**My new favorite thing: myself.
This may sound vain (probably because it totally is) but I'm just feeling so great. I think that it's a very important part of life, knowing how to truly love yourself. At home it's not like I particularly dislike myself, generally I feel pretty ok with who I am, how I act, what I do, etc. Sometimes I would find myself acting in a ways that would make me dislike certain parts of myself, and obviously there's always propaganda saying that I'm not beautiful enough, but generally I like myself at home. But I think that I've been falling short of real love. I'm done with telling myself that I'll love myself when. When I lose 10 lbs, when I can run as far as I'd like, when I act in a certain way, when I can hold down a relationship...I love myself now. Loving myself doesn't mean that I can't still have goals, I can still try to be a better person without withholding love and awaiting perfection. The funny thing is that the more I love myself the easier it is to be a better person, which makes it easier to love. It's a cycle, but it's the opposite of vicious. Not to say there haven't been and won't be rough days, but I have been so happy this week. I am doing something that I can put my heart into, and I have a positive outlook, which I think even the others here can see. This week I was one of 4 nominees for a newly implemented "volunteer of the week" program. An anonymous volunteer wrote "I would like to nominate Elizabeth for her friendliness, generosity, hard work in the garden, and her phenomenal effort in the fruit shop on Friday." I am so touched by this, it makes me feel so appreciated and like my inner joy might just be manifesting to the people around me.**
I'm behind on my journaling and even more on typing it up for the blog, so this week's entry will be short. Really, the biggest thing has just been how amazing I feel.
8 new volunteers arrive on Monday: Jemma, Liz, Lea, Mardi, and Vicky are Austalian nurses here together for 2 weeks. Marion (unfortunately not a librarian) is from New Zealand here for 2 weeks. Jesper and Karina are a brother sister pair from Denmark here for 8 weeks. On Tuesday Sian and Hayden, 2 friens from England, arrive for 7 weeks, and on Thursday Mary and James, a couple from Ireland come for...I want to say 6 weeks. The volunteer houseing is getting quite full, and everyone coming seems very nice. I try to make sure that everyone feels welcome and invited to mingle with the established group. The Australian women are older and keep mostly to themselves, but I really enjoy their company when I do chat with them.
My birthday is wednesday and I have the most amazing birthday that --like an elephant-- I will never forget. I get up, wash Rani, have a wonderful day working in the garden, fruit shop, and mingling with everyone. It's been a while since Rani has done a painting, so for my birthday I request that she make one for me. I have pictures of her making my painting, which I then buy. And now I have a very special birthday present from my beautiful Rani. After work a group of us go out to a movie in the small city 10 km away. I think my ticket was 250 rupees or something absurdly low (although I'm not sure because someone splurged and payed my ticket for me). I was hoping The Avengers would be playing, but it was Battleship instead. The screen wasn't the best quality, the seats were uncomfortable, the movie was horribly cheesy, and it was wonderful. I had such a blast. Oh, and the power went out halfway through the movie and we were sitting in darkness for about 5 minutes wondering what to do. It was such a good time, we'll go back in a couple weeks, I'm sure.
On Friday I am on the fruit shop for an hour and, due to a scheduling conflict, end up staying on for another hour. I had both my notebooks with me so that I could either journal or write my book (yes, I'm writing a book, more on that in a moment), but don't end up touching either of them because it is so busy at the elephant rides. 2 large groups come through in addition to the normal string of tourists on their own. I have 2 fruit plates made up, 2 elephants come back and I sell them both, and then I can see another elephant coming and have to rush back to chop more fruit before they return! I am a selling machine, and chopping like a fiend. I don't even have time to be afraid of the bees crawling on the fruit while I'm chopping.
A new fund raising idea for our up and coming gift shop is for volunteers to write books that we will sell here. The coordinators have purchased publishing rights for 6 books up to 32 pages in length and have a friend who is an illustrator. I immediately offer to try my hand at writing a children's book. I used to occasionally make up stories for the boys when I was a nanny, so I think I can do it. And if everyone likes it when I'm done, I might get to be a published author in Sri Lanka! And have a really easy addition to my mom's autographed book collection.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
The Weekend (Friday - Sunday)
**My new favorite thing: ice cream.
When we stopped to pick up food near the beach house, I decided to get a 2 liter container of ice cream to share. Of course, I considered just getting a half pint and making everyone watch me jealously as I ate it, but decided to be mine. As it turns out, "freezer" is a very loosely applied term in Sri Lanka, and by the time we opened it the net day it was mostly soup. Delicious, cold soup. For dinner on Saturday we were served crabs, which were amazing and unbelievably spicy. This was the first time I literally could not eat more than 2 bites because I was burning and tearing up too much. Jade mentioned milk, but although they put milk in their tea it's from a powder and nobody drinks it here. That's when I remembered the leftover ice cream soup. We brought out the container and a few others and I would cut the spice with a spoonful, eat crab until we cried, wash, rinse, repeat.**
The weekend begins with a "4 hour" car ride. Our driver tells us, "oh, we'll be there by half past 9." We arrive at half past 11. We didn't hit traffic or anything, this is just the way time is told in Sri Lanka.
