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Published: January 31st 2006
And now, the end is near....
We have our final project session today, and it has been something of an experience. This may be our final blog in Sri Lanka as we are about to head 'off road' into the Hill Country and do a bit of mooching around. If we can find facilities when we reach Colombo on 12th Feb then we will update then, if not the next installment of love will be from Chennai (Madras).
So... Saturday 28th January 2006 the newly formed 'Unawatuna Playback Theatre Group' held their first public performance at the Bodi Raja Vihara Temple, to a mixed audience of locals, tourists and NGO friends. The performance was a great success despite being rained off the stage and into a nearby community hall! The group overcame EJ and Soph's attempts at Kandyan Sri Lankan dancing well!
After a tempestuous ride among the team, the final show was a delight for everyone. We all approached the project from quite different angles but on this day it was clear deep down we shared a common goal. The smiles and the pride from the participants is something that will stay with us for a long time, and now has us fired up for our next challange in India. Truely lasenai (beautiful).
The following day Horatia, our Sri Lankan co-ordinator, a sweet, fragile young woman invited us to her home for what appeared to be lunch, however what she hadn't made clear was her intentions for us to have a Sri Lankan style 'sleep over' party, which we hads to awkwardly decline! Her mother prepared us a fine feast, and beer (shock horror) had been bought especially- clearly our reputations preceed us!!
After lunch we took a short ride into the jungle on her uncle's motorbike, Sri Lankan style ie: 3 people on the back! We were met by a sweet family who lived on the egde of Koggalla lake and proudly produced the most dangerous looking rowing boat I have ever seen! After much fuss it was decided that perhaps with 2 sizable english girls this was not the best plan, so we began the process of bailing out the other boat- arghhhh! Once we'd dislodged the boat from inches of thick black mud we were on our way.
After an hour or so of rowing, mainly in a circle as EJ and Soph were insistant on 'helping', we finally reached a small island, well a cluster of rocks, in the middle with a few bushes. We moored up and with slick hopscotch manoevre we dismounted the boat directly into a nest of HUGE red ants! So we were both COVERED and doing the the 'ouch that hurts' dance, being eaten alive. Horatia, her uncle and the boat man found this hilarious, especially when Sophia ripped off her top to free her armpits of the evil beings!
Over the past few days we have met a lovely couple, Mark is American and his wife Michelle is French, they have adopted us as their grand-daughters and we are joining them on an adventure to the hills! Our plan is to visit Ella to see waterfalls and tea plantations, move west to Nuwara Eliya to make the sunrise climb to Adam's Peak (Big Mountain!), up to Kandy to see the Tooth Temple, and other stuff (!) before returning to Colombo for an evening in a nice hotel to get clean before we fly on Sunday!
So as we prepare ourselves for 6 weeks of BIG city living we kiss goodbye to the last few weeks in what can only be decribed as paradise. Sri Lanka will be sorely missed and we've already decided where we're going next time we come back!
Love to all.
Have fun, stay safe
EJ xxx
Hugs
Sophia xxx
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Ellie
non-member comment
Chilly on yer nilly
Well, i am currently very cold and very jealous...If soph was to undress outside in the current Scottish climes...she would freeze her bits off! Sounds like lots of fun! I'm sure you're making lots of people very happy. You're doing amazing stuff girls...my (woolly) hat off to you both, lots of love xxxx