Sri Lanka - Unawatuna

I make my way to Unawatuna, the ‘independent traveller’s’ beach destination. I seek out a place my guide book does not cover, always weary of the perils pf perfections created by the Lonely Planets and Rough Guides. I find La Maison D’Ignes, not mentioned by either; a Spanish hacienda owned by a 74-year-old eccentric French Russian woman. It’s an eternal party place here, her business acumen equals my nuclear science know-how. I sleep with Salvadore Dali. His work looking at me every night. She used to work for him 35 years ago, got a few of his sketches. Her life story of 4 marriages, 3 children each of a different men, journalistic single-mother stint for the L’Express, losing her lover and a grandchild to the tsunami… are all larger than life. She’s over the top, talkative, generous, irrational, venting, sexual, provocative, with a passion for each details that can bring beauty and amazement to life. She picks and chooses who she wants to stay at her place, turning away people even though she has free rooms. I walk around the house as if it was my own, help myself to the wine fridge, make myself a coffee. The 6 of us staying there make a pact and turn it into a memorable journey for the next 6 nights, New Year’s and my birthday included. Simon heads up the Red Cross, Caroline just arrived from Quatar having been involved in the Asian Games, Gette & Peter work for the UN, Frederic, the superbiker from Austria, Philip the Virgo Welshman. And of course, there is Ignes. Her life stories larger than all our life stories collectively seem surreal, unreal, too large to digest. We piece them together and find no inconsistencies.

Life in Unawatuna is told ‘before’ and ‘after’ the tsunami. The way Poland tells her modern history before-after the WWII. I meet Ignes’ friends, all inhabitants of Sri Lanka for years. The tsunami stories bring tears to my eyes. Tales of incomprehendable loss and sorrow, journeys of casual friendships turned life-bonds. Philip shows me the tree from his room that held that man who they could not reach with a rod, loosing him to the anger of the Indian Ocean. Endless narratives of the best and the ugliest of our human race. Tales of the local people saving the foreigners first, not for monetary gains but out of a sheer sense of obligation to save people who came to visit their country. Many people return here to deal with the anxiety they’ve been sleeping with for the past 2 years.