Can we have some more tools for the garden, please?
"Sure, I'll pick some up next week."
Nope.
"4 hours."
Nope.
Can I please stop to use the bathroom?
"Sure."
45 minutes later...seriously, I'll accept a small shrub to duck behind at this point.
Nothing is hurried or urgent. It's great, except when the drivers says that the really bad patch of road (worse than the rest of the road...which is saying something) that might make me carsick is 30 minutes long. An hour of actively trying not to be sick in the van and we're still on the road.
Once we get to the beach house and get out of the van, I'm fine, and the weekend is going to be amazing. We're somewhere along the eastern shore at a house walking distance from a beautiful beach. The house is adorable and the architecture so fitting for the climate. The bottom floor has no walls on the outside. Only pillars to hold up the second floor. The heat is able to be tempered by full exposure to the breeze. The second floor has walls with huge windows, but they seal off and have air conditioning if you prefer. We just open the windows. Sara, a higher up at Millennium, shows us around the area eagerly. Our weekend is full of beach trips, temples, sunburns (none for me thanks to my gallon of SPF 50 I brought, but although I shared generously there are still some minor burns for others.)
The weekend is relaxing and wonderful. Sara takes us to "the best spot in Sri Lanka" which is a very specific part of the ocean. It flows through like a wide river and in 1 spot (about 2 meters wide) the current is strong and you can lean into the current and just relax. Sara calls it a natural spa, what he doesn't mention is that about 10 meters away from "the best spot in Sri Lanka" is the area we've dubbed "the worst spot in Sri Lanka." There are a lot of rocks around the area and 3 of us cut our feet on them. Leiah and I not so badly, but Shay's is going to need my first aid kit's gauze...eventually. She stays in the water for another half hour anyway, swimming happily. Eventually she has it doctored by Sandeth, the head of Millennium, who has driven up to join us.
We go to 2 Hindu temples and get blessed. The temples are beautiful, but I find the crowds a bit distracting. I prefer the Buddhist temple I saw in Galle, and found it much more...I can't think of the correct word, not holy, but more like God could be present there, more inclined to worship there.
Snorkeling is available here too, for a small price. And I really mean small, like 500 rupees or something. Everything here is soo cheap! I can get a mango across the street from Millennium for 10 rupees, a sandwich for 30, or a beer for 200. A rupee, by the way, is less than 1 cent. The snorkeling equipment is pretty bad, but we have fun and stay our for hours.
Sleeping 10 people in a 2 bedroom beach house is interesting, to say the least. There are mattresses (if you can call what we sleep on here "mattresses") on the floors so that we all have one, and 2 people in each bed, but only the beds have mosquito nets. Electing not to take a bed, I get a bit bitten overnight. Not too badly, but I miss my mosquito net. The second night I figure if I don't have a net anyway, I might was well sleep in one of the hammocks outside. 30 minutes in the hammock proves me wrong, and bites drive me back into the house to sleep in the slightly less buggy bedroom.
The area where we are living at Millennium is not a malaria area and when I arrived I found that nobody is taking their malaria pills. I stopped taking mine too a few days in (how often does peer pressure work to convince someone not to take drugs?) Waking up with so many bites I have a small fright that maybe this area is malaria ridden. Naturally I begin writing my will immediately, but then Sara assuages my fears, saying that we haven't been to any malaria areas.
Altogether the weekend is quite fun, but I am in desperate need of some alone time. I love being social with everyone, but too much exhausts me and I need to recharge alone. I feel like I haven't been alone in over 2 weeks, and here it's significantly more pronounced. I take a nap and feel a little better, but I'm looking forward to getting back to Millennium where there's more space to go by myself when I need to. I also start to get a slight bit homesick. Well, not exactly homesick, because I really don't want to go home yet. Mostly I really just want to hear my parent's voices instead of just texting and emailing. I miss my friends too, but talking to my parents on the phone for a few minutes when I get back to Millennium on Sunday makes me feel much better.
