December: January: February Weeks 21- 33 roughly
DECEMBER!!!!!!
MY BIRTHDAY
So for my birthday really wasn't expecting much. I had wanted to celebrate it with my close family, and of course with my angampora family. So I told them I would bring a cake to Practice. My angampora master's daughter-in-law makes cakes so as a surprise, she made me a Chocolate cake with butter-cream frosting. It was AMAZING!! And look at how she decorated it!
(Left to right:: Master's son, grandson, me, granddaughter, and daughter-in-law)
This is the Delicious cake she baked for me.
I also had my friend Sameera Attend. He was one of my first friends in Angampora. He is SOOO good at it and I am insanely jealous. The necklace pendant is from him. It is the Sinhalese phonetic spelling of my name. It was so much fun eating ice cream and hanging out with them! I was so happy and surprised and I really hadn't expected anything!
When I got home. I also celebrated my birthday with my grandma's side of the family. My sinhalese teacher, his wife, and his daughter came too. Also so did these little kids who live in my neighborhood came. 
It is traditional to feed a bit of cake to the youngest first then everyone else takes a bite, then you go around until you reach the oldest. After that the birthday girl can then have cake. I have no idea where the custom comes from. 
I also celebrated again with my Grandfathers side of the family, in colombo. They had bought me a cake! It was so sweet! I love spending time with the little boys. For my birthday, my 7 yr old cousin told me he wanted to give me knowledge. So he decided to teach me all about friction, complete with a homemade example with smooth surface vs. Sand paper. It was probably the best gift ever!
I legitimately think I celebrated my birthday 4 different times, since the last time was with friends at a cafe, but I didn't take any pictures of that. I got SPOILED this year.
Trip to Katharagama
Katharagama is both a deity and a location. Many Sri Lankans pray to katharagama for help. He has many legends and one of them is that he married and was faithful to a Veddha woman, forever winning over the indigenous people of Sri Lanka. The sinhalese worship him and Ganesh as brothers, and he is responsible for helping the sick. You bring an offering on your head. We went to venerate him, and Buddha, and I personally wanted to see the Ganesh temple. (Ganesh is like the patron for engineers so YAY!)
We were blessed by many buddhist monks, a kathara gama priest and Ganesha priest.
We spent the night at a hotel since the worship at these temples takes place at night. Then we drove home. On the way home we stopped and went for a swim. Literally jumped in with all our clothes on! It was soo needed given the heat! Even as I am sitting down and writing this I am sweating profusely.
TO Kandy we GO!
this is the Kandian forest used by kings, founded sometime in the 1200 AD
I visited Kandy with my friend (also from Harvard! she's here on a different fellowship) Michelle!
My relative, Chathura (who I mention in my travels with Andres) took us to on a short hike, with his wife Srini.
Chathura, Srini, Me, Michelle
View of Kandy From the top of the Forest
JANUARY:
Cousin Amani Comes for a visit!
Amani Came for 2 weeks, and stayed with me. We spent MOST of that time in Nuwara Eliya with our relative Chathura. She shadowed him at the Hospital in Nuwara Eliya. But first we had some fun on the Beach in Colombo, and got drinks!
Nuwara ELIYA (again)
While in Nuwara Eliya, We went hiking and saw crazy plants and tree life. I saw a wild BOAR! (Lowe key I was scared since boars travel in groups, and sent Amani back to find Chathura. Then I wanted to take a picture of the boar, but it ran away..😢.... Its probably good I didn't get too close though, since the wild boar is extremely dangerous!)
We were actually hoping to see pretty birds. Instead we saw Bees! (The picture on the left is a bee's nest). We got up before sunrise to do this hike and walked through the woods.
Anyone know what either this flower ↑ (above) or this one ↓ (below) are called????
Lover's LEAP
Near the Hospital is beautiful trail taking you through tea and rocks. This is to go to lovers leap. It was actually a pretty intense climb, its all vertical. But it was sooo worth it.
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| Me having fun climbing a split rock |
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| Amani at the top of the falls, with Chathura in the backround worrying about how close to the edge we were haha (we weren't actually close to the edge) |
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| Me at the top of Lover's Leap over looking the city of Nuwara Eliya |
Lover's leap waterfall
Moon Plains
We went to moon plains which is supposedly the highest point in elevation in all of Sri Lanka. I don't know if I believe it but you do feel like you can touch the sky. There was another doctor and his family was going, so while Chathura was in Kandy for the weekend, this is what we did.
Hike to Bomburu Ella Waterfalls.
This is Truly my favorite place in all of Sri Lanka. One the way up we happened to run into some doggos. They are SOOO Cute. They had climbed almost all the way up the mountain, and were at the rest area by the falls. The falls don't explicitly have any religious meaning, but many locals do go with a deep appreciation and reverence.
This is on the hike up
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| The most beautiful waterfall I've ever seen |
on the way up, there are a lot of Farms. This is one of the farmers who was working in his field on the way up. I asked him if I could take a picture, on the way down.
The EVIL 20 KILOMETER HIKE WITH LEECHES!!!!!!!!
