Hi all,
I just wanted to take a moment and update you all on the first three weeks of my semester in Sri Lanka! I know not all of you may want to read all of this, so I'll put the highlights in bold, below. I've discovered that this is going to be the best way to upload pictures, so expect this to be a photo blog, with some updates and stories as I can. Anyway... here goes...
We (the 12 people on the ISLE program) arrived on Tuesday the 1st via Chicago and London after 48 hours of travel, including a brutal 9-hour layover. Jet-lagged but with tons of adrenaline, we were whisked through two days of orientation, then moved in with our host families after the opening tea. Tea is maybe the most important part of Sri Lankan culture, next to rice and curry, and is served (at least) every morning and afternoon... as well as at every major event in between. Tea is Sri Lanka's most famous export (think Lipton)... and well, we love it. Anyway,
my host family, the Jayamanne's, is absolutely wonderful. I have a mom (amma), who works at the Ministry of Industry, dad (taatti), who owns and runs a grocery store in Kandy, and an older sister (akka), who's taking English classes before taking her entrance exams for university. We live in a small town outside of the hustle and bustle of downtown Kandy, yet within walking distance to the ISLE Center (the hub of program activities) and the University of Peradiniya, where we have all of our classes. They all speak some English, although my amma's is the best; we talk about everything from food to family to politics, although she loves "amma-ing" me as much as she can.
The
second week here was a whirlwind of Sinhala class (the majority language on the island), archeology lectures, and various trips around the city, including a local village, an orphanage, the home of one of the most famous artistic couples on the island, and downtown Kandy. I'm slowly but surely becoming functional in Sinhala, and can get around much of Kandy speaking some sort of Singlish, as we like to call it. The afternoon in downtown Kandy was a blast, and included a couple of hours touring the Temple of the Tooth--one of the most important Buddhist sites on the island, religiously and politically. We also began to get a really good sense of the political situation (perfectly peaceful, for those concerned) and socioeconomic stratification in up country Sri Lanka, which I will continue to explore in my elective classes. Kandy is a busy but beautiful city, as is the university (about 20 minutes outside the city, with the crazy Sri Lankan traffic), and although it's more humid than I'm used to, it hasn't been much hotter than summer in Cleveland. The jungle is everywhere, literally, with a pallet of green the predominant theme, monkeys and stray dogs replacing squirrels, and more tropical fruit than I can name (for you planet earth lovers out there, think
the jungles episode in real life. really.). I LOVE the
food... which is mostly rice (yayy gluten free!) and a whole variety of spicy spicy curries, with other local specialties like hoppers (kind of like pancakes), fried plantains, and fruits galore. I love spicy food now, and even find myself craving the post-dinner-my-mouth-is-on-fire feeling. I'm a new woman. It's amazing.
Anyway... although we had basically been going for 2 weeks straight (with 7 days of Sinhala class in a row), we left last Monday (the 13th) for the
Northern Tour. For the last eight days, we traveled throughout the north-central part of the island, in the hot, "dry zone," where the ancient rulers of Anuradhapura and Polunnuruwa built their kingdoms. We spent most of the week touring archeological sites as part of our Material Culture class, but, even though archeology isn't really my thing, the religious sites we visited were incredible; beautiful, grandiose, and old as dirt (the oldest sites were built in the 3rd century BC), the majority of Buddhist and Hindu sites we visited are alive today, with thousands of pilgrims and local people alike visiting these sites daily. I'll spare you the gory details of Buddhism in Sri Lanka here, but if any of you are interested, just shoot me an email! Also, thanks to all for the
birthday wishes; I had a wonderful day last Friday, with a hike up a 400ft rock fortress in the early morning, an ayurvedic massage with a friend, a surprise cake and cards at dinner, and some time to hang out with friends in the evening. It was certainly a memorable day!
To close, I'm loving it here. The nine girls and three guys on my program are wonderful, fun-loving, passionate people, and we've all meshed really well over the past three weeks. I can tell that we're going to be life-long friends by the end of this amazingly intense semester, that's for sure!
Looking ahead, I'm wrapping up my Sinhala and Material Culture classes this week, and then will launch into the 6-week Session II, in which I'll be continuing Sinhala, taking elective courses in Ethnicity and Culture, Ritual and Folklore, and (auditing) Modern Sri Lankan Politics, and traveling most weekends with the program or my host family. I should have weekly internet access for the next 7 weeks, and then I'll be off on Independent Study. Feel free to email me if you want to hear more stories or have any questions! Hope you're all enjoying the fall colors for me! I'll check in again soon.
Much love,
Jen
