Sunday, March 25, 2007

Weekend Adventures at Yalla National Park... several weeks back, we took a "family vacation" to Yalla National Park. We heard that if you ever wanted to see a wild Leopard while on safari, this was the time of year for it. So, the guys (naturally) thought this would be a great time to go camping. Mindy, however, posed several questions, like -- Does anyone know WHY this is the best season to see the leopards???... Are they hungrier than usual?... Is it mating season? Have the mothers recently given birth and now they have to procure food for the family?


(Dave, Mindy, Adam, Chris)
So, in the end, we opted out of camping, but we DID go and we did rise at 4:30am for the safari - and here are the pictures... which are not quite as majestic as the real deal -- but at least they offer some idea of the experience.



The splendor of a sunrise that was well worth the effort.



More splendor. In the form of a Peacock.



Mr. Peacock, strutting his stuff for Miss Peacock (and us)!



That's right -- We got the 360 degree show. It was seriously something to behold.



Another Mr. Peacock, hanging out in a tree, scoping out the women.



Monkeys... watching us drive underneath them.

Monkeys seeking shade from the heat... between a rock and a hard place.

Adam was the driver, with Chris in the passenger seat, Dave in the left rear, Mr. "Tracker" sandwhiched in the middle rear, and Mindy in the right rear seat. Adam was trying to drive fast enough to cover some significant ground, and get us far enough into the park to actually SEE animals, but slowly enough to actually spot animals along the way. Meanwhile, the passengers (with heads hanging out the windows) searched intently for anything indicative of the fact that we were on a safari. Periodically, Mindy would gasp - Adam would brake HARD - 4 heads would whip around, trying to catch a glimpse of what Mindy had seen... suspecting that it was most likely either an elephant or a sloth bear... or maybe even: THE LEOPARD.

Then the Tracker would say, "Oh. That's a jungle fowl." (AKA, a VERY colorful, VERY bright, VERY beautiful... chicken.) The guys would then let out a disappointed grunt and return to their lookout positions. After several of these disappointments where Mindy gasped or yelped and was thrilled about seeing something like a Green Bee-Eater (aka, a green bird) or more Jungle Fowl (colorful chickens), or the 53rd Peacock of the morning, Adam coined the phrase "safari foul." Which all the boys would shout with great conviction ("SAFARI FOUL!!!"), any time Mindy was marveling at some lesser miracle of God's creativity and attention to intricate detail (like birds).

The "common" wonders were the flowers, butterflies, birds, monitor lizards, deer, and water buffalo. We did also see a mongoose and a couple families of warthogs.

Another highlight of the safari was when the tracker directed Adam to turn onto a certain path. It quickly became a (very) narrow strip of high ground. Let me define my adjectives -- NARROW, as in, enough room for the truck to fit. barely. And HIGH ground, as in, a good 10 foot drop-off on either side. The "high road" ran in between a pond (to our left) and a marsh (to our right). At first we were very entertained by the scenery and the heard of wild water buffalo (which included several babies... and so also, naturally, several protective mothers) to our immediate right -- and the number of crocodiles in the pond to the left. We had driven about a quarter of a mile, when we came to where the road was no more. As in -- it had recently been washed out, and there was now a 10-15 foot gap. So, Adam, in his ever-excitable way, says, "Uhh. No road." (half statement, half question.) The tracker is equally surprised and he responds with, "Oh. No road. Well, we're on safari." (As in, "Yeah, how about that? What are the odds?")

So, with no option to move any way except for backwards, we all turn around to examine the scene behind us. To find that the water buffalo are now crossing over the road, from the marsh into the pond. And there's one very large mother bull now standing in the road, looking straight at the truck in a somewhat confused but generally less-than-pleased manner. I think Dave tried to climb out of the window to take a picture and was promptly yanked back in. We're all making comments now like, "Oh. Well that's kind of fun. We ARE on a safari... Looks like our options are: Mamma bull, the crocodiles in the pond on the left, the marsh on the right, or a Dukes Of Hazard stunt to get across."
Thank goodness Adam passed the driving-backwards-on-a-narrow-dirt-path-for-a-quarter-of-a-mile-in-a-high-pressure-situation portion of his driver's exam and we all escaped unscathed.

Eventually -- many "safari fouls" later -- we did see a few elephants.

And we saw the leopard! In fact, it was such a big deal to actually SEE the leopard, and to get pictures, that the tracker tried to send us back towards the Park entrance/exit. He assumed he was done for the day since we'd seen the leopard. (Little did he know!!...Mindy was not yet done seeing colorful chickens.)



