In no way this is gonna end up as a travel blog that goes from one experience to the next in a consecutive order of events. I’m gonna skip over two weeks right now, but will fill in the gap in the next entry; and trust me there has not been a dull day so far. This entry was a toughie and took a week to write staring on the 8th of Feb. from my favourite location to write, the pool bar at the Galle Face Hotel 10 meters away from the ocean, and as usual accompanied by a tall bottle of Lion beer and an orange Fanta.
It’s was sun set time, and I was expecting Kichaa from Nepal. When he got here it was bottoms up, and we were off to do a promo at MTV for the Colombo Biennial Festival which I will open on the 15th and with his help close on the 18th. He’s a young producer/composer/musician/dj with a great ear for mixing ethnic South Asian instruments with beefy beats. This was the second appearance on MTV at a show I believe is called Planet Buzz hosted by a flamboyant and genuinely sweet character about who I will write more next time. I want to concentrate this entry on he 7th of February, as it is be a day that will never leave my memory.
It all started at 8:30 with Viren popping into the room and giving me 30 minutes to get my mind, and gear together. He planned a small concert at the children ward at the Colombo Cancer Hospital. In my mind I felt like I should treat it like another concert; get there, rosin my bow, and then improvise. In the car we engage in small talk, as my mind zones into a fact that I’m about to wonder into an uncharted territory.
We come to a large white gate, Viren has a few words with the guard, and all I can distinguish is the word doctor. We park and meet the head children’s doctor. I see mothers in saris, and a few men walk into the ward with bags filled with small watermelons, and other various fruit. A group of international volunteers are painting a mural on the wall that faces the windows to where the kids are. There is a Canadian kid who is painting with headphones on, and a british girl who seems to be the one incharge of the volunteering youth; she comes up and introduces her self with a sincere compliment about the show last Sunday night.
I’m little nervous to actually head into the ward, as I starting feeling like I should have prepared something greater than just a solo performance. We get led into a room of about 800 square feet with small size beds and decorated with stickers of various Disney characters, and pictures of smiling animals. Nurses in charming old school uniforms are buzzing around, and after a brief guided walk around we head to the recreational area. This is one extremely hot morning that even by standing still in a shade won’t prevent you from shedding some sweat. I plug the small Yamaha amp into the wall, and by the time kids start walking in everything is set up. Most of the moms rest by the windows, and some are holding their little ones; some kids have adorable toques on. The Rec room has beautiful acoustics but is not adequately air conditioned. The doctor tells me that most of the children are on heavy medication and therefore would seem tired. The whole performance seems like a blur right now, and all I remember was trying to entice emotion, but I couldn’t identify with the right motivation. What am I trying to do? Entertain? does it have to be like a regular performance? And if so, what do I have to modify?
The mind was overcloaked, and to keep my self grounded I was seeking smiling faces among the sleepy. The temperature was going up and up, my shirt was becoming soaked, I was exhuming as much energy as possible. Okay, it’s time for a sing along, but all I have in my musical vocabulary are songs from way before their time. I drew a blank trying to conjure some sort of nursery rhyme, and resort to composing a fragmented medley. After about 40 min it was time to wrap up, as the attention span of kids usually winds down after that, and who ever is still listening is doing it out of politeness(most of the Sri Lankan kids I met are extremely polite). Then came the moment that just touched my heart; I was presented with drawings that the kids made for me alongside a beautiful handcrafted card. One painting is of a family on a beach, it is one boy’s perfect day back home. They were so happy to bring me these gifts, this is their talent that they would love to share with the world. You can see all the pictures in this blog, and imagine that there is a wonderful child behind the creation of each one of them.
With the pictures in my hands, and sitting among the little ones having our picture taken; a realization hit me; what I have to do is not perform, but transform and transport. Transform the environment, and transport the children into a magical world. I could see it so clearly now: An actor, a mime perhaps, projections, storyline and a soundtrack.
I was transported here, and transformed in the process, and in result to that I can do the same to others. This is exactly the project that I have been searching to wrap my mind around for ages now. For me personally the stimulus for creating something good has to come from pure motivation; It has to be one of these moments when you are pulled out of your comfort zone, and placed in world where your inhibitions and personal filters become obsolete.
I hung out for a bit handing out presents courtesy of Viren’s close friend Shalini; pink wrapped ones for the girls, and the blue ones for the boys. When I couldn’t tell who was a girl or a boy Shalini would help me out, and I could sense that this wasn’t her first trip here.
In Sri Lanka you call your elder friends Uncle and Auntie; these are usually friends of your parents. Viren’s auntie who is Shalini’s mom raised over a million and a half to purchase a Dialysis machine. The room was built before way before it’s arrival, and we took a trip to see it still in the box. This part of the hospital was modern, and brand new. Auntie is a sweet lady with a very assuring personality who also serves as the president of a local orphanage for girls, which I played on the 12th of Feb(next blog entry). It is amazing how all of Viren’s friends, and family have such strong personalities. I wrote about him in the first entry of the Sri Lanka Blog. He is the grounding element of his environment, and his appearance is distinguished with a sense of order and focus. He dresses usually in linen, and has a posture of a guru yet doesn’t do much yoga. Him and his eccentric business partners own probably the best Yoga retreat in the World about which I will write in the next entry.
After bidding our farewells we rolled out of the hospital to the sight of a massive pile up of people from all over the country lined up at the gate to visit their relations.
I finished writing this entry from almost the same place where I started. It is Tuesday morning, and I have less than a week left in this wonderful country. Dosed in quality coffee, and in front of the ocean at the Verandah bar at the Galle Face Hotel, possibly sitting in the place where Chekov could have sat, or even Gagarin. They both spent time here, and Chekov from what I’ve heard lived 10 years in Sri Lanka. I will try to write soon, but my time here is so packed with one adventure after the next, and the last week here is going to be exceptionally intense.
Happy Valentine’s Day:)
Eugene Draw
