Uda Walawe National Park

  Tangalla, Sri Lanka
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Wiraketiya - Hambantota Rural Woman's Organisation Awards Ceremony  
On Saturday morning I went to the Wiraketiya which is about half an hour North of Tangalle because one of the other volunteers Olof had an award ceremony for his NGO which is a Woman's Welfare organisation.

Lighting of Torch

Raising of Flag

   He had been roped into doing a 2 minute speech in Sinhala in front of about 300 people - so think he needed the support, so myself and another volunteer went along.  It was quite interesting because they had a torch lighting ceremony and raising of the flag with the national anthem with lots of SL dancing etc.

SL Dancers

SL Dancers 2

They also had a lot of speeches and sign ups of volunteers and they were doing things like testing eyes  for glasses which was quite nice to see.

Eye Testing

We then headed up to Uda Walawe National park after lunch.

Uda Walawe National Park   
Uda Walawe National Park is situated about 2 hours North from Tangalle on the large Uda Walawe Reservoir.  Myself and the other 2 CWW volunteer's from Tangalle, Olof and Norny headed up there and met in with another volunteer Mark who went up earlier.  We stayed in the Centauria Tourist Hotel which was quite fancy and exclusive in SL terms but was actually only about £16.  We were all just really wanting some air con and hot water for a night.  Our driver Sunimal is very helpful - he is the same guy that took me down from Colombo and is a friend of my manager so he charges us reasonable fares and also recommends extra things to show us etc.  We will probably use him for quite a lot of our trips at weekends because you tend to get ripped off left right and centre because you are Western unless you have a connection.  We are strongly recommended not to use the public buses to get around in Sri Lanka as a whole just now and I am just going to stick to using a driver and it is much more flexible.

Buffalo

Elephant Linked Trunks

Sunimal recommended we go and see the baby elephants get fed on the Sat evening.  They are kept in a transit house and are elephants between the ages of 6 months to 4 years that have either been orphaned or injured in the wild and need to get better.  They were fed with big jugs of milk then they munched on leaves and grass stuff.  On Sunday morning, we got up at 5 for the safari and we rented a proper safari jeep thing with a driver and guide.  It had been really heavy raining all night and on the way to the park, but it stopped just as we arrived - which is apparently the best weather for the animals coming out.  As soon as we went into the park we saw elephants - there were heaps of them and they were being really playful and very close to the vehicle.  There are approx 600 in the park altogether and the are the main animal there.  We also saw buffalo, wild boar, deer things, monkeys and lots of birds and lizards.  There are some leopards in there too - but didn't see any. 

Elephant

 

Bat Tree

Our jeep got stuck in the mud tracks a couple of times because there was a lot of water and mud lying.

My Placement
My placement has been going well this week - I finished my communications database which is also going to act as the document control system for the proposals they put out.  This shall hopefully now keep better track of who they are contacting and when as well monitoring the progress of partnership opportunities easily.  I am now looking at re-formatting the proposals to tie in with this and making improvements to the web site so that will be my duties for next week.

There was a power cut last night in my village so last night and this morning were by candle light and was a bit concerned about my shower in the dark - don't mind the frogs and co when you can see them!  So hopefully when I get back after work there will be power!

It is a local holiday tomorrow and Friday in SL so I have a long weekend which I didn't expect.  It is Poya day on Friday which falls on each full moon and is always a holiday (have found out that SL's have lots of public hols but annual leave when they want is a lot more restricted because the public hols are usually ceremonies and celebrations that they do as families etc)  On Poya day Buddhists visit a temple for the morning and in the afternoon tend to do something like go to the beach or for a walk as a family but tend to abstain from luxury and entertainment.

I am going up to the hill country tomorrow for the long weekend with some of the other volunteers - so will involve trip to Kandy as well as the tea plantations and factories etc.