Friday the 13th

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  Kandy, Sri Lanka
Friday, October 13, 2006

I am back in Kandy today as some of the newer volunteers wanted to see the Temple of the Tooth, I am in the internet café where I have had some success in finally loading some photos, They are added to some of the older entries (hopefully matching the entries but I am not sure) I hope you enjoy them, its taken me 6 weeks, various attempts on different PCs and 4 hours of (failed) USB driver downloads to get them uploaded!

I neglected to include some details of one of the older Elephants
Gune in my last entry, Gune has been very poorly recently and by
Thursday last week had stopped eating, was refusing medication and
would no longer lay down to sleep. The Vets came in the morning and
set him up on a drip, by the evening he was a lot worse and they came
again to administer another drip. Elephants have very tough skin and
the best place to insert the needle is behind their ear. As Gune was
unable to lie down (he would never have gotten up again) he was stood
next to the raised area where tourists climb onto elephants for rides.
The vets and Gunes volunteer Dave stood at the top taking turns to
hold the drip bag up and reassure Gune while another volunteer Hannah
and I stood at ground level with our hands out to steady Gune who was
at this point swaying a lot and generally very unsteady on his feet.
Although 2 people could not stop an elephant falling over it is
possible to push back to stop and elephant swaying and we spent 80
minutes (felt like 8 hours) braced against Gune pushing him back
towards the wall every time he swayed and talking to him. Around 45
minutes into his treatment the heavens opened and it poured down rain
on us all, someone brought Hannah and I some umbrellas and I don't
know what we looked like standing in large puddles of water, with
umbrellas balanced on our shoulders whilst pushing a swaying elephant.
Once the treatment was finished Gune was taken to the hospital area (
a covered shed to keep him dry) and the vet arranged to come back the
following day to set up more drips. Every one was very concerned as
elephants of Gunes age can only go a few days without eating or
sleeping and if such an elephant falls down they will be unable to
stand up again and will die. The next day we left early for the
Perahera and although we were excited we were all still very concerned
about Gune and his Mahout ( who I don't think had any more sleep than
Gune ) later that evening just before the Perahera started one of the
MEF staff had a phone call saying that Gune had started to eat again ,
it was the best news and totally made everyone night When we got back
on Saturday we went up to visit Gune and he was much improved, very
interested in what was going and on and very happy to eat biccies and
buns from the bakers, a week on and he is still doing well and
has been down to the river for a splash about and a quick wash , although he is not eating as much as everyone would like he seems to be holding his own

The weather has been very changeable the last week or so, one minute
its blazing sunshine and the next raining like its going out of fashion ,
as such its taken me nearly 5 days to dry my last batch of
washing as it kept getting rained on and unless I was standing by the
line when it started the clothes were as wet as if I had just washed
them. My tumble dryer has been added to the list of things I did take for granted and won't again !. The list is getting very very big now and includes such things as telephones, electricity, water (hot and cold) and loads of things that I never even thought about before being here

The last few days have continued to show me how privileged I am at home, as some of you know I brought over a bag of school supplies for some rural schools (after reading on MEFs website that some pupils could not afford basic equipment) a large bulk of the supplies were donated by a very generous UK based pencil factory in the lake district (Thank you Ruby and Marion) On Wednesday I was invited to a school about 15 minutes away from MEF where they were having a opening ceremony of a new play ground and decided to take some pencils with me . This school has never had any playing equipment in its school grounds, rather fantastically a local businessman ( the man who runs the poo paper factory next door to MEF ) had donated enough money to build the school a play area with swings, slide , monkey bars and a see saw. When we arrived all the children were waiting outside and the play area was roped off , then the ribbon was cut to open the playground and all the children ran in to play on there new equipment. I don't mind admitting that it brought a lump to my throat but there was more to come. After the children had played for a while we were all taken to the school hall (like a lot of Sri Lankan buildings it has a roof, solid floor, half walls and no windows) all the children were seated and the local business man was invited onto the stage to sit with the headmaster and then to my surprise so was I. over the next 20 minutes the children and staff thanked the business man for his donation and the speech that the English master made about the importance of the play ground for the children made me openly weep. Then to my utter amazement I was asked to stand up and hand over the plastic boxes of pencils, pens, rubbers and sharpeners I was carrying to the headmaster who then made a another speech and thanked me (so thank you again Ruby and Marion it means more to the teachers that I can explain that people in other countries care about the children here). I left the school far far more humble than I arrived and I will not forget the words of the English master for a long time, his desire to provide a suitable environment for the children to learn in was an inspirational to me and his dedication is beyond words.

That's me for now, am away traveling this weekend so hopefully will update again next week some time

Sam

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