April 2025
Wishing you all a very Happy Sinhala and Tamil New Year!
If you stay at Tekanda, the chances are, your first encounter with one of our team will be with day-time gatekeeper Ananda. He's our latest septuagenarian and has the soft warm eyes of a storybook grandfather.
He was 40 years in the Sri Lanka Prison Service and would have undoubtedly been one of those kind and supportive figures in authority over damaged and vulnerable inmates. I also suspect the prisons where he served may have had streaks of unusually high rates of escapes because, for all his good nature and charm, like all good grandfathers he does enjoy a little nap.
His other great passion is gardening. He has constructed the loveliest kitchen garden at the entrance which would be delightful, if he wasn't behind the hut pruning his guava tree with the focus and concentration of Mr Miyagi and totally oblivious to the horns of the Tuk Tuk drivers with their passengers melting in the midday sun.
Quite hilariously, Ananda cannot differentiate between guests of european ethnicity. So it does not matter how many nights a guest has stayed with us, or how many times they have greeted him as they go in or out of the main gate, to Ananda - the next time they are complete strangers and in need of a thorough vetting.
The most famous of example of this, which is now part of Tekanda folklore, is when Charlie came back from the shops after about three years of living at Tekanda and Ananda drew himself to his full height (about 5ft 2) and asked 'what business does Madam have at Tekanda Lodge?'. 'Ananda it's me!!' Charlie protested several times until the penny dropped and she was allowed to continue.
When the story was relayed to our manager Upul, I honestly thought he would rupture an internal organ, he laughed so much. Even now just a mention of the incident sends the entire Lodge team into wet-eyed hysterics.
To date, we have managed to avoid any reason to visit to our local police station at Ahangama, but one of the documents required for our residency visa renewal was a police clearance certificate and like most things in Sri Lanka this had to be done in person. Reception is the 1st floor of a prison block type building around a central stairwell and it is also right next door to the holding cells. On our last trip there was a rather dishevelled looking chap hanging through the bars screaming merry hell. The noise was deafening as it echoed around the concrete walls and stair-wells. Our eyes widened when the officer on duty, who while manning reception was also polishing his immaculate black shoes on the desk, grabbed a long stick and headed to the cells. We feared the worst but to our surprise he proceeded to just give the raging prisoner a gentle poke with the stick through the bars as if to say, 'that's enough, we've heard you, go and sit down' which is exactly what he did. And while he was attending to the prisoner, we watched one of the equally immaculate female police officers take one of his shoes from the desk and hide it behind a large dustbin in the corner, to the absolute delight of the onlooking duty team.
Despite no obvious trace of the digital world - no screens, no computers, no printers - just piles of giant log books with hundreds of pages of hand-written reports - with astonishing efficiency and attention to detail our police clearance certificates were ready for collection a few days later. And get this - they had actually sent an officer in person to our village to knock on doors and check whether we had been the source of any trouble in the community. Now that is community policing.
As you may remember from last year (Tekanda Updates), April is Sinhala and Tamil New Year and we hold a festival at our empowerment centre. And like last year it was a total delight. Colour, laughter, dancing and wholesome games from dawn until dusk. Even our terror at being asked to judge the palm-weaving competition where the entrants are exclusively the no-nonsense matriarchs of Kathaluwa, failed to harm a magical day.
Unbelievably our second season is coming to an end next month and the team take a well-earned break in June before we re-open in July. Sri Lanka and Tekanda Lodge have enjoyed a wonderful year and like many of the top hotels in the country we are already fully-booked for a number of periods in the busiest months for the year to come. So, if you are mulling a trip to Sri Lanka whether we are on your itinerary or not, I do recommend booking early. We never know what lies around the corner for this special island but we are thankful to all the powers of the universe that this year at least we have had a busy and buoyant season.