They’re flying kites on Galle Face Green. The air is alive, twisting and fluttering against the blue in swatches of yellow and red and blue and flags. All along the mile of Green, children grasp their kite strings like umbilical cords to the sky, only just barely keeping hold of the ground beneath them. Families and lovers walk patiently through the tangle. A boy who has only been alive for a few years has gotten his kite into the clouds. The women are wearing gold-and-peach saris and t-shirts and white headscarves and sundresses and sandals and sneakers. The men wear pants with jerseys and sarongs with business shirts, heads covered and not. There are clusters of women in long black abayas and niqabs, which also flutter in the breeze, and clusters of bright balloons with feet underneath, that walk through the crowd, peddling themselves to passersby. Every outfit worn by the children is the perfect outfit for a game of cricket. Girls hold their fathers’ hands and boys roll around in patches of dirt where the grass has worn bald with play. The Galle Face Green is reported to be the most expansive place in the city, and though the Green itself is as bustling as the street, you can catch your breath there. It is, as was once written, Colombo City’s lung.
more from Stefany Anne Golberg at The Owls here. (PS we have 401 contributors to our little fundraiser. We have many many thousands of daily readers. Please, two minutes of your time and few bucks means we can keep doing what we do. Thanks.)