Pierce Update: September 2007

Sri Lanka with the Cunninghams, in 10 days or less! Here are a few highlights (of the 600 taken! not kidding!) of our time with Mindy's parents...

The Elephant Orphanage

Oh my, I don't know about this...!

Dad & Mom. With elephants. In Sri Lanka.

Oh, he's so cute!

'Scuse me. Comin' through.

I may be smaller, but I'm not easily intimidated... comin' to get ya!

Kandyan Botanical Gardens) Well, hello intricate flower... that-surely-must-have-just-resulted-from-an-accidental-explosion. (riiight.)

Kandyan cultural show with dancing and fire walking. (See video clip at the end of the post.)

Fire dancers

Yes, he is walking on a bed of fire, and we can testify that it was hot enough to singe Adam's leg hairs from where we were sitting!

(We visited The Temple of the Tooth)... above, at the temple, one of the thousands of statues of Buddha in Sri Lanka.

The Nuwara Eliya Botanical Garden, created in the 1800's (this is the rose garden section).

the favorite rose

The "fernery" section. How cool.

Dad & Adam helped get the "hand tractor" up the hill...

Peek - a - boo!

I have cool hair.

We toured the Pedro Tea Estate. (Sri Lanka's the #1 tea EXPORTER in the world. There are other countries that make more, but they consume most of what they make.)

Mom, enjoying her post-tour cup of tea.

Dad, also having post-tour tea.

Cute tea pickers. Who work really, really hard...

earlier this year they were on strike for better pay; now they make a whopping $2 per day.

A common site: cows grazing in the trash bin. (Families often own a cow - or a herd - without having the resources/land to feed them. So during the day, they walk the road and graze on whatever they find, including trash... and then walk home at dusk.)

Adam drove 1100 kilometers during the 10 days.

Dad did a lot of silent co-piloting. =) Typically a quiet man -- the roads here really left him speechless! Except for one point, after about 7 hours of road time... where we had been dodging large pot holes, cows,

hand tractors, mange-y dogs, school children, monitor lizards,

drunken men on bicycles, ox carts,

maniac bus drivers, etc.... there was one brief moment, where yet another crazy person hoping to die pulled out in front of us and my dad just said (in his calm, understated way), "Pleease, Mister..."

We passed vegetable stands, fruit stands, clay pot stands, etc. along the road...

and stilt fishermen.

and a mammoth statue of Buddha.

and, eventually arrived for the sunset at Budde's in Hikkaduwa!

We visited the Galle Fort - built by the Dutch (I think in the 1800's?)

Here's the view from Mom & Dad's hotel room... BEFORE the tsunami warning came and the hotel staff moved everything from the first floor onto the second floor... including all sorts of furniture and a freezer full of fish... into my parents' room. What's not to like about sleeping in a storage room that smells like fish? We opted for family time at the Team House...

They met Milo the cat.

And Shadey the dog. (Whom Adam will only refer to as "Dumb dog" or "Stupid"... the funniest thing I have witnessed in a while is my husband in his mock-high-and-excited voice saying very kindly "Who's a dumb dog? You are! That's right! You're a dumb dog!" And Shadey wagging her tail, thrilled to be the recipient of his attention.)

We went shopping... this is Shiela and her friend (?); they made several skirts for Mom to take back as gifts.

Bring your parents to work day! Dad led our morning team devotion and then we gave them a tour. Above, with Mark (the CCD Coordinator) & his wife Chamani.