Around the world

After volunteering for two weeks, I took some time to travel through Sri Lanka. First, I visited Colombo for four days then headed down the coast of Sri Lanka.

Colombo is the capital of Sri Lanka. The city is crowded and traffic and pollution is a major problem. The taxi drivers were the craziest that I have used. My friends and I were nearly killed while riding in a local taxi. Other than the taxi drivers, my visit in Colombo was fun. I visited a local orphanage that my friend had worked at. We helped the kids draw pictures and I made them paper airplanes. I visited Galle Face Hotel which is one the oldest hotels in Asia and I shopped at Sri Lanka's only department store, Dell's. But like many places in the world, the local political situation has become increasing violent. In Sri Lanka, the relationship between the Tamil population and Sri Lanka government has slowly deteriorated. While I was in Colombo, there was a suicide bombing which killed the third highest ranking general in the Sri Lanka army. On the day of the general's funeral, there was a huge military presence in the city. On the street near my guesthouse, there were soldiers stationed every fifty meters armed with an automatic machine gun. A pretty crazy sight.

From Colombo, I headed south to Hikkaduwa. Hikkaduwa is located on the west coast of Sri Lanka and is a popular beach to visit and surf at. Unfortunately, I was unable to surf because of the monsoon season. But I spent my three days there checking out the many restaurants, reading and watching some of the World Cup matches.

From Hikaduwa, I took a tuk-tuk to Galle Fort. Galle Fort is an old Dutch fort built in the 1600's. The fort sits near the ocean and is surround by 10 meter high walls. I stayed in a local guesthouse which was owned by a jolly, white haired old man. For the two nights that I stayed at the guesthouse, we chatted and drank some of the local rum, anarak. I arrived on a Sunday and in the evening Sri Lanka families flew kites, played soccer and had picnics on the fort walls.

One of the last places that I visited before leaving Sri Lanka was Unawatuna. Unawatuna is a sleepy beach town with a plethora of restaurants, hotels and bars. It was a nice place to relax and just hang out. While I was there I hung out with a couple of people that I met, swam in the ocean and visited the many restaurants.

Sri Lanka was hit pretty hard by the 2004 Tsunami. During the bus ride south I saw numerous memorials for the victims and I saw the remnants of many washed out buildings. It is estimated that around 30,000 people died from the tsunami. Galle was one of the hardest hit cities. The tsunami wave was estimated to be over 10 meters high. On the train ride back to Colombo I saw a train that was wiped out by tsunami. It is an estimated that 1500 people were killed, many of them children. It was a very tragic event which the Sri Lankan people are still trying to recover from.

I wanted to volunteer while I was traveling and luckily a Habitat for Humanity trip in Sri Lanka fit perfectly into my schedule. To be honest, I knew very little about Habitat for Humanity before I volunteered with them in Sri Lanka. After my two weeks of volunteering, I was very impressed with H4H and I look forward to volunteering with them in the future, maybe in Africa. If you ever have an opportunity to volunteer with Habitat abroad, I would highly recommend it!

After arriving in Sri Lanka, I met up with two other Habitat team members and we took a taxi to our hotel. One of the first things that I saw was the heavy military presence on the streets. On the side of the road were military personnel toting automatic machine guns. Recently, there has been increased violence between the government and Tamil population.

Our Habitat team consisted of eleven people from Canada, England, Northern Ireland and the US. Our group had a large range of ages and personalities. Add this with some serious hard work and the product was an amazing and fun experience.

During our two weeks in Sri Lanka, our team helped build four houses in the Kaleduwa village. The Kaleduwa village is situated in the middle of Sri Lanka near the city of Dambulla. During the day, our group worked at four different sites. At each site, we worked next to the family that would be living in the house. The house sites were very basic with no running water or electricity. The tools that we used to build the houses were very basic - just a couple shovels, trowels, and a wheel barrel. Everything was done manually - mixing cement, sifting sand, moving the bricks, etc, etc. Interestly, each site built different size houses and used different building techniques. Although the work was very tiring, seeing the work that we completed each day was extremely rewarding.

Beside helping the build the houses, we visited a local school and played dodgeball with kids and we taught the kids the hokey-pokey. Also our guesthouse staff taught us how to play cricket. The local villagers treated us very well. When we arrived they put on a welcoming ceremony with dancers and music and they held a cultural night with singing, dancing and music.

One of the highlights for me was learning the local Sinhalese language. This was the first time during my trip that I stayed at a place longer than one week. On our last day in the Kaleduwa village, we dedicated a house and I gave a speech in Sinahalese.

Along with volunteering, the local Habitat Group organized trips for us to see the local sights. We visited Sigiriya or Lion Rock which was home to the King's palace around 470 BC. The palace was built on top of 180m rock and had an intricate irrigation system built in the rock itself. We went on a Safari and saw a variety of birds, water buffalo and elephants. We saw the Dambulla caves which are seven caves with images of buddhas inside each cave. We visited the city of Kandy where we saw a cultural dance show and visited a hotel and restaurant named Helga's Folly. Helga's Folly had a motley collection of artifacts and ornately decorated rooms. Also, we visited Pinnewela Elephant Orphanage where orhpaned elephants are brought to live.

Along with volunteering and checking out the sites, the group that I worked with were alot of fun. After a long days work, our group hung out, chatted, played games, dranks some beers, told jokes and exchanged stories. I have not laughed so hard in a long time!

Suffice to say, it was an amazing and very rewarding experience and something that you should definitely do yourself!