My blue tube of Nivea chapstick kept my lips soft, smooth and supple. Chapped lips and dry skin are two of my pet peeves. I love a good tube of lip balm and body lotion. Even though I love the luxurious and scented products, I don't mind Vaseline because it does the trick. The end is much more important than the means. When I started traveling on September 16, I was probably halfway through the Nivea tube, but by October 9 or so I lost it. 

I remember wandering around the vast aisles of the Wal-Mart in Newton, Kansas and wondering what kind of chapstick to buy before being somewhat overwhelmed by the choices and deciding not to get anything at all. Instead I had a short chat with God about it. I think it went something along the lines of, "God, I need some lip balm, can you do something about it?" The next day or the day after that Cari gave me a goody bag full of presents for being her bridesmaid. In it was a Soft Lips package with two tubes of vanilla-flavoured lip balm. It was probably the first miracle on my trip, a moment when I knew that the divine entered my world and transformed it. I remember the flush of love that warmed me; I couldn't believe that God cared about lip balm. 

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The post-office crowd packed Bus 155 last night. During rush hour, people cram into the buses, spilling out of the doors, getting on and off while it is moving, pushing and shoving once inside. I take the bus everywhere in Colombo, but have managed to avoid peak times until last night. It was also dark, past 7pm, and apparently not the time when young women should be out alone.

I don’t blink an eye at these scenarios. I don’t know if it’s that I am so different, so secure or if I just don’t care. The last time I was in Colombo, I whined to Appa and Amma every time we boarded a bus, Can we please take a trishaw? Pleeeeeeease? When I first arrived here six weeks ago, I relished every moment I spent on the bus; it was a sign of my growth and maturity. I don’t congratulate myself anymore because I don’t even notice its significance.

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The trafficking of women and children is an issue close to my heart. This despicable practice has been in the world for hundreds of years, a means by which individual lives have been destroyed while communities and nations decay as a result of wrecked familial and social structures that are one of its many results. I am reminded of it daily here in Sri Lanka, which is supposedly one of the largest suppliers of child pornography for the western world and supplies thousands of children (including a reported 30,000 "beach boys") into the sex trade.

I don't know how we can even put the words sex, trade and children together, and it makes my skin crawl to think of people and even countries that prosper financially at the cost of robbing children of their innocence. But this is the reality of our world, a reality we must face as individuals and as communities.  

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A small, black hatchback with a male driver, whom I DID NOT recognise, pulled over on the side of the road, stopped and - I think - gestured to me. To make this storier easier to understand I'm just going to recount what happened in the following moments.

1. I think to myself, Oh this is SO WONDERFUL. It's someone from the office. I don't have to walk in the rain anymore. THANK GOD!!!!

2. Then I ran over to the car. Opened the door. Got in the car. Put all my stuff in it. Closed the door while saying to the man, Thank you so much!!! I SO appreciate this!!! You work for (organisation's name) right?

3. The man sitting in the driver's seat says something along the lines of, No I do not. 

4.  I think - rapidly - to myself, I just got into an unknown man's car. I JUST GOT INTO AN UNKNOWN MAN'S CAR. SINCE WHEN IN THE WORLD HAVE I EVER DONE THIS EVER IN MY WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE? 

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Today I woke up at 6:40am and walked down College Avenue to the beach at 7am. I love the Mt. Lavinia beach in the morning, and I have to pinch myself sometimes that it is only a three minute walk away. Even scavenging black crows attacking the fetid pile of trash leaning precariously against the railroad tracks don't ruin it for me.

The cool breeze coming off the Indian Ocean is good for my soul as is sitting close to the water and watching the waves race toward me while I read, write and sing. I don't like sitting too far from the water; I want to be near enough for it to touch me without getting drenched. The ocean here is a rough animal, brown the closer it gets to the shore because of the sand that churns in its belly. It spits foaming, bubbling white froth on the beach, and drags everything in its path back out to sea.

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