Wednesday, May 11, 2005

aft 16 days of expedition in SRI LANKA, i'm finally BACK... yesh manz!!! back to update my dying blog... hehEee... found alot of spiders n webs liaoz!!! time for re-ALIVE...

my trip to SRI LANKA is super fruitful n constructive... realli nv regret goin there!!! get to b more independent n found out more bout myself too... overall e trip wont b fun if there's no SMU (stupid maid union) vs SS (secret society) [it's 2 group of diff ppl wif diff freq] + dr koh & dr elagovan... kids from BTS collage also added on color to my stay there!!! realli miss them v v v much...

now i shall compensate by updating wad realli happened in my trip...

day 1, 23.04.05
As early as 5am, we met up at the airport for our check in and board the newly made Sri Lankan airline. The cabin was rather empty when we are heading to Kuala Lumpur. We stopped over at KL for an hour. During this one-hour, we further our bonds among us by playing poker card games and took pictures of each another. The trip from KL to Sri Lanka took about 3 hours and most of us slept during the journey.

Under the scorching sun, we transported our belongings into the coach. The coach is a forty-sitter coach that you can find in Singapore. The air-conditioner is pretty weak. We headed on for our lunch. After several failed attempts, we finally found a decent roadside restaurant that served good food. The food is similar to our local Muslim food. We had fried chicken with Nasi Briyani. Everyone enjoyed the meal very much, especially the guys which had extra servings. Upon walking back to our coach, we found some boiled palm tree stem sold by the roadside. It is to be eaten in a similar way as eating sugar cane whereby the outer skin is removed and only the core to be eaten. It looks and tasted like tapioca with some bitterness. Interesting.

day 2, 24.04.05
We had to remove our footwear by the entrance of the Buddhist school. Having our barefoot on the sacred ground, we experienced how the locals felt when walking barefooted around in the village. There were Sunday classes being conducted in the Buddhist school. Girls and boys are separated from each other and grouped into small teams of 8 and a teacher was attached to each team. They sat in circles under the trees for their lessons instead of classrooms. There is a Buddhist temple inside the Buddhist school. It consists of statues of different gods and some of their myths and legendary stories. The style of the temple is purely made up of a mixture of Indian and local cultures. It is different from the Chinese Buddhist temple that we have seen in Singapore.

On our way back, villagers were enthusiastically waving and saying “Hello” to us. Back home, others were already busy preparing for our lunch. They bought all the necessary ingredients like salt, ginger etc. The chicken that we bought is small and skinless and the meat tasted tough instead of the tender and juicy ones that we have in Singapore. I guess this is because they run a lot around the village.

day 3, 25.04.05
Our mission started today, finally! We went over to the school at 9am. There we met the staff instead of the principal who was late. We were told to refurbish the science laboratory so we brainstormed for ideas together. We came up with a list of things to do that included painting, shifting of shelves, sanding and varnishing of stools and tables, and having fun. After a full hour of deliberating, we started on cleaning up the place.

During break, we went to the beach. Our minds gently mulled in the major destruction at hand; we wandered into the broken house of an elderly man and his family. I think that Sri Lankan people are far curious not because they are genetically predisposed or anything, it is simply because many have come from far and wide to witness the death and destruction in the present. The curious creatures these Sri Lankans are, they came near to share their stories with us. The elderly man explained his sad story and the poor situation he still is in – an honest carpenter fall prey to tidal might. His house on the shore was in a mess, half of it forming living quarters for the old man and family, and the other in a pile under a tree. The old man showed us the politics of government provision for the affected in the English he could manage. Unfortunately, the government seems not to be doing much because of close-to-empty treasury, according to the old man. I was just thinking that in four months after the incident, people would actually be working to remove rubble and rebuild homes. Asking him, the old man said that no one has enough faith to live nearby the sea. As such, many are migrating further inland to houses they build themselves. Funny thing was, the old man seemed more than wiling to share the morbid details of his experiences on December 26th. A weird farewell; we bid adieu to the family, promising to return in the near future.

BattyCas 12:25 PM