It’s
been a long time since I last posted anything here. I wish I could say that
that’s because I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to write anything. Sadly,
it’s the exact opposite. There really isn’t that much to report on. My day to
day life isn’t all that thrilling, and although I’ve had a few small
adventures, as far the research goes, things are moving pretty slowly. I plan
on returning to Nilmini Estates soon. Other than that, I have a lot of
contacts who have agreed to help me, but nothing has materialized yet.
Here
are some pictures of everything I’ve been doing when I’m not trying to figure
out what I am doing and how I am going to do it:
I
went to the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens with my pen pal, who I first met on the
train when I was here in 2011, and her mother:
I’ve been to the Udawatte Kele Sanctuary a couple of times. This is an area of preserved rainforest right on the edge of Kandy and is a great refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city:
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| Looking out over Kandy Town |
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| Don't worry--the snake was dead when I found it |
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| The first time I went, it had just rained,which means theseguys were active |
In December, I climbed Sri Pada (Adam’s Peaks) with last semester’s ISLE students. There’s a saying that anyone who doesn’t climb Sri Pada is a fool, but anyone who climbs it more than once is a bigger fool. I guess that makes me a pretty big fool, but at least this time, it wasn’t raining, so we could see the sunrise:
Anna, Alex, and I added some holiday decorations to our apartment:
And made use of them when we looked after the puppy that one of our friends adopted:
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| Shuttling a raft on a three-wheeler |
And today, I bought a working blender (in contrast to the broken blender we bought before) and can now make smoothies instead of buying fresh juice every day, which will both save a lot of money and allow for some creative combinations of fruits.
I want to try blending one of these:
I want to try blending one of these:
It’s a lavalu/egg fruit. It has the consistency of a hard boiled egg yolk and tastes like a very sweet pumpkin or yam. You never know what new fruits you’ll find at the market…
small? from where I sit those seem like pretty big adventures...xo
ReplyDeleteYou are SO adventurous!
ReplyDeleteIt's a pretty big culture shock, isn't it, Emma -- to consider how completely we are consumed here in the USA by doing things every moment, always "busy" ... staying electronically connected 24/7 ... short attention spans for whatever we're seeing or hearing or doing ... not enough hours in the day ... businesses constantly judging themselves on ever-increasing "efficiency" ... And then experiencing how much of the rest of the world actually lives life slowly ...in a "what's the rush?" state of being ... and this is the normal for so many people. Do people there seem less happy and contented than were are here? That's worth observing. I wonder whether the culture shock when you get back here will be even more powerful for you? But it sounds like you're living in the moment -- which is pretty good, wherever you are! Keep the riveting blog posts coming! We're on the edges of our chair for the next installment!
ReplyDelete