Week One In Review

I originally wrote this as an email for a friend of mine, but I think it's a good recap of the day to day stuff that's being going on out here:

Sri Lanka is not at all what I expected but probably better than I could have hoped for. It turns out that the home-stay is actually more like a guest house for volunteers and it’s been awesome, I’ve been meeting so many cool people from all over the world – Denmark, Australia(they’re crazy), Madrid, England, Jersey(the country not the shore) and Ireland for now but people are always coming and going which is fun.



We spent the last week doing tourist stuff like going on a safari (surprisingly cool), seeing a Buddhist/Hindu temple and all that kinda stuff. The area is really neat because in the winter it is somewhat of a tourist spot but there aren’t really any here now but still it’s not like I’m out in the middle of nowhere. There’s a really cool old Dutch fort with a town inside of it that was spared from the tsunami that wiped everything out in 2004 and still mostly looks like it did hundreds of years ago but with really cool places to eat and drink and just walk around.



I started teaching English yesterday and it was really really really hard cause they don’t give us any materials or guidance on what to do but today was better as I think I might kinda be getting the hang of it, or maybe not cause I hardly have any idea what I’m doing. We have monks in the morning and then go teach local young kids in the evening. I’m pretty sure the evening class was a complete waste of time cause they are really shy and don’t seem to understand any English but hopefully it gets easier this evening.


What’s been super cool is that we have five hours off in between classes and I’ve been hanging out on this idyllic beach about five mins away with the girl from Madrid and guy from Denmark. Hopefully I can get some pictures up cause I think it’s one of the most perfect looking beaches I’ve ever seen! Tonight the three of us are hiring a bus and going snorkeling up north tomorrow morning, staying at a night or two up there and then taking another overnight ride later in the week to hike up some famous place that is supposed to have amazing views of the sunrise.

Yea it's cool.