woot.
Hey all!
This has been the best week and a half of my life! And there’s still plenty to come! Everywhere we go in Sri Lanka, there’s a new view and some more incredible people. They’re all so friendly, even if they call us “sudus” (white people) behind our back. They hardly ever see Americans so they people will run out to their front porch and wave wildly, or smile largely at us… when we say some Sinhala, they’re so thrilled that we can speak some Sinhala that their faces light up and they start talking really excitedly to us (at which point we have to inform tthem that we don’t understand much, but we are learning). After that, they will try to teach us words.
The best example of this was when we visited a school yesterday. The system is set up like the British system,. So we were led around by the head prefict. All the children would stop what they were doing and press their faces against the glass and get really excited… I’m sure the teachers were thrilled.
My host family is amazing, and the food is by far some of the best food I’ve ever had. I’ve gotten used to incredibly spicy dishes, and being practically a vegetarian (my amma and apuchi both don’t’ eat meat). I got matched with a perfect family. Theyr’e really friendly, and their family’s are very political. My amma’s brother is the governor of the province we live in, and her uncle was the head of the military. I cant’ talk to her from 7:30 to 9:30 on weeknights though… that’s her “teledrama time” where she watches soap operas… they’re addicted to them here. My apuche is one of the nicest people I have ever met, and will sit down and talk for hours about politics and he has very strong opinions about everything. He is obsessed with Singapore… his son lives there, and he will often make comments when he sees something awry and say “In Singapore, this would never happen!” My favorite example was when we were at the elephant orphanage with all these birds around. His comment was “in Singapore they shoot the crows!” I was a little taken aback
For our break my family took me to the elephant orphanage… there were about 40 elephants there, so I saw them bath, eat, and wallow in mud. It was amazing… I think I took about 80 pictures on that alone.
Tomorrow we leave for a week trip to the northern country up by Anarandpurah, where we will explore some relics and religious structures there. We are being led around by our material culture teacher, who is also the head of funding for historical sites… in other words, we get unprecedented access. It should be a lot of fun.
I have so much more to say… but I promised I’d keep these to under a page.
I’ll write again sometime after we get back from our trip.
Hope all is well,
Chris
This has been the best week and a half of my life! And there’s still plenty to come! Everywhere we go in Sri Lanka, there’s a new view and some more incredible people. They’re all so friendly, even if they call us “sudus” (white people) behind our back. They hardly ever see Americans so they people will run out to their front porch and wave wildly, or smile largely at us… when we say some Sinhala, they’re so thrilled that we can speak some Sinhala that their faces light up and they start talking really excitedly to us (at which point we have to inform tthem that we don’t understand much, but we are learning). After that, they will try to teach us words.
The best example of this was when we visited a school yesterday. The system is set up like the British system,. So we were led around by the head prefict. All the children would stop what they were doing and press their faces against the glass and get really excited… I’m sure the teachers were thrilled.
My host family is amazing, and the food is by far some of the best food I’ve ever had. I’ve gotten used to incredibly spicy dishes, and being practically a vegetarian (my amma and apuchi both don’t’ eat meat). I got matched with a perfect family. Theyr’e really friendly, and their family’s are very political. My amma’s brother is the governor of the province we live in, and her uncle was the head of the military. I cant’ talk to her from 7:30 to 9:30 on weeknights though… that’s her “teledrama time” where she watches soap operas… they’re addicted to them here. My apuche is one of the nicest people I have ever met, and will sit down and talk for hours about politics and he has very strong opinions about everything. He is obsessed with Singapore… his son lives there, and he will often make comments when he sees something awry and say “In Singapore, this would never happen!” My favorite example was when we were at the elephant orphanage with all these birds around. His comment was “in Singapore they shoot the crows!” I was a little taken aback
For our break my family took me to the elephant orphanage… there were about 40 elephants there, so I saw them bath, eat, and wallow in mud. It was amazing… I think I took about 80 pictures on that alone.
Tomorrow we leave for a week trip to the northern country up by Anarandpurah, where we will explore some relics and religious structures there. We are being led around by our material culture teacher, who is also the head of funding for historical sites… in other words, we get unprecedented access. It should be a lot of fun.
I have so much more to say… but I promised I’d keep these to under a page.
I’ll write again sometime after we get back from our trip.
Hope all is well,
Chris