For my last Week Without Walls trip, I traveled 6 hours up north to Jaffna with a group of fellow musicians. On the first day, upon finally arriving in Jaffna, we checked into our hotel rooms at the Thinnai hotel and were given a couple minutes to unpack and settle in. The first activity on our itinerary was a visit to a local Hindu temple. This was one of my first encounters with a Hindu temple and I have to say, I was mesmerized by the detail and design of the roof. The layers and business of it’s design made me want to incorporate it into a future IB art piece.

With its strong cultural ties to Sri Lanka, a place I’ve gradually become connected to, I thought it would be the perfect inspiration for a piece of art. After the temple, we visited a dutch fort.  Although the fort lays in ruins today, it was a pretty impressive site as it was constructed mostly from coral. Amongst the ruins, we were able to see the remains of certain attacks and relate them to specific events in Sri Lanka’s war history. Once we had completed the task assigned at the fort, we went to Rio Ice Cream parlor for refreshments. That was the last activity we did outside the hotel that day. Back in our rooms, we were given downtime until a dinner of Western pasta and Sri Lankan curry.

On Tuesday, we drove an hour along a thin road that was completely surrounded by water to get to dock. For some reason, this road made for some interesting scenery and was able to standout in my memories of the trip. From which we took a 20 minute ferry ride to visit Nagadeepa temple. At the temple, the chief priest briefed us on the history of the Island. He told us that the island, known as Snake Island was a really diverse place because it is inhabited by Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus. It was cool because as you looked over the relatively small island, the tops of temples inside which people from many different religions worshipped a variety of deities, was visible over the treetops. After exploring the Buddhist temple, we took the ferry back to the mainland where we then drove to lunch at the a Sri Lankan navy-owned resort. Lunch that day was at a resort owned by the Sri Lankan navy and our next destination, Fort Hammenhiel was actually visible from the restaurant.  The fort was situated on a isolated island about a 5 minute boat ride away from our lunch spot. Once finished eating, we took the ride over and started looking around. The reason for its isolation is the fact that it was used as a jail for captured war prisoners and also as a quarantine zone for individuals with dangerous and contagious diseases. The fort was one of my favorite places that we visited because despite it’s rather disturbing background, Hammenhiel was a really beautiful place.

The army turned it into a little hotel that guests could reserve and stay at. Our assignment for this location was to write a journal entry from the perspective of a prisoner at the fort. During writing time, I sat in one of the openings in the wall where the breeze was the strongest and I was able to overlook the ocean. It brought me a little bit of guilt to find such beauty in a place that was so destructive in the lives of some. After finishing our entries, we took the boat back to the navy resort and then the bus back to the hotel.

 

Day 3 was my personal favorite!! The music and performing element was the main reason I chose this trip over cycling in the end. I was really looking forward to giving our concerts. Our first audience was made up of kids our age from a secondary school called Waidyeshwara School. When we arrived at the school, we were welcomed and I honestly felt like some kind of celebrity…I could tell they were excited to hear us perform and I knew we were all really excited to share our performances with them. For the first 20 minutes of the concert, they performed songs, little skits, and dances for us. It was pretty cool to see the similarities and differences between ours and their music culture. When our turn came to perform,  Mr. Marlon and Andrew Vu opened with a fun guitar duet. I was the first singer of the day as I performed my spring gala piece “Don’t Know Why” by Norah Jones. The rest of the concert was filled with other solo songs by Ritheek, Liam, and Sheruni, a duet by Ritheek and Sheruni and one by Ritheek and Rika. Sheruni and I closed with a duet of “A Million Dreams” from the Greatest Showman. The program ran relatively flawlessly despite the power cut during Liam’s performance.

Following the performance, the principle of the school had us line up for a pictures. The photo-taking process took a while as they insisted on several groups being photographed with us. We came to our final “thank you”s and then we were off for lunch at the Malayan cafe. This cafe was unique because the food was served on banana leaves. Eating here reminded me of a place my family used to eat at when we lived in Malaysia. After lunch, we drove to the University of Jaffna’s Arts Academy for our second performance. Right from the start, I noticed that the atmosphere here was completely different. For one thing, the audience was 30-40 people as opposed to Waidyeshwara’s 200+. Since we performed in an actual auditorium, the acoustics were definitely an upgrade. Personally, I thought this audience was more engaged and as a whole, reacted better to our performances. At the end of the day, I was significantly happier with the second performance. Back at the hotel, we readied our things to put on the bus to Anuradhapura the next morning. This was our last night at the Thinnai.

The next morning, we had breakfast at 7:30 and then hopped on the bus for a 6 hour bus ride to Anuradhapura. Most of us spent the majority of this time sleeping and listening to music. But the last 2 hours were spent playing charades and talking. When we arrived at the new hotel, we had lunch right away and were then given time to settle in and change. Next on the schedule was a visit to two Buddhist temples. These specific temples preferred visitors to be dressed in light colors so we all changed in preparation for the visit. The first temple we went to was massive. From where we started walking, the temple didn’t look unusually big, but the closer we got the more it grew. By the time we were standing at its base, it literally loomed over us. Unlike the other temples we had visited on the trip that were structured as actual buildings, this one was shaped like a big dome. Priests were wrapping it in a big orange sash and people dressed in white gathered around it praying and placing offerings on tables. People would leave different food items, flowers, and even clothes for the monks and priests to come and collect. We skirted the entire perimeter before moving down the road to another Buddhist temple.

This one was structured more like a building that you could go in and out of. Working our way up the building to and around each floor, we saw people praying and singing. What made this temple special was the fact that some of the trees were more than 2,000 years old. The first saplings were imported from China and since them, all the trees of the same species on the Island of Sri Lanka have descended from that imported sapling. We were lucky enough to have Mr. Surin, an ex-teacher of OSC’s with us who knew a lot about the historical sites in Jaffna. He was our unofficial tour guide. The assignment for the day was to compare the two temples. Since we didn’t have our phones to take pictures with, my workbook pages ended up being scattered with sketches and drawings of certain observations. This day was our last day out and about.

On Friday, we woke up, ate breakfast all together for the last time and then got back on the bus to start the journey back to school. The trip ended with the infamous group picture on the school’s field. I will be forever grateful for this last Week Without Walls experience. Moving to DC, my musical hobby will likely be up for some serious competition and I probably won’t have the same multitude of opportunities to share it. This trip was amongst my last ones and I’m so glad I chose to come on this trip. Thanks to Ms. Duncan and my music group!