Here's an overview of my second week in paradise...
On Sunday (26th) we were up bright and early for a trip to Sinaraja Rainforest. The journey took 3 hours but felt like luxury in comparison to the rickety, jolty buses we've been getting. Air con, flat screen TV, seat belts. What more could you want!
At the rainforest there were some workers ploughing in the rice fields covered in mud from head to toe, I don't know how they do it in the bright sunshine and their feet must be destroyed! But nonetheless, they still managed to smile and give a wave to the cameras!
Once we started getting into the rainforest, our tour guide put salt on our shoes to avoid getting leeches. Several volunteers still got them but thankfully although Mosquitos love me, leeches aren't so fond, so I came away unscathed!
We saw all sorts of fruits and spices growing in their natural habitat; mangos, coconuts, pineapples, black pepper, cinnamon, to name a few. We also saw a load of different insects and creatures, like giant squirrels, viper snakes, spiders (eughhh... A couple of nights later I went on to dream that a spider was above me when I was sleeping and went as far as to duck to avoid it!) and most memorable to me... the bottom half of a monkey with its guts hanging out, to which the wild dogs that followed us the entire time decided to enjoy as a meal.
There was also a waterfall which we had to carry our bags over our heads to get to which was lush to swim in. A couple of volunteers jumped off of the top, but when the guide didn't follow, I decided to give it a miss... (Unlike me).
Straight after the rainforest, a few of us got dropped at the beach for dinner. We met the South African guys from the previous night and Lucy, Lisa and I decided to stay for a few quiet drinks, although we were pretty worn out from the day. Well whoever said you can just have quiet drinks.. time got away from us and before we knew it, it was 5:30 and we'd been up for 24hours. We went to a really cool bar on the beach called Chillies (they can't just put chilli in every single meal, they have to name a bar after it too). It was filled with Sri Lankans with long dyed blonde hair who were the epitome of surfer guys ( it looked very strange).
Little did we know, whilst we were out enjoying ourselves we'd created absolute panic back at the volunteer house, as having expected us back at 10pm, they were fearing the worse come 5:30am. Although I'd sent a text to let them know, I hadn't been receiving their calls so they thought that someone had kidnapped us and were texting off our phones!! (Oops) how the mind wanders...
After 2 hours of sleep, I was up again for the nursery project. Thankfully the kids behaved so I didn't have to give any of them a gentle back hand. Even at the community project later in the day, the boy that I ranted about last week was almost good as gold!
My work of art. They learn from the best...
In the evening a load of us went to the beach for dinner again for a leaving meal with the South Africans. It's such paradise sitting on the beach having dinner. I could never get bored of it!
I went to the nursing project again this week and they don't have a teacher at all on a Wednesday afternoon so Lucy, Daisy, Sofie and I were in control f the whole class. With no experience of teaching and them all being our age, this was a little daunting... But we took it in our stride! Firstly I introduced myself as Ihadn't properly yet, and they asked me all of the essential questions... How old am I, do I have a boyfriend, am I married, what are my hobbies. I find it really funny because although we're similar ages, they find boyfriends and fancying a boy hilarious and giggle like they're thirteen, it's their most popular topic to talk about!
When asked about my hobbies, I said dancing. Well they jumped on that! One of the girls had me come to the front of the class with her in front of about 40 class mates to do a dance off. It was hilarious and my skin went a beautiful colour of red thanks to the heat and embarrassment. She then had the others come to the front too as the class laughed along at us copying her dancing (she's got moves!! None of the classic English side to side stepping and fist pumping).
In the end half the class was up and we were dancing energetically to what apparently was Sri Lankan chart music. Whilst we were dripping with sweat (lovely) after an hour of... lets call it music class... the nurses all managed to stay pristine and hardly sweated a drop.
Afterwards we decided to cool things down by playing some hangman and guess the celebrity. It was such a fun afternoon and all of the nurses are so lovely and welcoming, I can't wait to go back!