When we stopped to pick up food near the beach house, I decided to get a 2 liter container of ice cream to share. Of course, I considered just getting a half pint and making everyone watch me jealously as I ate it, but decided to be mine. As it turns out, "freezer" is a very loosely applied term in Sri Lanka, and by the time we opened it the net day it was mostly soup. Delicious, cold soup. For dinner on Saturday we were served crabs, which were amazing and unbelievably spicy. This was the first time I literally could not eat more than 2 bites because I was burning and tearing up too much. Jade mentioned milk, but although they put milk in their tea it's from a powder and nobody drinks it here. That's when I remembered the leftover ice cream soup. We brought out the container and a few others and I would cut the spice with a spoonful, eat crab until we cried, wash, rinse, repeat.**
The weekend begins with a "4 hour" car ride. Our driver tells us, "oh, we'll be there by half past 9." We arrive at half past 11. We didn't hit traffic or anything, this is just the way time is told in Sri Lanka.
Can we have some more tools for the garden, please?
"Sure, I'll pick some up next week."
Nope.
"4 hours."
Nope.
Can I please stop to use the bathroom?
"Sure."
45 minutes later...seriously, I'll accept a small shrub to duck behind at this point.
Nothing is hurried or urgent. It's great, except when the drivers says that the really bad patch of road (worse than the rest of the road...which is saying something) that might make me carsick is 30 minutes long. An hour of actively trying not to be sick in the van and we're still on the road.
Once we get to the beach house and get out of the van, I'm fine, and the weekend is going to be amazing. We're somewhere along the eastern shore at a house walking distance from a beautiful beach. The house is adorable and the architecture so fitting for the climate. The bottom floor has no walls on the outside. Only pillars to hold up the second floor. The heat is able to be tempered by full exposure to the breeze. The second floor has walls with huge windows, but they seal off and have air conditioning if you prefer. We just open the windows. Sara, a higher up at Millennium, shows us around the area eagerly. Our weekend is full of beach trips, temples, sunburns (none for me thanks to my gallon of SPF 50 I brought, but although I shared generously there are still some minor burns for others.)
The weekend is relaxing and wonderful. Sara takes us to "the best spot in Sri Lanka" which is a very specific part of the ocean. It flows through like a wide river and in 1 spot (about 2 meters wide) the current is strong and you can lean into the current and just relax. Sara calls it a natural spa, what he doesn't mention is that about 10 meters away from "the best spot in Sri Lanka" is the area we've dubbed "the worst spot in Sri Lanka." There are a lot of rocks around the area and 3 of us cut our feet on them. Leiah and I not so badly, but Shay's is going to need my first aid kit's gauze...eventually. She stays in the water for another half hour anyway, swimming happily. Eventually she has it doctored by Sandeth, the head of Millennium, who has driven up to join us.
We go to 2 Hindu temples and get blessed. The temples are beautiful, but I find the crowds a bit distracting. I prefer the Buddhist temple I saw in Galle, and found it much more...I can't think of the correct word, not holy, but more like God could be present there, more inclined to worship there.
Snorkeling is available here too, for a small price. And I really mean small, like 500 rupees or something. Everything here is soo cheap! I can get a mango across the street from Millennium for 10 rupees, a sandwich for 30, or a beer for 200. A rupee, by the way, is less than 1 cent. The snorkeling equipment is pretty bad, but we have fun and stay our for hours.
Sleeping 10 people in a 2 bedroom beach house is interesting, to say the least. There are mattresses (if you can call what we sleep on here "mattresses") on the floors so that we all have one, and 2 people in each bed, but only the beds have mosquito nets. Electing not to take a bed, I get a bit bitten overnight. Not too badly, but I miss my mosquito net. The second night I figure if I don't have a net anyway, I might was well sleep in one of the hammocks outside. 30 minutes in the hammock proves me wrong, and bites drive me back into the house to sleep in the slightly less buggy bedroom.
The area where we are living at Millennium is not a malaria area and when I arrived I found that nobody is taking their malaria pills. I stopped taking mine too a few days in (how often does peer pressure work to convince someone not to take drugs?) Waking up with so many bites I have a small fright that maybe this area is malaria ridden. Naturally I begin writing my will immediately, but then Sara assuages my fears, saying that we haven't been to any malaria areas.
Altogether the weekend is quite fun, but I am in desperate need of some alone time. I love being social with everyone, but too much exhausts me and I need to recharge alone. I feel like I haven't been alone in over 2 weeks, and here it's significantly more pronounced. I take a nap and feel a little better, but I'm looking forward to getting back to Millennium where there's more space to go by myself when I need to. I also start to get a slight bit homesick. Well, not exactly homesick, because I really don't want to go home yet. Mostly I really just want to hear my parent's voices instead of just texting and emailing. I miss my friends too, but talking to my parents on the phone for a few minutes when I get back to Millennium on Sunday makes me feel much better.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Birthday!
Today is my birthday!!
What a wonderful place to be for my 24th birthday. A little sad to be away from everyone I love, but I am going to get to spend it with so many people here who I've grown so close to as well.
I think today I will buy some chocolate. And tonight we're all going to see Battleship in the theater nearby. It's going to be so cheesy and amazing, I'm so excited!
