It's 7:20 pm. I'm sitting on the porch, scratching previous spider bites, waving away an ocassional mosquito, and loving the flowered air, the stars, the sounds, the grasshopper walking by, the song bird who wants one more trill, and the small village where no one lives in town yet town is the hub. This is Ella. Tea country. There is nothing flat for miles and miles of mountains. People build their homes on the sides of steep mountains and years later a road may or may not appear. Not important. Everyone knows everyone as there " is only one high school'" says the locals.
Back to sounds: Crickets are chirping, a bat's wing slides along the roof line, frogs croaking, voices from 6-year old Passan's struggle to not do his homework with his Ama and grandmother (Ketieama) are within a cricket's toss from me. Passan started his first day in school just 6 weeks ago. Before that he went with his grandmother to the Montesorri preschool where his grandmother is the assistant. "I go up the hills. After 30 years, I am tired,"
Today starts with Nimalka serving breakfast of spicy curly noodles and an omelette. We have every intention of walking into town, but a tuk tuk magically appears and whisks us to town. We make arrangements to go to Udawalawa National Park tomorrow at 9am, get directions to the post office from the tourist bureau which happens to be staffed by police, negotiate a price for a tuc tuc to get us up steep 4km road to Finley's Green Tea Plantation and factory, and check out the very cool town slowly emerging as a hip place to climb a mountain or buy yoga pants.
The green tea plantation turns out to be better than good. This is an international factory and they work in volume. We don caps, face masks, and shoe coverings and are introduced to the initial drying process to take 25% of the moisture so as to stop the fermentation. Then the leaf rolling process and then another 25% of moisture taken from the leaves. By this time the leaves still retain their shape and have a leathery feel. Next step is 350 degree oven for 16 hours for thorough dryness. Then a mechanical shifting refines the leaves into 6 grades. All steps are down by machinery with people guiding. It's quite fascinating for the guide also shares the current tea economic woes because Russia and the Middle East are having economic issues, which is effecting Sri Lanka tea; thus there is now a backlog of tea waiting to be sent out.
We walk out of the tea factory and take a local bus with the Tamil tea pickers until Carlos sees a line of beautifully dressed women and men dancing to drums and horns. My man bounds off the bus and we stand on the sidelines taking photos. But an older woman catches my eye and the next thing you know, she is waving me over saying dance with us, follow, come. We are now celebrating the final day of a Hindu 12 day celebration of a god who, if he is impressed enough with the dancing, the incense ceremony of the men, the milk carried on the heads of all the women in silver vessels, the chanting, the prayers, the laughter and life of the congregation, will provide rain for continued growth of tea, the livelihood of these workers. So we follow, we take photos, we dance, we observe with folded prayer palms, and people approach us, smile, speak, and before long we meet the principal of the local school and his wife, who turns out to be my daughter of another country. She is 47, her mother recently passed, and she is touched when I say I can be her mother from another country. Well I tell you, for the next 7 hours we are thick as thieves. We enter each ceremonial phase joyfully and with artistic photographic flavor. Everyone wants a photo, a handshake, an acknowledgement of their place in the ceremony and community. Women, men, children, drummers, spiritual leaders, dancers, food preparers, each step is choreographed on centuries of rituals.
Back to sounds: Crickets are chirping, a bat's wing slides along the roof line, frogs croaking, voices from 6-year old Passan's struggle to not do his homework with his Ama and grandmother (Ketieama) are within a cricket's toss from me. Passan started his first day in school just 6 weeks ago. Before that he went with his grandmother to the Montesorri preschool where his grandmother is the assistant. "I go up the hills. After 30 years, I am tired,"
Today starts with Nimalka serving breakfast of spicy curly noodles and an omelette. We have every intention of walking into town, but a tuk tuk magically appears and whisks us to town. We make arrangements to go to Udawalawa National Park tomorrow at 9am, get directions to the post office from the tourist bureau which happens to be staffed by police, negotiate a price for a tuc tuc to get us up steep 4km road to Finley's Green Tea Plantation and factory, and check out the very cool town slowly emerging as a hip place to climb a mountain or buy yoga pants.
The green tea plantation turns out to be better than good. This is an international factory and they work in volume. We don caps, face masks, and shoe coverings and are introduced to the initial drying process to take 25% of the moisture so as to stop the fermentation. Then the leaf rolling process and then another 25% of moisture taken from the leaves. By this time the leaves still retain their shape and have a leathery feel. Next step is 350 degree oven for 16 hours for thorough dryness. Then a mechanical shifting refines the leaves into 6 grades. All steps are down by machinery with people guiding. It's quite fascinating for the guide also shares the current tea economic woes because Russia and the Middle East are having economic issues, which is effecting Sri Lanka tea; thus there is now a backlog of tea waiting to be sent out.
We walk out of the tea factory and take a local bus with the Tamil tea pickers until Carlos sees a line of beautifully dressed women and men dancing to drums and horns. My man bounds off the bus and we stand on the sidelines taking photos. But an older woman catches my eye and the next thing you know, she is waving me over saying dance with us, follow, come. We are now celebrating the final day of a Hindu 12 day celebration of a god who, if he is impressed enough with the dancing, the incense ceremony of the men, the milk carried on the heads of all the women in silver vessels, the chanting, the prayers, the laughter and life of the congregation, will provide rain for continued growth of tea, the livelihood of these workers. So we follow, we take photos, we dance, we observe with folded prayer palms, and people approach us, smile, speak, and before long we meet the principal of the local school and his wife, who turns out to be my daughter of another country. She is 47, her mother recently passed, and she is touched when I say I can be her mother from another country. Well I tell you, for the next 7 hours we are thick as thieves. We enter each ceremonial phase joyfully and with artistic photographic flavor. Everyone wants a photo, a handshake, an acknowledgement of their place in the ceremony and community. Women, men, children, drummers, spiritual leaders, dancers, food preparers, each step is choreographed on centuries of rituals.
Ella is a small town with a big heart.
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