Care & Community - SRI LANKA Daily Life

Daily Life of a Care & Community Volunteer in Sri Lanka

The only thing I can say for certain about daily life during my time in Sri Lanka was that it was different every day. Some times were difficult, some times were good but I don’t remember any of my time being boring.

I lived and worked for two months in Kalutara, a small town on the South West Coast of Sri Lanka. I was in an apartment in the South of the town with five other girls. We didn’t have a host family as such. The owners of the building popped in occasionally, but most of the time we were looked after by our cook/cleaner, Latta, and in the evenings, by our night watchman, Ed. That had advantages. Other volunteers who were in Kalutara had to get home by a certain time and couldn’t really have people staying over. We had a lot more freedom.

I was lucky (I thought) and had a room to myself. The rest of the girls shared two other rooms. It was clean and comfortable enough, although quite sparse. There was no television or cooker – things we take for granted. All the meals we had were prepared by Latta on two little camping stoves. Not having a washing machine was the most difficult thing for me. I’m a bit of a clean freak and ended up hand washing my clothes at least every other day!

Every morning would start with my alarm going off and then trying to get in to the shower. We were mostly doing different placements, so it usually worked out that we weren’t fighting for it at exactly the same time. After a cold shower, being half asleep was no longer a problem. There are no hot showers anywhere except in the best hotels and I found that very tough. In the heat of the day, the cold shower is welcome, but first thing in the morning when there’s still a chill in the air it is a bit like torture. I used to love coming home about 3 o’ clock and getting to the shower first because the sun had heated the water tank to the point where it was almost hot. Trying to keep clean was a mission and I’d shower at least three times a day. Hardly seemed worth it when I got dusty and sweaty the minute I left the house, but I had to try.

My breakfast was always a couple of pieces of toast and it would be on the table by the time I was dressed. Half way through my time there Latta realised I loved a cup of tea or coffee in the morning, so a hot drink would always materialise after that. When I was done I’d put on my sun cream, gather up my bits and pieces, fill up the water bottle, wait for the other volunteer who came with me, and then head off to get to work.

During term time I would work in Sukhita in the mornings from 10; Sukhita is a home and school for people with mental and physical disabilities. We worked in the school part, so the kids we worked with were some of the more able ones. I use the term “kids” loosely. We had no real idea of the ages of the people we worked with but I’d guess there were a couple there as young as 5 going up to some in their thirties or beyond.

Getting to Sukhita was quite a trek. We would get the bus from the station at the bottom of the hill. It was always a lottery as to the quality of the ride. There was one or two busses which were really well looked after and decked out in garlands of flowers and their seats covered with plastic to make sure they stayed nice. Then there were others which kind of reminded me of the Flintstones car. There were wide gaps between the floorboards and you almost felt like the bus would go better if you stuck your feet through those gaps and started running. Forget anything you know about health and safety. The bus isn’t classed as full until there is literally no room to breathe and there are people hanging off the doors and windows. It’s quite usual to have someone’s bag shoved through the open windows so that they can cling on to the outside of the bus.

It was quite a nice route up to Sukhita. The first stop would always be to the temple to leave an offering in one of the boxes by the side of the road. Then the bus would travel over the Kaluganga River that separates North and South of the town, and all the way up through Kalutara North with is shops, shrines and hotels. We would then turn up the Horana road and would suddenly be in the countryside. It took a while to get there, forty minutes if it was a regular day. It also took me a while to be confident where to get off the bus, but usually the conductor would tell us. They were very used to the westerners going to Sukhita at that time of the morning and would usually write the ticket for us without asking. Only a couple tried to add a few rupees on!

Sukhita home itself can be a bit shocking to the new volunteer. I only saw it briefly on my first day and my enduring memory is of lots of beds crammed together in dormitories without mosquito nets. My placement was in the school part though as I said before, and considering the visions I had before I came out, it really wasn’t that bad! To get there we would walk through the dining room with lots of the residents sitting at tables looking at us or doing chores. Most would smile, try to shake your hand and sometimes try to say hello. Then we would walk up a well kept garden path to a large two storey building. The less able students worked downstairs, and then upstairs was a Montessori school and the section for the more able students.

Most of the time I worked downstairs. We would try to stick to a routine. While the teachers mostly just watched, we had half an hours play outside, and then the kids would have a cup of tea. After that we would have an hour so of crafts, like mask making or painting, and then to end we would put the tape player on and they would dance. All the kids loved dancing. It was really funny to watch some of them getting really serious about it. The kids there were wonderful. They could be naughty, but they were also very appreciative of any attention you gave them and could be really affectionate.

We would finish there at 10 then head back to our houses for lunch or shopping in the town. Considering how far removed from my normal life I was, the town offered quite a lot of the luxuries I couldn’t have done without. There was a good internet café for a start, and a Food City which sold Marmite. There were also plenty of pharmacies and places to buy the things I’d forgotten to bring out with me, like a decent sized bag to carry all the bits and pieces for camp and an umbrella.

Usually I went home via the little shop by the clock tower at the end of our road. They sell milk shake type drinks called Rich Life that I got addicted to. Latta would always have some rice and a variety of curried dishes on the table for when I got back with lots of cold water from the fridge. There was usually time for another shower and to do your clothes washing if necessary before heading out to camp which would start at 3pm.

There were three camps we used to go to on different days of the week. Kalutara North, Mihikatawatta, and Rosa Watta. We would always be accompanied by our supervisor, Roy, who was very kind to us and was very appreciative of anything we could do. We would arrive late usually, not by design, and then we would divide the kids in to groups and teach them whatever we wanted to for that day. We often photocopied worksheets I drew which worked well apart from the fact it was pretty expensive and certain children would horde them and do them again and again to show how clever they were! We covered everything from complicated grammar to the alphabet. Some of the kids were really quite good at English. The older ones had to be because lessons like science are taught in English. We had help from them to translate for the younger ones. After about an hour and a half of study we would get the badminton and balls out to play for half an hour before finishing at 5pm.

Latta left work at 4pm so she always left food for us on the table, like at lunch. It was usually one of three things; noodles with potato curry, Hoppas (Like thin pancakes) or Rotti. For a change of food, or just a drink, most of us volunteers would head back up to Kalutara North to the Shish Kebab restaurant for the evening. They had good western food like steaks and spaghetti bolognaise there, reasonably priced and friendly service. One of the best things about being in Kalutara was that by the end of my stay there were lots of volunteers in the area who were supportive during the hard times and fun to relax with at the end of the day.

Without a Television we had to find ways to amuse ourselves. Later in my stay someone brought an iPod player which we could all listen to which was wonderful. I’d missed listening to music. Most evenings we played card games, read books, went to the Shish and slept well.

That was how the weeks went. Weekends were different. Most weekends a group of volunteers arrange a trip to one of the many tourist attractions in Sri Lanka. In my time we did all sorts of things from white water rafting, to climbing a huge fortress, to riding elephants.

Coming to Sri Lanka was an amazing experience and I would recommend it to anyone. The people we met were friendly and Projects Abroad looked after us well. They were always there to help if there were any problems or we needed anything for the house or placement. As I said, there is no typical day, which makes life interesting. Just rely on the people around you for support and take every chance that is offered to you and you will find doing this placement very worthwhile.


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