Day 59: Sri Lanka and the First Time I've Ever Actually Worried About My Personal Safety

(Apologies that I haven't blogged about anything yet this summer-- they're coming, promise.)

While traveling in southeast Asia, I've generally just told people that I'm European. It's not that I'm not proud to be an American or anything, and in fact this summer has probably made me even more proud to be from Amurika-- it's just that whenever someone asks me where I'm from, it's in a situation where I just don't feel safe admitting to being from the land of the free and home of the brave. It helps that people generally guess I'm from the UK or Germany (go figure), and can't tell English-speaking accents apart.

Sri Lanka witnessed two firsts in regards to Shannon's Elusive Nationality.

The first was during the ride from the airport to Lisa's flat at 3 in the morning. She'd called a car for me, and the guy was friendly while respectful and we hit it off. Turned out he's a Catholic, nice guy, and generally a very accommodating cab driver. Sometime into our conversation, after we'd discussed the state of religion in the nation and things to do in Colombo, he guessed that I was German and I actually had only a moment's hesitation before correcting him. Everything turned out fine and I got to Lisa's place better for the interesting language-challenged conversation.

After checking into our hotel on Saturday, Lisa and I headed into the more "downtown" area of Colombo to do some exploring and look for the British Fort. After being continually harassed by trishaw (tuk-tuk) drivers offering to take us shopping or on city tours or to the Elephant festival (a common way of scamming tourists), we discussed that if anyone asked us our ethnicity, we'd just say Singapore-- which had actually been true for Lisa up through Thursday, and I actually hold a legit residency card (whattup for shorter customs lines). We wandered through the area where the fort had been, got constantly heckled by people trying to sell us things, and saw a total of 3 white people (a family traveling together). Tired out from being on high personal security alert for 2 hours, we slipped into a dirty "hotel" coffee shop and ordered sodas.

We'd been there for about 20 minutes when we became very aware of the several men who seem to be doing loops of the shop. There are other people around, though, and even after a few couples leave it still seems like these men at least work in the building. Out of nowhere, one of the men comes up to me and says something in a tone that implies he's asking a question. I have absolutely no idea what he said, so I assume he's asking if he can take my bottle and I swirl the remnants of my cream soda around to show that I'm not quite done, yet.

He leans closer. "Where from?" he asks. I'm still not sure what he's saying, and reply with my in-a-foreign-country-I-don't-understand "Sorry?" "Where from?" he repeats. His friend has joined him next to Lisa on the other side of the table.

"Singapore." I reply. He turns to his friend, and repeats his question to me, still moving closer and now nearly leaning over me. Thinking that perhaps this will make more sense if I involve the obviously-Asian Lisa, I indicate the the two of us are together and again tell him that I'm from Singapore. Obviously somewhat unsatisfied, they leave us alone and go sit back with the group of men now 7 people strong across the aisle from us. I overhear what sounds like "America" in a heavy Sri Lankan accent.

"We should go," I say to Lisa, who immediately agrees. We grab our bags tightly and head back into the street as quickly as we can.

I'm hard to rattle-- I can be seriously pissed at a situation (see the future "Lily and Shannon Take the Wrong Train in Zurich" entry) or concerned about my safety (see the future "Alice and DWang and the 1:30 Bus to LCCT"), but I always know that SOMEHOW we will get on a train to Lausanne, even if it costs us 45 euro, or that SOMEHOW we will safely get to the right airport in Kuala Lumpur. There's always an out.

I was physically trapped in this situation, though-- I would have had to jump a small railing onto the table behind me had the guy jumped at my bag. Had he pulled a knife, I would've been SOL. I may be a worrywart (honest commentary this weekend: "So, what would we do if there were a tsunami? Like, maybe we could climb that flagpole. But we'd probably die."), but truly, if that situation had gone bad, there would have been no out. No taxi instead of the bus, no later train to Lausanne.

This all didn't really hit me until I was on the plane going home. I had a wonderful time in Sri Lanka, really, I did, but I felt incomplete just telling people how much fun I had with Lisa (which I truthfully did in our 5 star hotel). When I look at my 90 cent bracelet from Sri Lanka, I will remember dinners on the beach, late night coffees in the hotel lobby, and watching the most awkward student-teacher conferences ever (Lisa, I am still laughing, and you really should videotape some of them)-- but I will also think of the first time I was legitimately afraid to be an American woman.

Around the World in 89 Days

Man, if I'd gotten back to Boston just a few days sooner this would have been such an epically titled summer.

For the many of you that just know that I'm traveling around the world this summer, and aren't entirely sure why or how the hell I'm paying for this:

On of my goals for my 22nd year of life was to go abroad. One of my life goals, period, is to get a PhD. The Singapore-MIT Undergraduate Research Fellowship (known, I kid you not, as SMURFs-- FLP kids will know that this was meant to be.) funds undergrads to do research in Singapore. I saw this in November and was basically all, "oh, Singapore. They speak English. That would be a solid."

The long and the short of the story is that I got the fellowship and will be sharing an apartment with four other MIT kids in Singapore. I'm the only white person or American citizen. Hooray diversity! Always happy to do my part.

However, I somehow have to get to Singapore. The fellowship comes with round-trip airfare between Singapore and Boston, up to $2,500 (just in case an Arab Spring causes gas prices to go up you buy your tickets late or something). I saw this and was like, well, hell, I can make my layover in Heathrow last a week and only pay an extra 100 bucks in airfare. Could I just pay MIT?

So at our SMURF intro meeting in March, I posed this very scenario and was told that yes, indeed, I could pay MIT $100 for the pleasure of spending a week in London. "Out of curiousity," the director asked, "how many of you are planning on taking side trips to or from Singapore?" All five of us tentaively raise our hands in affirmation. "You know what then," he said. "Let's just make this administratively easier on our end. You can take whatever side trips you want, and we'll reimburse you up to $2,500."

In the words of the fountain of wisdom that is Charlie Sheen: WINNING.

This is how the trip around the world came to be. My trips around Europe at the beginning of the summer and China at the end are basically wait-this-would-actually-be-awesome scenarios that we made happen. While I've yet to book my ticket from Singapore to Shanghai at the end of July, the most this trip will cost me in airfare is $10.


THE SCHEDULE

STAGE 1: Eurotripping with Lily!
5/19-5/20: London with Lily
5/20-5/22: Berlin with Lily and Aditi
5/23-5/25: Lausanne, Switzerland with Lily and LShields
5/25-5/27: Munich with Lily and Aditi

STAGE 2: Singapore and other Adventures
5/28-7/29: Singapore, plus visitors and side trips (AliceYu and DWang and AnneShen!!)

STAGE 3: Chinaland
7/30-8/4: TIBET with AnneShen, DWang, others...?

STAGE 4: Los Estados Unidos
8/7-8/15: Land in Chicago, chill at home
8/15: Back to Boston for FLP!!!

I'll start posting things tomorrow on my and Lily's train ride from Zurich to Lausanne.