooping past, wing feathers rustling with the slightest whispers. (Should I admit that sometimes I talked back?)

The raven in this picture of the Catholic church was calling me. I ignored him. He kept calling. I ignored him. He kept calling. So I took his picture. Then he was quiet. (Some people I know refused to look at this picture after they had seen it for the first time - there are three ghosts clearly visible in the window when the picture is enlarged.)

Ravens in the Northwest Territories are often still given much respect and are said to hold much power. In 2013 they - or the Raven Spirit - were blamed for the malfunctioning that occurred at the grand opening of the Bluefish Dam Recommission!

In 2012 I found myself on my way to a teaching position in Moose Lake, Manitoba, a Swampy Cree community so far off the beaten track that it is difficult to find a map of where it is! 

(Moose Lake can be found in near the middle of the left hand side of the map.)

http://members.shaw.ca/kcic1/mapmb.html

That year, magpies - another member of the crow family - took my attention. I clearly remember the first time I saw one. I had just crossed the Ontario - Manitoba border in my old white Jimmy, crammed full of my belongings, when a sudden blur of black and white crossed my windshield. I pulled over and watched the bird land in a tree, the two of us staring at each other for an eternity before I moved on.

And now, I find myself in Negombo, Sri Lanka. House crows, with their grey-black bodies and inky wings are everywhere. Every morning I watch small flocks head east and north, fanning out over the city. And every night I watch thousands of them fly past, heading back south for the night. Last Saturday, using survey methods I recently learned about in a statistics class I took at Penn State University, I counted over nine thousand crows fly past us on Rainbow Beach in ninety minutes. With an average of one hundred or more crows flying past each minute for more than two hours every night, I estimate that there are between twelve and fifteen thousand crows that migrate due north each morning from their roost somewhere south of Negombo, not counting the thousands that fan out all over the city!

This is the sky over Negombo for two hours or more every evening. 

While I was watching them fly past, one suddenly wheeled in the sky, and returned to land nearby. A whole small fish was on the beach, discarded by fishermen. Instead of gulping down the treat as I expected it to in order to not have it snatched away by the myriad other crows flying overhead, the crow quickly examined the fish, then sat back and began calling. It turned, and called again. It did this in every direction until finally, after several minutes, two other crows came. They greeted each other, with wing tips touching and beaks knocking together, then all three began eating the fish.

No matter where I come across this family of birds, they never fail to amaze me. Despite the many hours I have spent watching them, despite the hundreds of pictures that I have taken over the years, I still find myself being surprised by their behaviour. While I have long known that they are very social birds, and suspected that they are very caring creatures, I am often surprised by the evidence of this, as seen above and by the touching tableau which we witnessed as we ate breakfast the other morning, which can be found here.