First Impressions

Today in Sri Lanka is a public holiday for to the full moon. Everyone celebrates by wearing white and going to worship at the temples and places of Budda. 

Everyone in Sri Lanka is very friendly, coming up and saying hello in the streets and wanting to know where you are from and trying to help you out. Although, you do kind of stand out in the crowd here being the only white people. 

We had an orientation around the city finding out where things are and so on. In the afternoon I went out exploring with one of the girls, Jane, who is an OT and one of the OT’s from the hospital that she had been working with. We travelled in his car out through rural countryside, passing mud huts and shaks. I couldn’t get over how green everything was, it was beautiful, with little fruit and veg stalls out in the middle of no where.

We went to Thanthirimale on of the sites of Budda with a Holy Tree that had been brought over from India 2500 years ago. We then went onto see another place where there was 500 statues of Budda winding around a pathway. 

In Sri Lanka they drive on the left, like in the UK, but there driving style is very different, everyone overtakes each other all the time and beep their horns when passing each other. The other thing is the massive number of stray dogs in the road that everyone has to try and dodge like in a video game.

Throughout the journey the OT from the hospital talked to me about the levels of different hospitals they have out in Sri Lanka and the differences in care. He emphasised the importance of religious believes and their effect on planning treatment.

To end the day Jane and I had a cooking lesson with the chef here at the Work the World house, we learned how to make traditional Sri Lankan curry dishes. They tasted amazing I wish my mum could have been here to try them!!

I am very excited for placement tomorrow and can’t wait for what lies ahead.

Maisy