An outrigger on Negombo beach, Sri Lanka.

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Some of the fishing fleet was already back on Negombo Beach shortly past dawn. Here they're stepping over nets, untangling and setting them right for the afternoon.

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Sheldon, a slight fellow, just chest high, showed me his catch, in a crate, a few gross of five or six inch mackerels. He took me to meet all the others and see their catches, too. Here's a typical catch.

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He led me to his house, just alongside and between a couple of beach hotels, shoreside from the road, among a sprawl of a dozen thatch huts. Sheldon built it himself. It was before the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and I don’t know if it, or Sheldon and his family, are there anymore.

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Outside Sheldon's place we met this lady with a mighty tooth.

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Provincial elections were to be held the next day. Election posters covered the buildings.

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The road to the elephant orphanage, highlands of Sri Lanka near Kegalle.

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All these elephants had become separated from their families in the national parks or in the wild; Maybe their families were shot for their tusks, for example. One had his right front foot blown off by a land mine.

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A beaming boy in Nuwara Eliya, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, stood before a videotape and chocolate store chopping garlic and spring onions on an ancient stovetop. It smelled delicious.

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Next time you're in Bandarawela, I recommend this place. Mirja went in with a cold and came out hair up, oily and grinning.

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While Mirja was in there, a family down the street invited me in for tea. They placed a tiny cup in my lap and the whole family of eight watched me drink from it. Here's the youngest, a shy little beauty.

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And Mama.

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At 2:45 two guys named Nandiga and Chaminda showed up at the Oasis Hotel at Hambantota in what had formerly passed for a jeep, and away we went to look for elephants. Found 'em.

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Famous mask factories make special masks for exorcisms at the town of Ambalangoda. You can see masks of each of the eighteen Sanni Demons.

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At Kasgoda beach, the surf crashed hard forty meters away. I rented a fridge for $3 a day and six Heinekens were in there cooling. The sea sounded a dull roar, and palm fronds caused a wind- whipped tempest. Occasionally a manic low black cloud raked the manicured lawn with water-fire. The earth was vividly, furiously alive.

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