November 22, 2008 « Culture Change

November 22, 2008

Lately I have been unable to write because independent study has allotted me some free time to travel and get to enjoy a little bit of Sri Lanka with out the limitation of classes. Not having classes is very awesome because for most of us this will probably be the only time we are in Sri Lanka so its been really nice to have a little free time to enjoy it. Now of course free time is over because I have a 20 page paper to write on the poet I've been meeting with over independent study. She has published something like 40 books and I have at least half of them in my room, so as I said play time is definitely over.

I'll relive some of what I've been doing over the past couple of weeks because it was pretty fun. Everyone's independent study took them out of Kandy, but my poet lives about two miles from the ISLE center so I was left behind.

Everyone in Sri Lanka talks about how beautiful Nuwara Eliya is, it's mountain covered and touristy and when Sri Lanka was a British colony it was called little England. All though I don't personally support colonialism I decided to pay a visit to Nuwara Eliya anyways. It was gorgeous and kind of cold, which after being on a tropical island for three months is actually an added bonus. So for a few days I took hot showers and ate huge buffets filled with Western food. I had a blast even though I had never eaten at a restaurant alone before, but I quickly got over my fear and embraced the buffet food.

While I was packing up to leave Nuwara Eliya to head back to Kiribathkumbra Maria called. She asked if I wanted to spend two nights in a hotel in Kandy with a few of the other ISLE students that were back from independent study. The day after I returned home Maria and I headed into the 'city' to meet the others. They all raved about how awesome it was to get a vacation after what sounded like some stressful independent studies. I bite my tongue and didn't rub in the fact that my poet who is something like 78 was anything but stressful. We all had a greet time in Kandy and as an added bonus I got to eat more western food.

Now we are down to almost the last two weeks in Sri Lanka. The fact that we've been here since August is surreal, in some ways it feels like we've been here forever and in other ways I can't believe how quickly time passed. I know that didn't make that much sense but it is the best way I think any of us can explain how we feel at this point.

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