First Impressions

Touchdown in Buenos Aires!! After a long and grueling 24 hours of traveling, I made it safe and sound to EZE airport and immediately (thank god) found the ISA coordinator who was meeting us and the rest of the students flying in.  Our whole group bused to the University of Belgrano (where we will be studying), where we met our host families.  My host mum is an older woman by the name of Liliana who speaks little to no english, so hopefully my Spanish will be much improved by this experience!  In the past two days we have had three orientation meetings, a placement exam, and a city tour by bus so we could get to know the area! Im currently in a state of information overload and so have no idea what is going on.  Classes start tmrw, 5 hours of intensive spanish, 5 days a week...might as well kill me now.  But the city is beyond beautiful, an easy city to walk around, with tons of stuff to do.  Its also hot and humid so hopefully I will stop glowing in the dark soon. Im trying to plan everything now so I can fit everything in in just two months! Ahhh! So much to do, so little time!

My countdown begins all over again....11 days until Buenos Aires! That means I only have 11 days to read through my Rough Guide to BsAs. And yes, I am a closet nerd.

Water for Elephants

Today I got my elephant ride! All the volunteers get one on their last day. Unfortunately due to his leg injury we can't ride Raja, so I settled for Lakshmi instead.  Riding an elephant is, um...different.  First of all, you are riding bareback so you have to grip with your legs to stay on, secondly contrary to what you might believe, elephants are not smooth skinned, well they might be underneath all the prickly hair they have all over them.  And third, they have very broad backs so its hard to get a good grip.  So off we went, Lakshmi and I on our little adventure, me alternately clinging on for dear life, and waving my hands in the air saying "look ma no hands". We crossed the bridge as I precariously rocked violently from side to side as Lakshmi meandered across the 5 foot wide bridge.  My life may have flashed before my eyes.  After our walk around the area, we ride down to the river.  This entails the elephant walking down extremely steep steps, with you hanging on with all your strength so you don't flip over their heads.  Very exhilarating.  Once in the river you have to lean forward on the elephants back and then they proceed to douse you in water.  Yup, you get a trunkful of river water in your face.  That's my shower for the day.  All in all, an amazing experience, one of the coolest things I've ever done.
Today is my last day at MEF. Tomorrow I take the train back down to Galle to spend my last couple of days with Jen and Linzi and the other volunteers from Michael's.  It's time to have our last arrack fueled night at the disco at Unawatuna.  Then Saturday I take the train to Negombo and fly to England.  How did 6 weeks go by so fast?

Yogacharya

I decided to hang around Kegalle over the weekend due to the assortment of activities that were going on...Saturday evening we trekked over to Rambukkana to watch the Perahera, a big festival/parade.  Arriving at 8:30 having been told it started around 9pm, we ended up waiting 3 hours on the side of the main road for the parade to start.  Past us walked flame dancers, whip dancers, men on stilts throwing flames, Kandian dancers, drummers, monks in a pimped out jeep, about 25 elephants and much much more.  It was so long we didn't even stay for the end.  Imagine a snails pace...the parade was moving slower than that.  Yeah. So we headed to bed late and woke up bright and early at 5am on Sunday to go to Karunegala.  Sandith had planned a day of yoga for us.  So we drove up a beautiful palm tree estate where we met the famous Yogacharya (he's the director of multiple Ashrams-where you study yoga-In India).  Apparently he frequently appears on TV? Anyway after our porridge, which wasn't porridge at all, more like a thick green grass tea, we sat down on the mats to begin our yoga session. We learned the basics for stress relief and how to breathe.  We are all breathing wrong by the way.  After numerous positions with our legs in the air and yoga inspired fist pumping it was time for lunch and relaxing by the pool.  Needless to say I woke up Monday morning and my shoulders were in physical pain. Haven't had a workout since....well, you get the picture.

Roti's and Tuktuks

Yesterday, all the MEF volunteers came over to Kumari's for lunch (because they don't get proper Sri Lankan cuisine at the bungalow they stay in). Kumari outdid herself with 4 curries, fried rice, eggs, chicken, daal, and for desert, ice cream and jello/jelly! So good. Also, I found out that she only gets paid 500 rupees a day per volunteer, thats like 50 cents.  Not okay.  I'm going to file a complaint with the company because she deserves wayyyy more than that considering she feeds us 3 meals a day, and we use water and electricity, etc.  Plus she is an amazing host mum.  She was saying yesterday that volunteers usually just eat and then go back to their rooms, they don't stay and chat or learn how to make food.  Which in my opinion is the best part...why would you want to sit in your room all afternoon on your own? So I've been taking full advantage of my opportunity to learn how to cook Sri Lankan style.  Kumari has been teaching me how to make roti.  It's a sort of flat bread that is made out of coconut, flour, sugar, salt, and water.  Then you fry it like a pancake. It is nothing short of AMAZING. I eat it almost every day...
Also, I got to drive a tuktuk for the first time yesterday, so Sri Lankan drivers-be afraid, be very afraid.

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!

TB Testing

We tested the elephants for tuberculosis today.  Apparently elephants in captivity are at quite a high risk for contracting TB so the vets here do a test every 6 months.  Because of the amount of contact that elephants have with humans, it is easy for sickness to spread.  For the test we bring the elephants one by one over to the mounting block (which we stand on), then the mahout tells the elephant to raise its trunk.  One of us then grabs the trunk and pours this liquid into it.  We then have to hold the trunk upright for 20 seconds.  After the 20 seconds is up, the elephant gets to spit out the liquid, but we have to catch it in a bucket so it can be sent to the lab for tests.  Seems simple right??? Well it would be if the elephants wanted to cooperate, Pooja was, in her own wonderful way, a nightmare.  She wouldn't let us grab her trunk and when Ruan (the elephant manager) tried, she knocked him off the block.  Then when we managed to get the liquid in her trunk she turned and sprayed all of us with it.  Thanks Pooja.  So it took us a couple of hours to do all the elephants, but we did it, not we just have to wait for the test results!
After our busy day, a couple of us volunteers decided to lounge poolside for a while where i got my long awaited massage from Dan who is a qualified masseuse...didn't tell me he used baby oil on my back so went home after continuing sunbathing to find that i had semi fried my back...it was a wonderful massage though!