I’m just back from Sri Lanka,a country where the hospitality and friendliness of local people to strangers is off the charts.
Two things stand from this trip. One is a lesson in what we as travellers can do for the people of our host country. The other is what they can do for us.
The tiny village of Rathmale near Sri Lanka’s south coast amounts to not much more than a small market,a couple of streets of shops and two barbers. There’s an intersection of two roads,a few dogs,and that’s about it.
There are many benefits when you leave the confines of your tour or hotel room and get down among the locals.
I was with a few friends wandering the market when a young girl came up to us and asked if she could practise her English. Her name was Upeksha,she said,and she and her dad had been driving by on his scooter,when he suggested she try out her language skills on the tourists. (Great dad,by the way.)
She was in her late teens and studying English at school,she told us. She was so bright and personable,and her English was pretty good. She said she was so happy that we had agreed to speak to her.
I asked her what she wanted to do when she left school. “I want to be a fashion designer,” she said. As it happened,in our small group was an editor fromHarper’s Bazaar in Asia. Many of us had fashion experience,so we spent a long time encouraging her,and there was an exchange of WhatsApp numbers,so she could contact the editor for advice.