What a wonderful place to be for my 24th birthday. A little sad to be away from everyone I love, but I am going to get to spend it with so many people here who I've grown so close to as well.
I think today I will buy some chocolate. And tonight we're all going to see Battleship in the theater nearby. It's going to be so cheesy and amazing, I'm so excited!
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Days 2-4 (Tuesday - Thursday)
Day 2 (Tuesday)
**My new favorite thing: Gardening.
Leaving a job where I didn't have to move any muscles except my fingers, I am really enjoying work that engages my whole body. Today I weeded, watered, and helped dig a foundation for a hut. "Dig" may not seem overly tiring, but the ground is so hard we need to break it up with an extremely heavy metal bar before we can shovel it away. I wielded the iron bar, (I think there's a name for the tool, but I don't know it. It's taller than I am and the end is like a flathead screwdriver,) lifting it above my head, bringing it down as hard as I can and then pulling down to lever the dirt apart. It's so exhausting, but so satisfying. I love being outside all day and surrounding myself with nature. I lovingly watered the okra that I planted yesterday and talked to it so that it would feel encouraged to grow. I was disappointed that my time was cut short by being sent to teach English at a nearby school.**
After cleaning Rani and her bed, Annebob and I do the "vet check" which involves brushing off the bottoms of her feet, checking for any abrasions, and feeding her a vitamin ball. Today is my turn. I am a little nervous as I am approaching a raised elephant foot, yup, definitely big enough to squash me like an ant. But I really enjoyed it. I give the vitamin ball and Annebob gives her some reward fruit. She was telling me yesterday about elephant body language. Ears out, cheeks red, and eyes wide is aggression, or as we call it "RUN!" Curling the trunk under and resting it in your hand is trust. As Annebob feeds the fruit she leaves her hand out. Rani reaches back to sniff for more papaya. Not finding any, she begins to pull her trunk back, but first curls it under and rests it in Annebob's hand. Nobody here has had their elephant do that, and this is the first time for Annebob. I am watching--as are about 6 others--as Annebob's face lights up and she is nearly overcome with emotion. As Rani ambles away, Annebob is turning toward us, completely speechless. Everyone here just witnessed such a touching moment, it's very difficult to describe. I can only hope that this will happen for me before I leave.
I do a little gardening today, but my time is cut short because Shala and I are on the schedule to go teach English at a nearby school. It's actually less teaching and more playing with the kids while incorporating English. It is an after school daycare of sorts, with children of all ages from 5-11. There are 8 kids of varying English proficiency. I start out by asking them their names and ages and then having them all tell me what color shirt they are wearing. Then we move on to me saying a color and they have to point to something that color. For an hour Shay and I come up with various activities and have so much fun with the kids. I enjoy playing with them and seeing how each of them start to come out of their shell over time. My favorite game was probably a Simon says-esque game where someone would say a word or command and everyone would act it out. This way they get to associate the words with actions, not letters on a page. We also had fun throwing a ball around a circle, and when you got the ball you said something about yourself.
"My favorite subject is English."
"My name is Deshena."
"I have one sister."
"My favorite color is orange."
The time was quite enjoyable, but an hour of it was mentally and physically wearing. So much running around with them and attempting to entertain/teach them all in a way that incorporated a wide range of ages and English fluency. Shay and I are pleased with the hour and look forward to seeing them again, but happy to get back to the bungalow, which I now call home.
Day 3 (Wednesday)
**My new favorite thing: emotional release.
As I was painting the office today I started to feel very strange, and I didn't know what was wrong with me. I ate a couple of biscuits (yes, I call cookies biscuits now because I'm so surrounded by people from the UK) because I thought maybe I was low on calories in the 7 hour break between lunch and dinner (watch out, soon I'll be saying dinner and supper). I didn't feel any better, and continued to decline. My painting got slower and slower and I started to feel light headed. I tried sitting outside in the fresh air for a bit, but nothing worked and my head started to spin. When I went outside to wash a brush off in the sink, Jade asked me if I was feeling any better and as I started to say "no" I got a lump in my throat. I told her that nothing was making me upset, but that I had just gotten a surge of emotion. Then, for no reason--and taking me completely by surprise--I just leaned down and cried. She spoke soothingly to me as I stood there emptying my emotional stores. After a 3 minute cry, I immediately began to feel better. My head cleared and I was able to work again. As it turns out, this is not an uncommon phenomenon here, and multiple other volunteers have experienced similar unprompted emotions.**
Today is a quiet day because most of the volunteers are in Colombo extending their 30 day visas and buying supplies (supplies!) We decide to power through painting the office while they're gone and surprise them when they come home. I also do a stint in the fruit shop selling fruit to tourists so they can feed the elephant who gave them a ride. As I am watching a guy get splashed by his elephant in the river, making bets with myself if he will buy a plate when he's done, I sketch out an idea for a t-shirt design. We are trying to come up with more fund raising ideas and designing and selling t-shirts is the newest one. I will attempt to upload a sketch of my idea for you all to critique. I showed my rough sketch to the tourist and not only did he like it, but he bought a plate of fruit (totally knew he would.)
