The First 48 Hours

Hello everyone!

I'm writing blog post #1 from the lovely Padma's house, our host for the next week while we adjust to the culture shock of Sri Lanka. Apologies for the delayed post - the WiFi at the airport left much to be desired.

The journey to Sri Lanka was relatively easy - being reunited with the rest of the Lanky girls definitely lifted my mood after saying goodbye to family at the airport. The afternoon in Heathrow was spent talking about all the peculiar things we've packed (Natalie with her favourite spoon, Jenny supplying her saxophone for some smooth tunes, and Megan with a big bottle of her favourite BBQ sauce) and everything we're looking forward to doing over the next year. We also had our last pizza for a long time :(

Heathrow departures

The heat upon arrival nearly floored us, with one American gentleman summing up how we felt when we left the airport air-conditioning  by shouting, "OOOOFT, there it is." On the drive into Colombo itself we got to see many aspects of Sri Lankan society by the side of the road - beautiful houses, probably occupied by the people who worked in the large office buildings, and multiple slum areas where people of all ages lay under corrugated iron huts. The scale of the poverty in Sri Lanka is something we haven't fully experienced yet, but the reality of life here has not been sugar-coated for us at all. Of course it is better that way. We met our host family for the first time yesterday and they are all absolutely lovely, and very keen  to teach us some Sinhala. This afternoon Chethana (a qualified teacher, although she still had her work cut out with us), Imasha, Matheesha and Asha tried to teach us some Sinhala. They find us hilarious and taught us all they could in the time we had - everything from "what is your name?" to "I like avocado." From memory I can still only say "Hello," "Thank you," and "One vegetable roti (a very nice lunch)," but I have a whole year. 

The view from our bedroom at Padma's

There are a few Sri Lankan traits that I've picked up on since being here -

1. They don't get offended the way we do, or expect you to be offended at all. For example, when being shown some of Megan's pictures from home, Imasha (who is 15), laughed and pointed at an very old picture, saying, "Haha so fat!!"
2. Sri Lankan's never want to disappoint. If I asked for my phone to be fixed in 10 minutes they would of course say yes no problem, even though they know it can't be done and ultimately wouldn't be.
3. They love any attempt at their language, I even got a congratulatory handshake just for trying.
4. They put condensed milk and far too much sugar in tea. Very strange.

Our first bus trip into Galle

The food so far has been incredible, but even the 'breakfast curry' on the plane was almost unbearably spicy. We have enjoyed lots of rice and curry, fruit salad (mostly papaya) by the side of the road, roti, sambol and other Sri Lankan delicacies. We get our first cooking lesson on Tuesday which I'm very excited for - and teaching begins a week Monday which is even more exciting!

We also went into Galle and bought saris today, so there will be pictures to follow once we've learnt how to put them on

Thank you for reading this brief update. I'll finish with a super cheesy insert of  a quote which was on a bookmark Matheesha gifted to me. It had a picture of Abraham Lincoln on it, even though she said she had no clue who he was, so it may be from him.

"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

Bye for now,

Hannah