Sunday was an awesome day! Started out at the Buddhist temple in the village with a ceremony for the children of the village who are graduating into a leadership role within in their 'sunday school'. Kristen (our journalist who is making a documentary about the project) and I arrived at community hall and Sachini, Sachini and Himsa were there to greet us. They looked so sweet in their long white dresses and bare feet. Himsa grabbed my hand and led us across the cricket field at the base of the valley and then up the hill through the tsunami village houses to the temple which sits on the hill across from the nutrition centre. We were greeted with giggles, smiles and flowers picked and wrapped in bows by the children. We were seated at the front of the open air room along with a monk, a teacher, the mayor of Akmeemana and another government official. For about an hour the teachers, monk and mayor took turns talking to the children about how to be a good citizen in their community. They all looked so sweet in their white uniforms. One of the little girls around 5 years old did a beautiful traditional dance. Kristen and I were given pins to put on the children's tops to appoint them leaders in their class. We were also given candles to light the oil lamps. Near the end of the ceremony we were served butter cake, bananas, cookies and Faluda (sri lankan bubble tea).
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| Temple at the village |
Felt like we were celebrities being ushered around to events. We got in the van and made our way to the Karapitiya Hospital in Galle. They are building a new wing for the hospital for monks, priests, and the leaders of the other faiths in the southern province of Sri Lanka. Lal was invited to part take in the ground breaking ceremony because of his dedication to helping the people of Sri lanka. We were his honoured guests.
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| Lal and I at the ground breaking ceremony |
After the hospital we headed back to the village to spend the afternoon with the children playing football (soccer) and chuck chuck juice (duck duck goose) and ring a round the nosey (ring around the rosey). Kirby, one of our firefighters brought bags full of soccer balls and jerseys for all the children and organized a skills workshop and then a couple of short games. The kids LOVED it!
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| Playing games at the Village |
This past week we all worked hard. Ian Lai arrived from Canada to lend his chef skills and permaculture knowledge to our project (his website:
http://myurbanag.com/). His ideas have really helped me think big and see that our original plans for this village are small compared to what this land can really offer this community. Imagine a village completely self sufficient able to grow all the food that it could possible need, use the natural spring water as energy to irrigate the land, reusing plastic containers to grow starter plants, reusing grey water to improve soil quality, essentially everything we need for this village is right there at our finger tips we just need the expertise to use it to its full capacity. While Ian is here we will be meeting with some experts from the department of agriculture and tomorrow heading to
Samakanda another permaculture village not to far from here. So much here to learn! So much here to be positive about!
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| Ian smoking some eggplant for our lunch...yum!! |
It's been awesome having Kristen here! She's been a huge source of support for me and this project. Kristen has a ton of creative ideas that I'm looking forward to implementing in upcoming projects. Check out her story on our project here
http://www.bcitbroadcastnews.ca/2011/03/07/to-sri-lanka-with-love-and-a-camera-march-7th-2011/
and
http://www.bcitbroadcastnews.ca/2011/03/10/to-sri-lanka-with-love-and-a-camera-part-2/
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| Kristen and Ian after taping their radio interview |
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Kristen Woodhouse
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There is a radio interview with Ian and his ideas for the village that will air shortly I will send you the link once it's been posted.
Thank you so much for following along on our journey!
Hugs,
Eden