At the tail end of dinner all the Colombo volunteers return, exhausted from a long day. (Leaving at 6AM) Ilsa is distressed that the pocket of her new pants has torn, so I offer to sew them for her after dinner. Armed with my sewing kit and a headlamp, I bring her pants back to life. Everyone is joking about how I am so prepared for everything. After the pants are sewed up and I offer to patch up a cut on Bert's leg (open wounds get infected quickly here because the bugs aggravate them) they start calling me Dr. Liz.
Day 4 (Thursday)
**My new favorite thing: pasta.
Today for lunch we were given pasta and it was glorious! There is a restaurant just across the street from Millennium that is associated with us and serves us all our meals. In fact, I think we're the only people they serve. I guess restaurant is a bad name for it then, but it's the best I've got. Meals are served buffet style, lunch and dinner are almost always white rice with 2 types of curry/Dahl on the side. I didn't realize how much rice I was eating until they changed it up. Of course, now this has set off a whole slew of cravings from home (what I wouldn't give for some pancakes with maple syrup), so perhaps I should have stuck with the white rice twice a day for 10 weeks.**
Today our project work continues, and I am able to work a little bit on the garden, which I love so much. I'm going to be an expert gardener when I get home. The yard will be unrecognizable, and I might even learn to love bees and other terrifying pollinating bugs (I'm clearly not there yet). I also work the fruit shop today and decide to make a phrase book to keep there "Would you like to make a donation to the Foundation of 200 rupees and get a plate of fruit to feed the elephant?" in a bunch of languages. I'm already not a salesman--my complete absence of sales skill is actually a running joke with one of my coworkers--so put me in the fruit shop with tourists who don't even speak my language and just see how much fruit I'll sell. I'm actually surprisingly successful when they can understand me, but miming the process of feeding fruit to an elephant, while fun and rather amusing, is not a patented sales technique. Perhaps asking where they're from and butchering their home language is the key.
Today is a very sad day, tonight we say goodbye to Kevin and Judy. All day we are so sad and keep giving them hugs and well wishes. Everyone is sad to see them go, but the day is given a brighter note by the fact that midnight marks Shay's 22nd birthday. (Shay makes everything brighter). After dinner, throughout the partying for Kevin and Judy, the night is punctured by Shay's voice, "guys, guys...2 hours and 15 minutes until my birthday!"
Shay's birthday struck, as expected, at midnight, and although we were all waking up at 5am the next morning, we couldn't let her birthday start in bed, so we stayed up for it to celebrate. Her birthday will continue upon waking--in 4.5 hours--with piling into a van and driving to the beach. The weekend starts early this week.
**My new favorite thing: Gardening.
Leaving a job where I didn't have to move any muscles except my fingers, I am really enjoying work that engages my whole body. Today I weeded, watered, and helped dig a foundation for a hut. "Dig" may not seem overly tiring, but the ground is so hard we need to break it up with an extremely heavy metal bar before we can shovel it away. I wielded the iron bar, (I think there's a name for the tool, but I don't know it. It's taller than I am and the end is like a flathead screwdriver,) lifting it above my head, bringing it down as hard as I can and then pulling down to lever the dirt apart. It's so exhausting, but so satisfying. I love being outside all day and surrounding myself with nature. I lovingly watered the okra that I planted yesterday and talked to it so that it would feel encouraged to grow. I was disappointed that my time was cut short by being sent to teach English at a nearby school.**
After cleaning Rani and her bed, Annebob and I do the "vet check" which involves brushing off the bottoms of her feet, checking for any abrasions, and feeding her a vitamin ball. Today is my turn. I am a little nervous as I am approaching a raised elephant foot, yup, definitely big enough to squash me like an ant. But I really enjoyed it. I give the vitamin ball and Annebob gives her some reward fruit. She was telling me yesterday about elephant body language. Ears out, cheeks red, and eyes wide is aggression, or as we call it "RUN!" Curling the trunk under and resting it in your hand is trust. As Annebob feeds the fruit she leaves her hand out. Rani reaches back to sniff for more papaya. Not finding any, she begins to pull her trunk back, but first curls it under and rests it in Annebob's hand. Nobody here has had their elephant do that, and this is the first time for Annebob. I am watching--as are about 6 others--as Annebob's face lights up and she is nearly overcome with emotion. As Rani ambles away, Annebob is turning toward us, completely speechless. Everyone here just witnessed such a touching moment, it's very difficult to describe. I can only hope that this will happen for me before I leave.
