I was under a decade old when I was given my very first globe. I distinctly recall playing my favorite past-time one afternoon, spinning the globe and seeing what remote place my finger would land on, when I was introduced to the small island nation in the Indian Ocean:
Sri Lanka. I remember picking my mother's brain for information and learning to pronounce this faraway land with an "
sh" emphasis -
Shri Lanka.
Having not yet developed my insatiable travel curiosity, Sri Lanka was placed into a filing cabinet in the back of my mind and remained a remote place that only existed in books and movies. Never did I imagine that I'd find myself 15 years later in the very place my little finger touched on the globe.
