9. Gallewella

Helen writes,
Today we had a remarkable adventure!
We were told by the Sri Lankan authorities that neither May nor Roshan’s mothers were traceable so we gave up on the idea of actually meeting them during our visit.
But on the way to our next stop at Dambulla we asked Neil, our driver, if he could stop at the home village of Roshan’s birth Mother so we could investigate.
I knew she had lived in the grounds of a Buddhist temple in a little town called Gallewella on the road to Dambulla.
Neil was sceptical about finding anyone who might know of her as it was such a long time ago That she had lived there and we didn’t have the address of the actual temple but ..... Helen, the Determined Woman persisted and I asked Neil to stop at the temples we found on the route and make enquiries.
At the first one - puzzled faces all round.
But at the second, where we had long conversations with aged and venerable Buddhist monks - Neil acting as translator - and a chattering clutch of very young novitiates eager to practise their English, there was a glimmer of recognition from a visiting tuk-tuk driver that rapidly sent him and Neil off into the town to find another tuk-tuk driver who turned out to be Roshan’s older brother, Priyantha!

He looks such a lot like Roshan and frowns with a puzzled, bewildered expression in exactly the same way that Roshan does.

Possibly tomorrow at 11am we may meet up with his birth mother once again after nearly 20 years!