At the end of the safari, we stopped at the beach (see the picture of the group, above) to stretch our legs and put our feet in the water. Overall, it was another fun, memorable "family" vacation. Wish y'all could have been here with us...
A few of our International Donor Partners (ie, representatives of the organizational bodies responsible for the funding of our project) are here March 21-31st for their 3rd monitoring visit. All 3 visits (quarterly) have had a very distinctive and different tone / purpose. The first visit was the "oh-my-goodness-what-are-we-doing-here?-our-initial-plan-is-falling-apart-and-we need-to-construct-a-completely-different-one-FAST" monitoring visit. The second visit was the "we-put-together-plan B-and-we-now-need-you-to-use-your-influence-to-intervene-for-us-so-we-can-actually-carry-it-out" monitoring visit. HALLELUJAH, monitoring visit #3 has (finally) been the "yay!-we-can-actually-show-you-how-we've-been-putting-your-money-to-use-and-meeting-the-project-goals" monitoring visit. =) Here are the pictures of Thursday's welcome parade -- Traditional Sri Lankan Style -- for the international donor partners, at the Hikkaduwa Community Center.

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure why we thought the parade should start on Galle Rd -- thus endangering the lives of the Donor Partners.

Above: just beyond the dancers -- left to right -- Chris, Project Manager; Manjita (look hard!), Canada Salvation Army Donor; Celine, Netherlands Salvation Army Donor; Corrie, Netherlands Salvation Army Donor; and Dave, East Coast Construction Manager.


The Dancers -- dancing their way around the corner and into The Salvation Army gate...

(Background) 1 bus passes another, around a corner, on Galle Rd... meanwhile, the Dancers lead the way for the Donor Partners...

Dancers have danced their way into the gate... the Staff are dressed in their Salvation Army shirts, ready for the occasion.

Manjita (Canada), Corrie (Netherlands), & Celine (Netherlands) receive their Welcome Necklaces from the preschool students.

Meanwhile, the dancers are still dancing/drumming towards the front door...



The dancers then formed a tunnel in the hallway... which we all ducked through... and then we all went into our daily staff meeting. =) It's kind of funny -- these moments of color and vibrance and true "pomp and circumstance" that are the cultural norm... which lead directly into the normal tasks of daily life. This is such a great picture of the "regular" pardox that we are constantly interacting with: the normal, unpretentious, routine, modest, simple, humble -- paired with the beautiful, distinguished, exceptional, elegant.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Vocational Training Ceremony at The Salvation Army Community Center in Hikkaduwa. The Community Capacity Development (CCD) department of the Tsunami Project, in partnership with Hikkaduwa Corps Officer Major Wijesiri and the National Christian Counsel (NCC), celebrated the grand opening of the English, Computer, and Sewing Classes on 5 March 2007. The ceremony was held at the Hikkaduwa TSA Community Center (below) --


-- where the weekly classes will take place. The projected number of participants for the first year of classes (at this site alone) is 75-80. (With implementation plans for similar trainings currently underway in 8 other communities.) The fact that these community members will now begin receiving skills-training to improve their livelihood capacities is indeed something to celebrate!

The festivities commenced with a traditional ceremonial parade, led by The Salvation Army Hikkaduwa Montessori Marching Band (see below).


Honored guests included Major Noel LaPena (Community Services Development Director) and Major Fernando (Field & Community Services Secretary), who attended on behalf of Territorial Headquarters.


Following the traditional lighting of the "oil lamp" (below), opening speeches (I say speechES, because there were 8 of them... this is not unusual... and it would be a false assumption to think that they are short.) were made by Major Wijesiri, Major LaPena, Major Fernando, Mr. Balasooriya of NCC, Christopher Needham (Tsunami Project Manager), Mindy Pierce (CCD Project Officer), and Mrs. Major Wijesiri (Community Director), and a representative of the community. Mark Edwards (CCD Coordinator) served as the translator for all speeches.


Formation of these classes has been a lengthy, involved process, requiring extensive coordination. Major Wijesiri recruited teachers, served as a liaison and publicist with the community, and planned the ceremony. Major also coordinated with NCC (who contributed a significant amount of funding to the start up of the computer class). The CCD department tracked down details and submitted documentation necessary for board approval and gathered quotations (purchasing protocol requires a minimum of two "legitimate" quotations for each item, which are then submitted to Boards and, if approved, the items can then be purchased). CCD then procured the equipment necessary to set up the classrooms (sewing machines, tables, benches, computer desks, chairs, white board, etc.); facilitated electrical work (fans, outlets, installed an AC); and printed and distributed publicity materials. CCD will continue to coordinate with Major on matters related to monitoring and evaluation, quality assurance, and sustainability of the programs.

