We stayed a couple of days in Café Ceylon and except for the weird German lady, the staff was very lovely. One day we bought a papaya and asked if one of the staff members could split it for us since we didn't have a knife.
He came up to our room with two plates with each half of a papaya, some napkins and a slice of lime. We thanked him smilingly and he stayed to talk with us for a while. He introduced himself as Haryana.
"He's very nice", Jennifer said and let the sun colour her face even more for a bit before she disappeared in to the hotel room to call her boyfriend. I sat on the patio a while longer and relaxed and was just about to go in when Haryana approched me again.
"What is plans for tomorrow?"
His English was a little bit hard to understand at times, and he sometimes had problems understanding us, but we tried.
"We think we are going to the turtle hatchery but I don't know what time."
"Tomorrow my day off. I come from village not far away. You want to come?"
My first instinct was... well, befriending a local is always good. And he is so nice all the time, always greeting and staying to chat, so why not?
"I'll just see if Jennifer is okay with it." We knocked on the door. Jennifer sat on the bed with headphones on.
"Hi, ehm, Haryana here wonders if we want to go to see his home village?"
"Is not far." Haryana added.
"Sure!" Jennifer said, smiling broadly. "When?"
"Tomorrow is his day off. He said he could meet us at the closest bus stop at like... ten?" I turned to Haryana and he nodded.
"Yeah, okay, how lovely. Do you have family there?" Jennifer asked. "Kids? Wife?"
"No wife, I not married I only have brother and father."
"Where is your mother?"
"She... dead. Car crash."
"Does your brtoher have a wife or kids?"
"Brother wife also dead. Cancer." He looked troubled for a moment.
"So no kids?" Her face was still smiling but I could hint a slight frown in the forehead.
"No kids. You like beer? Dinner? Meet my brother?"
"Ehhm... yes. We just have to see what time we will go to see the turtles tomorrow."
"I can add you on facebook?"
"Eh yes! What's your name?"
He went down for a piece of paper to write his name on. As soon as the door closed we looked at each other.
"How are you feeling about this?" I asked but I could see in Jennifer's face that she was concerned.
"It doesn't feel good at all. I mean, no other women? I thought he had like kids or a wife and he wanted us to meet them, but it more seems like..."
"Yeah I know. But we can't assume..."
"Of course we can't. Not all men, and yada yada yada, But still, this seems suspisciuos. Or, more, like an unneccessary risk to take."
"Definitely."
We were quiet for a bit, suddenly not eager to visit his village at all.
Of course it was not right to assume that just because of his gender he wanted to do something more than just hang out, but at the same time, we had no idea on how the man-woman dynamic was in this country. We've barely seen women out in the streets here, which might be a clue in itself.
"What are we going to do then?"
She didn't have time to answer before Haryana was back. On a piece of paper he had written his name and the name of the station.
"Secret! Don't tell!" he said and put his indexfinger to his mouth,
"What do you mean?"
"It is secret! Yes? No tell. Secret."
We felt even more uneasy when he'd left the room.
We talked about or different possibilities. Should we go, not always assuming people were bad? Were we going to tell him we were sick? That we didn't find him on Facebook? Telling him our boyfriends didn't approve?
Jennifer insisted on saying that we were going to the turtle hatchery in the morning and then that we didn't found him on Facebook, with the later part happening to be true.
There was a knock on the door.
"Here!" Haryana stood outside holding a bottle of water. "Secret!"
It felt like a bribe.
Were we going to be the stupid girls who just thought the world was a place of unicorns and rainbows?
At the same time, he was so so nice.
It's not really in our nature to be mean to someone that hasn't done anything wrong just because of the possibility he could and maybe it was just dinner and talks.
"Or he wanted to marry us off with him and his brother", we laughed nervously.
The rest of the day Haryana signed to us, asking "you still coming?", seemingly extremely eager. We answered vaughely that we would try and come, maybe, but we had to go to the turtles first. We had still not decided what to tell him, but more and more sure that not going was the right decision.
In the morning Jennifer tried to find him on Facebook and failed and then we just didnt bother to try any further.
It hurts me a bit, thinking of him waiting for us at the bus stop, but you know... safety first.
The following days we avoided him as much as possible, avoided looking straight at him or speak to him.
This is the downside with traveling, especially when traveling as a female. You always have to be more careful, always have to make sure you don't take any unnecessary risks. How ever much you want to believe the world is kind and warmhearted you can't let that shatter your sight on the potential dangers.
Maybe he just wanted to talk. Maybe.
But WHY was it a secret, why was is so important for us to come and meet his brother and father and why did he give us a bottle of water?
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