I do a little gardening today, but my time is cut short because Shala and I are on the schedule to go teach English at a nearby school. It's actually less teaching and more playing with the kids while incorporating English. It is an after school daycare of sorts, with children of all ages from 5-11. There are 8 kids of varying English proficiency. I start out by asking them their names and ages and then having them all tell me what color shirt they are wearing. Then we move on to me saying a color and they have to point to something that color. For an hour Shay and I come up with various activities and have so much fun with the kids. I enjoy playing with them and seeing how each of them start to come out of their shell over time. My favorite game was probably a Simon says-esque game where someone would say a word or command and everyone would act it out. This way they get to associate the words with actions, not letters on a page. We also had fun throwing a ball around a circle, and when you got the ball you said something about yourself.
"My favorite subject is English."
"My name is Deshena."
"I have one sister."
"My favorite color is orange."
The time was quite enjoyable, but an hour of it was mentally and physically wearing. So much running around with them and attempting to entertain/teach them all in a way that incorporated a wide range of ages and English fluency. Shay and I are pleased with the hour and look forward to seeing them again, but happy to get back to the bungalow, which I now call home.
Day 3 (Wednesday)
**My new favorite thing: emotional release.
As I was painting the office today I started to feel very strange, and I didn't know what was wrong with me. I ate a couple of biscuits (yes, I call cookies biscuits now because I'm so surrounded by people from the UK) because I thought maybe I was low on calories in the 7 hour break between lunch and dinner (watch out, soon I'll be saying dinner and supper). I didn't feel any better, and continued to decline. My painting got slower and slower and I started to feel light headed. I tried sitting outside in the fresh air for a bit, but nothing worked and my head started to spin. When I went outside to wash a brush off in the sink, Jade asked me if I was feeling any better and as I started to say "no" I got a lump in my throat. I told her that nothing was making me upset, but that I had just gotten a surge of emotion. Then, for no reason--and taking me completely by surprise--I just leaned down and cried. She spoke soothingly to me as I stood there emptying my emotional stores. After a 3 minute cry, I immediately began to feel better. My head cleared and I was able to work again. As it turns out, this is not an uncommon phenomenon here, and multiple other volunteers have experienced similar unprompted emotions.**
Today is a quiet day because most of the volunteers are in Colombo extending their 30 day visas and buying supplies (supplies!) We decide to power through painting the office while they're gone and surprise them when they come home. I also do a stint in the fruit shop selling fruit to tourists so they can feed the elephant who gave them a ride. As I am watching a guy get splashed by his elephant in the river, making bets with myself if he will buy a plate when he's done, I sketch out an idea for a t-shirt design. We are trying to come up with more fund raising ideas and designing and selling t-shirts is the newest one. I will attempt to upload a sketch of my idea for you all to critique. I showed my rough sketch to the tourist and not only did he like it, but he bought a plate of fruit (totally knew he would.)
At the tail end of dinner all the Colombo volunteers return, exhausted from a long day. (Leaving at 6AM) Ilsa is distressed that the pocket of her new pants has torn, so I offer to sew them for her after dinner. Armed with my sewing kit and a headlamp, I bring her pants back to life. Everyone is joking about how I am so prepared for everything. After the pants are sewed up and I offer to patch up a cut on Bert's leg (open wounds get infected quickly here because the bugs aggravate them) they start calling me Dr. Liz.
Day 4 (Thursday)
**My new favorite thing: pasta.
Today for lunch we were given pasta and it was glorious! There is a restaurant just across the street from Millennium that is associated with us and serves us all our meals. In fact, I think we're the only people they serve. I guess restaurant is a bad name for it then, but it's the best I've got. Meals are served buffet style, lunch and dinner are almost always white rice with 2 types of curry/Dahl on the side. I didn't realize how much rice I was eating until they changed it up. Of course, now this has set off a whole slew of cravings from home (what I wouldn't give for some pancakes with maple syrup), so perhaps I should have stuck with the white rice twice a day for 10 weeks.**
Today our project work continues, and I am able to work a little bit on the garden, which I love so much. I'm going to be an expert gardener when I get home. The yard will be unrecognizable, and I might even learn to love bees and other terrifying pollinating bugs (I'm clearly not there yet). I also work the fruit shop today and decide to make a phrase book to keep there "Would you like to make a donation to the Foundation of 200 rupees and get a plate of fruit to feed the elephant?" in a bunch of languages. I'm already not a salesman--my complete absence of sales skill is actually a running joke with one of my coworkers--so put me in the fruit shop with tourists who don't even speak my language and just see how much fruit I'll sell. I'm actually surprisingly successful when they can understand me, but miming the process of feeding fruit to an elephant, while fun and rather amusing, is not a patented sales technique. Perhaps asking where they're from and butchering their home language is the key.