By "lengthy process," that means the above steps for the sewing and computer classes have been 2 years in the making... thus the cutting of the ribbons was clearly no small matter.


The English classrom (below) will also double as the sewing classroom.

Below, group photo of some of the students and teachers:

Currently, efforts are underway in Kalutara and Galle to implement similar vocational training programs at a number of sites. “Relocation” communities in need of CCD programs and willing to partner with TSA have been selected; community conversations identifying desired programs and existing resources (and/or resource deficits) have taken place; volunteers and teachers are being recruited; and materials and classroom space are being procured. This is where it helps to have connections with the Construction department (AKA, my husband), we have communities that want/need a class, but have found it somewhat difficult to hold sewing and computer class under a tree (English classes are, of course, no problem). So, Adam plays an important part -- by allotting a certain portion of his budget, time, and resources to building community centers -- in providing classroom space for us.

At this point, our efforts in vocational training are limited to the southwest. We hope to focus on programming for the east coast in May/June, since we officially hired our Ampara (east coast) CCD Officer this week (yay! Another huge answer to prayer!).


Below, the ribbon thieves, running away with our cermonial ribbon.

And then, caught "red-handed" - I love the kid on the left, who's hiding the ribbon behind his back, with the "What?-I-don't-have-anything!" expression... yeah, nice try. Almost couldn't even see it - except for your friend who's holding it right out in front!... No respect for sacred ceremonies, I tell you. =)

Thursday, March 01, 2007

I can't believe it's March already! I am posting this because Mindy has been threatening me...trying to get me to post this update...so here we go.

Life has been moving fast since we have returned. We hired an engineer who will be helping with drawings, specifications, and quality control and will had a full time investigator/technical officer join the construction team today. We have officially split our project and Dave has moved to Ampara to begin construction work there. I will be overseeing all the projects on the west coast and Dave will be overseeing all the projects on the east coast. My main role is to find the places to build and then our help coordinate our technical staff so they can make it happen.

Our current progress to date:
24 houses complete.
26 houses under construction.
2 community centers in design.
1, 10 house scheme in design.
16 houses will be started in the next 3 weeks.

I am currently looking at as many as 100 - 150 more houses to build, at least three more places to build community centers, two or three places to build or update market places, and possibly a cemetery (keep reading).

We had a community meeting to share our community center design and to get their feedback on any changes or additions they would like to see. These are some pictures.






















































We will be building the community center here...hopefully.





















Sri Lanka is a tough place to live and work. I am serious. Forget the fact that it is a beautiful tropical island and that we have a 5 minute walk to the beach from our house. We have everyday frustrations of working within a system, language, and mentality that is completely different than what we are use to. Everything we do takes a little bit longer…or a little bit more effort.

Sri Lankans see a lot of tragedy…we see a lot of tragedy…and that is tough. In the above mentioned community meeting we were asked if we could prepare/build a cemetery. Mindy and I kind of smiled at each other thinking that this request was a bit unusual but have since thought about it more and realized that death is something that Sri Lankans deal with on a very regular basis…almost too regular. It’s a tough place to live because of the tragedy that these people see week in and week out.

Last month, the husband of one of the families we are building a house for was hit by train and killed while crossing the tracks in his Tuk Tuk (3 wheel taxi). He left a wife and two kids. Two weeks ago in a local community in which we have been running programs, a man with two boys on his motorcycle were hit and killed by a train while crossing the tracks. Mindy and I both have seen and heard of numerous accidents on the road where people have been killed. It’s not just transportation…this country has been in civil war for years...and we all understand the death that war brings. All of this tragedy and we have not mentioned the deaths that occur due to illness, virus, and disease. And don’t forget the reason why we are here…that in one day, within a few hours, thousands died as a result of the Tsunami. These people see death way too often.

So I am looking into building a cemetery. I will meet with local Government officials to see if there is suitable land available in this community…because this is important to them and a very real part of their everyday life.

I say this so you will pray for the people Sri Lanka. Pray for emotional and spiritual healing. Pray that they will find God in times of tragedy. Pray for their salvation. Pray they will find their peace and strength in Jesus Christ. Pray for a peaceful end to the conflict. Yes, this is a beautiful island with beautiful people...but these people are hurting and crying out for help. And finally, pray for us so that we know how to love them like Jesus does.

Thank you for your love, support, and prayers...we couldn't do this with out you.

Adam

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