As we started walking, two girls wearing headscarves stared at us as though aliens had landed. A group of women in saris nodded and smiled curiously. It felt strange to be pale skinned in a village of Sri Lankans. Almost everyone I encountered was friendly and polite. I quietly hoped Sri Lankans felt equally welcome when they visited our part of the world.
The senior nun led us into a supermarket to buy jelly for her ailing mother. Apparently, two weeks before, the eighty-three-year-old had felt dizzy. Sitting on her bed, she’d fallen sideways on to the covers and had been lying there ever since. Jelly was all she could eat.
Searching the shelves, I was surprised to see a range of skin-whitening creams, potions and even pills. Once again, priorities were the opposite to those back home, where young women dedicated much of their lives to making their skin darker, if not orange.
When Lydia found the jelly section, the senior nun asked her to check the best-before dates. Satisfied the product was in good condition, the nun made her purchase and led us out of the supermarket to a T-shirt shop.
Contrary to my assumptions about nuns, this one proved a wily shopper with a keen eye. She had no doubt the purple top with paisley glitter would be perfect to take home for Katharine – and her taste was spot on. The shopkeepers were surprised when Lydia joked and laughed with them in fluent Sinhalese. I took a step backwards and pretended I knew exactly what they were talking about.
On the way back up the hill, the tuk-tuk lurched to a halt outside a modest house half hidden in the trees. A group of people stood outside smiling and waving. Lydia explained they were members of the nun’s family.
‘Would you like to meet my mother?’ asked the senior nun. ‘She is very weak.’
Moving through the front door, I recognised a house close to mourning. Women sat talking quietly together. Men stood about hoping to appear useful. Children played upstairs. No matter what culture they’re from, the warmth and tenderness of people at such a time is profound. To be in a household in the presence of death is to see the human heart at its most sombre and loving.
Family members welcomed us warmly and the nun beckoned us to a room toward the back of the house. The space was small and darkened. Even though the window was open it felt hot and airless.
Lying on the bed was an elderly woman so wasted she was barely a shell. Bending tenderly over her mother, the nun adjusted a cotton blanket to cover her sticks of legs. A primitive drip was attached to her mother’s thin, leathery arm. Her lips were drawn back from her toothless mouth as though in a state of permanent thirst.
Yet her eyes blazed as if she was living with greater intensity now than she had all her life. Her smile was so luminous it filled the room with light. With a withered hand, she reached for Lydia’s sleeve and spoke to her in Sinhalese.
‘She says she’s very pleased to meet you,’ said Lydia. ‘And she wishes you a long life.’
I took the old woman’s hand and stroked her corrugated skin, which was surprisingly soft and warm. To receive a blessing for long life from someone so close to the spirit world was a great privilege.
The closeness I felt to her reminded me of the circle of women who’d helped me through cancer and of the immense capacity we have to give strength and light to one another. I hoped some day I’d be able to pass the blessing the nun’s mother had given me on to other women, young and old – to wish each one of them a long life brimming with love.
After we thanked the nun’s family and started walking away from the house, I was unable to speak. I’d dreaded coming to this country yet, in the short time I’d been here, Sri Lanka had showered me with unexpected riches. The fluffy-towel addicted, fear-obsessed person I thought I’d become had given way to the life-loving adventurer I used to be.
To be embraced so warmly by the nun and her family had been a gift beyond price. Receiving a blessing from her dying mother made the circle of women seem more powerful than ever. No matter how old we are or what country we’re from, women have great strength and compassion to offer each other.
Not only that, I’d found a place where old people weren’t despised but regarded as a source of blessings.
Most important of all, I’d grown closer to the daughter I’d thought I’d lost.
No wonder the island had been called Serendipity, land of happy accidents.
Disciple
Secret nuns’ business
As the tuk-tuk gasped and sputtered to a halt below the monastery, dark sponges formed in the sky. Chanting floated across the valley – male voices, slightly more melodic than the ones that had woken me before dawn.
Lydia explained they were Muslims in the mosque on the nearby hill. I lowered my head and smiled. People in this country lived and breathed religion. If in doubt, chant.
Raindrops tapped on the steps and pattered on the trees. As the drops grew larger, they drumrolled on leaves the size of pancakes. We hurried up the steps as the clouds squeezed together and unleashed torrents, the sound of which drowned the distant chanting, and every other human and animal voice.
The senior nun smiled warmly as we removed our shoes and scurried into her quarters. I found a non-monk-designated chair and sat to catch my breath.
Suddenly, the junior nun’s eyes widened. She drew a breath and pointed to a spot on the floor near the door. A glistening scorpion the size of a large crab marched across the tiles, his tail raised in an aggressive curve.
‘Don’t move!’ the nun whispered, reaching for a broom. ‘The rain brings them inside.’
Scorpion stings kill thousands of people a year. It’s said that for every person killed by a poisonous snake, ten die from scorpion stings. James Bond was scared of scorpions. This particular Buddhist nun was not.
With her broom poised over her shoulder, she crouched low and stalked the well-armed arachnid. Her concentration and muscle tension reminded me of Jonah on a hunt. At first I assumed she was aiming for the kill, but I gradually realised the situation was more complex. Killing a creature, even a scorpion, was against her belief system. Somehow this fearless woman would have to keep all of us from danger by removing the scorpion without taking its life.
Keeping her distance as much as possible, she nudged the creature with the broom. It stopped and raised a warning claw at her. The nun then sprang into action. With one hand on the broom, she swept the scorpion vigorously forward, using her other hand to lean forward, open the door and sweep the creature safely outside.
As the younger nun slammed the door shut, the senior nun, Lydia and I clapped and cheered. It had been a remarkable performance of courage and co-ordination.
Beaming modestly, the nun bowed and put the broom away.
We laughed and drank sweet tea to celebrate. The junior nun asked if Sister Lydia and Sister Helen would like to do some chanting. When in Rome . . .
While the junior nun prepared the chanting room, I asked her superior how she’d found her vocation.
‘I was good at school,’ she said. ‘My father didn’t want me to take robes. He wanted me to get a job. But I wanted to find peace and happiness inside my head and help others.’
She was in no way dissatisfied with her choice. Much of her life was spent visiting hospitals and being an important member of her community, doing what she could for women in particular. There were just two years between us, but our lives couldn’t have been more different.