Habarana

Volunteers with the bee box

Teaching

MEF has an ongoing project in a town up north called Habarana.  Habarana is one of the major sites of the human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka as the town was built on an elephant corridor (migratory route).  Wild elephants are now posing a problem for the village and its inhabitants.  MEF volunteers go up to the primary school and teach the kids a lesson on elephants (in English).  We want to educate the village about elephants and ways to protect themselves without killing the elephants that come through the village.  We have also donated bee boxes around the village, elephants are afraid of the bees, and can hear the buzzing from a mile or so away.  In theory this should help minimize instances of conflict.  So yesterday, 7 of us volunteers went up to Habarana, 3 and a half hour drive up north.  The school kids are adorable and we taught them all the parts of the elephant and then sang songs like "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" to reinforce body parts, etc.  Some of the kids are brilliant at English already and were translating for the others in the groups.  After that, 5 of the group went to the national park called Meridian, but Dan and I (on our restricted budgets) opted out of the expensive excursion and spent the afternoon exploring the town (really not that much to see) and eating vanilla/chocolate ice cream (which all tasted like banana....weird?). Driving home we pulled over and bought fresh mangoes to eat on the way/for breakfast the following morning.  Yum!