So hear's the story of how my life got twisted turned, upside down, I'd like you to sit right down, and I'll tell you how I got lost in the middle of no where (Sing this to tune of Fresh prince)
SO a bunch of doctors in Nuwara Eliya said they wanted to do this hike to a waterfall with a local guide somewhere in the mountains. They told us the hike was only 8-10km TOTAL
Amani and I were like okay cool, lets do this.
Things they forgot to tell us
1) We weren't through a random jungle in which there was NO actual trail
2) No one told us about the leeches!
3) It was stupidly long (20 km, not 10)
4) It was the other side of the Bomburu Waterfall.......
Right away there were a lot of leeches. But we were managing okay. Then the Leeches got worse, the further in we went. It was a very old knotted and twisted forest, not like the pine of conifer forest I am used to.
<-- Chathura and a twisted tree
We in in a group of maybe 20? all of the doctors and specialist had come, on this hike.
We ended up crossing 2 different mountains. Going up and down. On one of the hikes down, someone behind us accidently slipped, which caused a bunch of rocks to come cascading down in our direction. Luckily everyone was okay.
While guide eventually got lost, and we used my phone to contact another guide to explain how to get out of JUNGLE
This was the view from the top. It was also this picture that we sent to the guide (Chathura's friend Saranga, who was mentioned in the thing with andres) who told us how to get out of the forest
I know we are smiling, but we were EXHAUSTED! This is Around 5 or 5:30pm when we were almost out of the woods. This is with our Guide. He was really nice... and only partially lost.... 😏
when we got out of the woods, I literally fell to my knees and started screaming I was so happy. Something like "YES! THANK GOD! There REALLY is a GOD! We MADE IT" etc These are the doctors who had already made it out, and it was the first sight I saw when getting out of the woods.
This is a leech! it was on the doctors leg, underneath the sock. When I took my shoes off, I found I had 2 more leeches still in my shoe. When I took my socks off, I found 3 more, all on my right foot!
It was a bloody mess! I was a mess. I legitimately started screaming when I found 3 more leeches because I just could not Deal any more. Turns out I had 17 leech bites on my right foot, and 10-12 on my left.
The weird thing is I sort of enjoyed it. I really had to learn how to over come my fears, and how to deal with unforeseen events, and just roll with the punches. Once we were 8km into the forest, there was nothing we could do to turn back so you just have to make the best out of it.
February:
For the most part, February was pretty tame. Especially since I had just been to Nuwara Eliya and everything. I mostly chilled and went to Batticola with my friend, Meghana, and visited my Seeyah in Kandy and went to angampora.
Then I twisted my wrist during practice, then I got really sick for about a week. It was a simple stomach flu, but I could NOT eat anything which made life a little difficult. Then it was my cousin's birthday party
Cousin's birthday Party
At my little cousin's birthday party, I met Devnie. She lives near me and is my age. She is the only other cousin, who like me, didn't grow up here. She grew up in Saudi, and then moved to USA for college. So we have a lot in common. She is also a total NERD just like me and I love it!
February and March:
Corina and BOB (Corina's dad) come for a visit
I've known Corina since Kindergarten. We have been friends for almost 20 years, mid you I am 24 years old.
I met corina and her dad bob at the airport, and in the span of 10 days, went to Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Sigirya, and Bomburu Ella. |
| My mom and also Corina and Bob, sent/brought me lots of GIFTS!!! Things I can't buy here.... I've eaten most of it.... |
We ate the Ministry of crab! Those bad boys were huge! And delicious!!
We took a beautiful train ride to Kandy.
Corina's dad is 73, and he is still Super fit! He easily able to keep up with us the whole time for both Sigiriya and the Waterfall. Also because he is 73 he is super close in age to my Seeyah.
My Dad wanted to say thank you to my Seeyah, so he sent a bottle of Johnny walker. Which is my Grandpa's favorite drink. (Note he is not my literal grandpa, but he has adopted me as such). This is us sharing a drink of that Johnny Walker. 
He also loved Bob, (corina's dad) which gave me and corina time to go shopping!
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| Bob, Corina, and Me at Sigiriya. I told the person who took the picture that I was adopted and we were visiting sri lanka for the first time.... |
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| this is the view on our way to the waterfall. It is the same waterfall where I saw the doggos and went with Amani. |
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| This was one part of the same waterfall I saw with amani that I didn't get to take pictures of... |
This is the temple of Sita, where they believe Sita from the Ramayana was kept when she was taken to Ceylon.
Monkeys are EVERYWHERE!People were feeding the monkey while we were at the temple. They gave him mangos and watermelon.
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| this is a depiction on the temple walls of Rama (Blue man) and Sita, and Rama's brother. Before she is kidnapped to Lanka. |
This was on the way back from Nuwara Eliya to Kandy. We stopped at the Kovila to take pictures.
An old friend !!!!!!!
My friend from College, Ghassan, who lives in JORDAN, randomly was visiting Sri Lanka, to see his "2nd Mom" who is Eri Lankan had helped raise him. We had so much fun catching up. I went down to Kalutara! and I showed him how to eat lobster and Crab, since he had never shucked it before.
Thats all folks!
NOW Back to angampora!
BYE BYE!!!
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