Today is a very sad day, tonight we say goodbye to Kevin and Judy. All day we are so sad and keep giving them hugs and well wishes. Everyone is sad to see them go, but the day is given a brighter note by the fact that midnight marks Shay's 22nd birthday. (Shay makes everything brighter). After dinner, throughout the partying for Kevin and Judy, the night is punctured by Shay's voice, "guys, guys...2 hours and 15 minutes until my birthday!"
Shay's birthday struck, as expected, at midnight, and although we were all waking up at 5am the next morning, we couldn't let her birthday start in bed, so we stayed up for it to celebrate. Her birthday will continue upon waking--in 4.5 hours--with piling into a van and driving to the beach. The weekend starts early this week.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Day 1 with Rani!!!
The day count is reset now that I'm at MEF and have an Elephant :)
**My new favorite thing: (obviously) Elephants!!
This morning I meet up with the other volunteers at 7:30 and we each go with our elephant handlers known as Mahouts (pronounced mah-HOOT) to our elephants' sleeping areas. We clean them out and do a poop count as the Mahouts lead the elephants down to the river and their day areas. Annabob and I go down to the river after cleaning and help our mahout, Chandana, wash Rani. She really is the most beautiful one here. Also let's take a moment to absorb the fact that I got to WASH an ELEPHANT!
Rani lay down on her side in the river and we scrubbed her with coconut shells. Nope, still need more of a moment to abosrb the fact that I got to WASH an ELEPHANT! Today I just scrubbed her back, but
Annabob tells me that soon Rani will trust me more and I'll be allowed to scrub her head and sides.**
After she is clean, Annabob brushes off the bottoms of her feat and feeds her a dough ball with medicine in in. Just before lunch Annabob tells me that there are only 2 elephants here who paint and Rani is one of them! We get the paints and set up the eaisel. I take pictures as Rani paints and Annabob gives her the paintbrushes. Annabob wants me to chronicle the process because she is planning to buy the painting that Rani makes. I promise to give her the pictures of the creation of her newly acquired art.
At lunch I discover that in taking Fran's place with Rani I am considered quite lucky. Bert and Kevin cannot wash Raja becaue he attacked his Mahout a few days ago. Leiah's elephant Seetha, has been loaned away from the foundation for 4 months, and everyone agrees that Rani has the best Mahout who Annabob and I get to work with.
In addition to working directly with the elephants, we all have duties around the foundation. I pick gardening to be my project. I work with our gardener Cherith (a Sri Lankan man), Bert, Kevin, Judy, and Annabob. We are trying to grow as many things here that we can to feed the elephants and sell in order to make MEF more self sufficient.
Today we clear weeds, harvest sweet potatoes, water the beds (with watering cans that have to be filled and lugged back and forth), plant okra, and clear a spot of land in the garden for a massage hut. I have never been more exhausted in my life! As we are harvesting sweet potatoes, Annabob decides to eat one raw so she borrows my Leatherman to peel it. I clip it to my belt as I work and everyone has been admiring it, but this is the first time it's needed to be used. 10 minutes later we are eating a delicious sweet potato as I take her to my medicine cabinet for the first time my cut ointment and bandaids need to be used.
I absolutely adore working with Cherith (we all call him Cherry) and have requested to Helena that this be my permanent project. Cherry is very good at speaking English, and is going to help me with my Sinhalese while I'm here. Today I was asking him what he calls all the tools we are using, some of which I don't even know the english name.
I think I will like it here.
**My new favorite thing: (obviously) Elephants!!
This morning I meet up with the other volunteers at 7:30 and we each go with our elephant handlers known as Mahouts (pronounced mah-HOOT) to our elephants' sleeping areas. We clean them out and do a poop count as the Mahouts lead the elephants down to the river and their day areas. Annabob and I go down to the river after cleaning and help our mahout, Chandana, wash Rani. She really is the most beautiful one here. Also let's take a moment to absorb the fact that I got to WASH an ELEPHANT!
Rani lay down on her side in the river and we scrubbed her with coconut shells. Nope, still need more of a moment to abosrb the fact that I got to WASH an ELEPHANT! Today I just scrubbed her back, but
Annabob tells me that soon Rani will trust me more and I'll be allowed to scrub her head and sides.**
After she is clean, Annabob brushes off the bottoms of her feat and feeds her a dough ball with medicine in in. Just before lunch Annabob tells me that there are only 2 elephants here who paint and Rani is one of them! We get the paints and set up the eaisel. I take pictures as Rani paints and Annabob gives her the paintbrushes. Annabob wants me to chronicle the process because she is planning to buy the painting that Rani makes. I promise to give her the pictures of the creation of her newly acquired art.