On Thursday morning, I went to the special needs project. It's at a school called Sacred Heart in Galle and we volunteers help in a class which consists of special needs students. Any student with any kind of disability seems to get put into the class. Several students only disability was that they were deaf, whilst others had down syndrome or appeared to be severally mentally disabled. As well, the students ranged from about 4 to 17, so were no way all of a similar ability.
The three oldest girls who were deaf were literally left to themselves to get on with some work in their books, whilst everyone else was sticking green paper to drawings of trees and colouring in the trunks. For about an hour this is all they did, despite several finishing within about half an hour. I really didn't like it as I couldn't see the students benefiting much from the class and I felt a little helpless as I didn't even know specifically what was wrong with each child.
It's amazing to see how different it is to England, especially as I've heard that this is fairly good treatment for children with special needs in comparison to other schools. Just goes to show how far behind us the country is.
I was however, really impressed to see how the kids helped each other out. Immediately after eating one of the down syndrome girls who looked about 8 picked up the broom and started sweeping away frantically, ordering me to move all of the chairs as she swept. She then went on to feed one of the other girls who hadn't been eating her food. It was so sweet to watch.
Afterwards, four of us volunteers and 6 of the girls went to a local community swimming pool which had been set up after the Tsunami in order for women and children to learn to swim, because so many had died in the Tsunami. There was no teacher so it was left to us to teach them! This was very difficult as we didn't speak their language and due to their differing disabilities, but we got stuck in and started to gain some control!
It was amazing seeing their improvement in just one lesson, especially as some of them had never been swimming in their lives! It's things like this that make me wish that I was staying longer, to really work with them on their swimming each week rather than new volunteers coming in and having to learn their ability all over again.
I'm still really enjoying helping at the orphanage and spent some time with the toddlers this week. They have so many toys but the best way to describe them is they're all the toys that you or me would throw out. They're broken and dirty and go straight into the mouths of each child. I'll tell you what, they're immune system will be incredible by the time they leave!
It was so sweet seeing they're excitement when a man arrived and gave them all sweets and when another volunteer was blowing bubbles. I love seeing they're eyes light up and them squealing with delight at the things that many children in England would just take for granted.
When I went again to the orphanage later in the week, many of the babies were poorly. In particular my favourite little boy was wheezing like mad and his chest and stomach was pumping up and down in overdrive. I didn't want to put him down and leave him when he was in that state. I found it really quite upsetting seeing them distressed and helpless and missing out on the care that a parent would provide.
I went to street kids project again this week and some of the slightly older children taught us some games which involved 5 stones. They were actually so much fun and Daisy and I got so into it that we ended up carrying on playing and ignoring the children (probably not what we're meant to do...). It again made me think about England and how everyone is glued to a screen these days, when these kids can create so much fun from stones they found outside the door.
I also had the fright of my life whilst there... at one point, one of the little girls who was about 3 clambered onto my shoulders so I played around with her for a bit and could hear her giggly away. I then swung her down and there she was still giggling then as I sat her on the floor she went completely floppy like a rag doll, as much as I tried to move her and talk to her, she was still acting lifeless.
Oh wow, did my heart beat, I thought I was going to have to actually make use of my personal liability cover for my insurance!!! Thankfully she eventually started giggling when I tickled her then instantly fell asleep on the cold concrete floor. Turns out she was just tired having been up since 3am that morning!! (Sigh of relief).
On Thursday afternoon a few of us went to Marissa beach which was secluded and beautiful. There are so many nice, quiet beaches in Sri Lanka, they're literally like the amazing beaches you see in movies. In the evening, as Daisy and Lucy were leaving this weekend, we went for a leaving dinner (with Sofie too) to Crepeology in Galle Fort. As the name says, they're speciality is crepes, savoury and sweet.. and man were they nice! We ended the night with a blueberry shisha and very full stomach's!! I'm sad to see them go but I guess I'll have to get used to getting close to people then watching them leave as that will be my life for the next 4 months!
At Crepeology.
This blog has already been longer than I wanted, too much to say!! So I'll talk about my weekend events (and god was there an event) in another blog.
Adios x
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