Sri Lanka: 1996

My parents were students in Sri Lanka, thirty years or so ago. I left when I was only two, so of course I've never been a student there. I've been back several times, and I always enjoy seeing the schoolchildren in their uniforms; it gives me a glimpse of what my parents may have been like, in their separate, Catholic schools (a good portion of Sri Lanka is Catholic from many generations back).

The children were undoubtedly on a field trip to the waterfall on the other side of the bridge (one of many fabulous waterfalls in Sri Lanka. I climbed up a ways with my uncle (most of the rest of the family stayed on the bridge) and was startled to discover...