Ayubowan! Over the past two weeks I have done a myriad of wonderful things here in Colombo. I have spent a lot of time exploring the city via its many delicious restaurants featuring South Asian cuisine. Our favorite spot, Amaravathi, is a South Indian restaurant with delicious dosai's, thali, and more masala than your belly can handle. Green Cabin and Cafe On The 5th are also great spots to eat delicious Sri Lankan food at a cheap price. Egg hoppers, pol sambol, and paratha roti are changing my appetite and life for the better.
We have been taking Singhala classes twice a week from our amazing teacher Michael. We are having such a good time learning the language, what a difference a great teacher can make! We also get a mini lesson from our apartment's door man every time we come and go. This is quite a hilarious event to witness because his patience lasts about one minute and then he is done and motions for us to move along up to our apartment. Always ending with a friendly "go and come back" accompanied by some head waggling.
Last weekend we took a trip down to the small beach town of Weligama and enjoyed the quiet beach for a few days. We also have taken two trips to Mt. Lavinia, a beach spot only twenty minutes away from home on the train. What a life. I still can't believe I am here. I am so happy to have time to read some truly incredible books as well. I just finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns and highly recommend it. It is officially my favorite book, Khaled Hosseini is such a beautiful writer and storyteller.
After our meeting with Prasanna, the head of Saaraketha (the organization we will be working with for our teaching), it turns out that we will actually be living in Colombo until December. Although this means that we won't start teaching until later :(, we will get to enjoy another full month of a great variety of food as well as easy access to traveling. I'm excited to go visit our fellow fulbrighters in Kandy this weekend for Halloween!
Perhaps my favorite day since my arrival in Sri Lanka was mine and Utsha's trip to a small village 3 and a half hours outside of Colombo (I'm blanking on the name). After we expressed our desire to volunteer, Ramya put us in contact with her friend Avanti who is just beginning a program called Learning Spaces where she donates books and aids a small local library. On Thursday last week, Avanti drove us out to the village to visit the library, brainstorm with the librarian about ways to make the library more exciting for local youth, and read a story with a group of kids. We only expected to have about 15 kids in attendance, but 40 showed up! It was so exciting to be in a room full of kids who are truly excited about reading and learning English. We read Dr. Seuss' One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and then taught the kids some vocab words from the book using flash cards, actions, and some games. The librarian and Avanti were so excited to see the kids actively participating and having a good time practicing English because kids in Sri Lanka are not taught to actively participate in their classrooms and are generally more reserved. It was so much fun and I am so excited to continue working with Learning Spaces, helping the librarian generate excitement about reading and English, and setting up a volunteer program between Learning Spaces and Peradeniya University.
Also, we took a few yoga classes from a true goddess, Mrs. Kenamen. She is an 81 year old beautiful and incredibly flexible woman with so much life. She totally did the splits all three ways, Utsha and I were in total shock and could not stop smiling the whole class. She ends the class with "the three stages of laughter" which is my fav part.
#1: A contained laugh which is silent and private,
#2: when you are visibly laughing but no sound is coming out,
#3: when you cannot hold it in any longer and are laughing for all to see and hear.
It is so much fun and leaves the whole class cracking up. Her face is priceless.
Lastly, today we discovered this great cafe/store/gallery called Barefoot where I am certain I will be spending much of my time in the future. Yayy for peanut butter smoothies!
Love,
Jess
~Please enjoy the following photos which reflect my experiences in Sri Lanka. I want to express that the photos I share with you do not represent all of Sri Lanka's cultures, religions, policies, beliefs, people, or languages. I could not possibly express Sri Lanka's diversity through the limited photos and commentary that I include. These are simply an expression of what I have seen. I hope you like them!~
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Busy Colombo
Viharamahadevi Park
The Pettah Fish Market
A side street of Pettah
Weligama Beach
Beautiful Alliyah, my train buddy
on the ride to Weligama
Moo Cow
Mt. Lavinia
At the temple in Weligama
Gorgeous huge Buddha
The women of the Lekha Batik Factory
Beautiful ride home from the village
Preparing for a ceremony at the
Buddhist temple near our house
The Stupa decorated for the ceremony
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Wow Jess! It looks amazing! What has your experience been with local people? I had heard there was a lot of civil unrest there over the past 20 or so years, what is it like now? Are you able to communicate well?
ReplyDeleteThis came out yesterday I believe:
http://current.com/groups/vanguard-sri-lanka-notes/
Hey Ror- you heard right. The war was pretty brutal and certainly took a toll on the hearts and minds of Sri Lankan people. This country has not only been dealing with war, but also with a terrible tsunami, and a corrupt government.
ReplyDeleteIt is often difficult to have discussions with locals about this because they either do not want to talk about it (either it is too frustrating/saddening/depressing or they want to portray a more positive image of Sri Lanka for foreigners) or there is the language barrier, so we cannot understand one another.
However, working in the English department at school has allowed me to have a few of these discussions with teachers or students. It is definitely still fresh in everyone's minds (the war was only declared over last May) . Many people in the north and east are still living in the IDP camps. Many are homeless or jobless or both. Demining is still in process. Roads are just now being reopened and rebuilt.
But- people in the west and south (where I live) are pretty removed from it all. Because of the dangers involved with journalism, there are relatively few articles and news pieces about it all. Almost everything I've heard has been from others experiences visiting.