At lunch I discover that in taking Fran's place with Rani I am considered quite lucky. Bert and Kevin cannot wash Raja becaue he attacked his Mahout a few days ago. Leiah's elephant Seetha, has been loaned away from the foundation for 4 months, and everyone agrees that Rani has the best Mahout who Annabob and I get to work with.
In addition to working directly with the elephants, we all have duties around the foundation. I pick gardening to be my project. I work with our gardener Cherith (a Sri Lankan man), Bert, Kevin, Judy, and Annabob. We are trying to grow as many things here that we can to feed the elephants and sell in order to make MEF more self sufficient.
Today we clear weeds, harvest sweet potatoes, water the beds (with watering cans that have to be filled and lugged back and forth), plant okra, and clear a spot of land in the garden for a massage hut. I have never been more exhausted in my life! As we are harvesting sweet potatoes, Annabob decides to eat one raw so she borrows my Leatherman to peel it. I clip it to my belt as I work and everyone has been admiring it, but this is the first time it's needed to be used. 10 minutes later we are eating a delicious sweet potato as I take her to my medicine cabinet for the first time my cut ointment and bandaids need to be used.
I absolutely adore working with Cherith (we all call him Cherry) and have requested to Helena that this be my permanent project. Cherry is very good at speaking English, and is going to help me with my Sinhalese while I'm here. Today I was asking him what he calls all the tools we are using, some of which I don't even know the english name.
I think I will like it here.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Week 2/ Day 8
**My new favorite thing: Overpacking.
When I get here and start to unpack, I put all the medicines and first aid supplies on a shelf in my room, letting everyone know that they are welcome to any of it. I brought so much medicine for multiple ailments and have not needed any of it yet. As some of the volunteers admire my stash, I start to feel like that guy from The Shawshank Redemption, "so I hear you're a guy who can get things." As much as we are all laughing about how many extra first aid supplies I brought, I think we all feel a little bit of security with the shelf there.**
After a 3-4 hour drive I arrive at Millennium Elephant Foundation (MEF or Millennium). I actually thought that I was going to be at Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, but Michael was telling me that at the Elephant Orphanage his volunteers were much less happy than they are here. They would go weeks of working without ever touching an elephant, and with 80 just a stone's throw away that got very frustrating. At Millennium there are only 8 elephants but they get more individual care from volunteers. I am SO EXCITED.
When I arrive I get to meet the other volunteers. Helena, Wade, and Tamsin (British) are the volunteer coordinators. Isla, Annebob, and Bert (Dutch) are here for 6 more weeks. Neave (Welsh) is here for 2 more weeks. Kevin, Judy (British), Jade, Leiah, and Shala (American) are all leaving in 1 week. Fran leaves in the morning but we cross paths long enough for me to give her the couple of things she forgot at Michael's house and bond over our mutual love of Harriet and Michele.
I am also surprised by my accommodations. I am not with a host family, but in a bungalo with the other volunteers. My roommates are Jade and Leiah, who seem very cool. Of course, everyone seems very cool.
Tomorrow I will take over Fran's slot with Annebob working with Rani, the most beautiful female here, according to Annebob. (She is understandably biased.)
When I get here and start to unpack, I put all the medicines and first aid supplies on a shelf in my room, letting everyone know that they are welcome to any of it. I brought so much medicine for multiple ailments and have not needed any of it yet. As some of the volunteers admire my stash, I start to feel like that guy from The Shawshank Redemption, "so I hear you're a guy who can get things." As much as we are all laughing about how many extra first aid supplies I brought, I think we all feel a little bit of security with the shelf there.**
After a 3-4 hour drive I arrive at Millennium Elephant Foundation (MEF or Millennium). I actually thought that I was going to be at Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, but Michael was telling me that at the Elephant Orphanage his volunteers were much less happy than they are here. They would go weeks of working without ever touching an elephant, and with 80 just a stone's throw away that got very frustrating. At Millennium there are only 8 elephants but they get more individual care from volunteers. I am SO EXCITED.
When I arrive I get to meet the other volunteers. Helena, Wade, and Tamsin (British) are the volunteer coordinators. Isla, Annebob, and Bert (Dutch) are here for 6 more weeks. Neave (Welsh) is here for 2 more weeks. Kevin, Judy (British), Jade, Leiah, and Shala (American) are all leaving in 1 week. Fran leaves in the morning but we cross paths long enough for me to give her the couple of things she forgot at Michael's house and bond over our mutual love of Harriet and Michele.
I am also surprised by my accommodations. I am not with a host family, but in a bungalo with the other volunteers. My roommates are Jade and Leiah, who seem very cool. Of course, everyone seems very cool.
Tomorrow I will take over Fran's slot with Annebob working with Rani, the most beautiful female here, according to Annebob. (She is understandably biased.)
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