Small Adventures

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:

Looking out over Kandy Town

Don't worry--the snake was dead when I found it

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:

 I went whitewater kayaking and rafting with Anna, who is a raft guide:

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:

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…