WWW Anuradhapura Mosaics

Introduction to the WWW

Week Without Walls (WWW) is a learning experience done by all students in the MYP and DP program. For MYP 5 and DP 1, the grades split up into 5 different trips to different corners of the island of Sri Lanka. There is the Highlands trip which goes and hikes in the mountains of Sri Lanka in the Knuckles area. Venture North, which is also an Activity trip, a cycling based trip near the Sigiriya Rock, Hambantota Housing which is a service oriented trip in building things for a school. Also Jaffna Resonances which is a Creativity based trip focusing on music. Finally there is the new trip for this year which is the trip I went on, called Anuradhapura Mosaics. This is a Creativity and Service based trip, but also with some Activity. The way it relates to these strands of CAS will be further elaborated throughout this blog post.

Day 1

Our first day started nice and early, we left OSC at 5 AM to go with the Highlands trip to Yapahuwa. Yapahuwa is a massive rock surrounded by old ruins of a temple. We got to Yapahuwa at around 8 AM. The way our trip connects by Creativity is that everyday we do reflections, but not the usual reflections done in other Week Without Walls with writing. We do the writing plus come up with some Creative method to represent what was done during the day. Then we put everyone’s work together to create a ‘Mosaic’ for the day, hence the name Anuradhapura Mosaics. For the first days Mosaic, the task was to just draw what we did during the day.

During our time at the Yapahuwa ruins we had a chance to stay at the ruins and work on our Creativity work, like painting, drawing, taking photographs or writing. However, Tanay and I had the chance to hike up Yapahuwa Rock (in slippers!) with the Highlands group and take photographs up there. It was a steep climb to the top of the rock, but it was worth it for the great view.

We then climbed back down and it was time to leave for the long drive to Anuradhapura. We got to our hotel for lunch and after having down time during the afternoon we left to go to the royal baths at around 4:00. We visited the temple in the area, did our Creativity work, which for me on this day was photography, and then walked to the baths. We again did some more Creativity work, and I got some great shots on this day.

After visiting the royal baths we went back to the hotel and worked on our reflections and finalized our mosaic work for the day.

Day 2

Day 2 began nice and early with an energizing bike ride. We rode along the path near a big lake, and this was a really fun bike ride where we did around 5.5km. After our riding we had breakfast and head off to some ruins in the heart of Anuradhapura. We spent some time doing our creativity work, and today my work was a mix of photography and sketching. From the ruins we had a nice view of the Ruwanwelisaya temple, which is a massive 2000 year old stupa. Here I learned a lot about the interesting history of the ancient city of Anuradhapura, and I found exploring the ruins and discovering little things around the area to be very fun.

However, our exploration was halted as we were told by the police to leave the area as we weren’t allowed to take pictures. However, we just went to some more ruins around the area and visited some caves and rock formations too. We then had a nice lunch, some downtime and head to go to the Sri Maha Bodhi Tree. According to Buddhist legend, this tree is a sapling of the tree which the Buddha sat under when he gained enlightenment, and it was brought to Sri Lanka by an Indian king. It is also the oldest tree in the world where the exact date of which it was planted is known. At the Sri Maha Bodhi Tree we again did some more creativity work, and I focused solely on sketching. Our mosaic for the day was a Haiku, and at the tree I also came up with my Haiku about the ruins which we visited. After the visit to the Bodhi tree we head to the Ruwanwelisaya and explored the area. Here I took some more pictures.

After these visits we head back to the hotel, had some dinner and did our reflections and mosaic work to end the day off.

Day 3

Day 3 was the day of our visit to the SOS village orphanage, but before the visit we first went out to Mihinthale. At Mihinthale we walked around the ruins and the old stupa’s. I also learned a lot of information about the ruins and the history of Mihinthale. I learnt the history of how Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka, and what each and every different ruin in Mihinthale was. We saw the gravestones of the monks and the the places where monks ate. However our learning was cut short by a storm of rain. We rushed back to the bus and got to the hotel where we changed into dry clothes. However, I did luckily get some very nice pictures of some Giant Squirrels which were in the Mihinthale area.

Since our Mihinthale trip got shortened it did give us time to plan out our SOS Village visit. We decided that that at first we were going to do an icebreakers activity. We would get into groups with around 7 kids and make them draw posters with their face and things they like. Then the groups would get together until all the posters were glued together to make one big line. We then planned to take some of the books we were donating to the kids and read it aloud to them, however we didn’t end up doing that and just ended up playing for around 2 hours. We played many different things like football, taught the kids how to dance, sang and many more activities. I found this experience very fun and it was very nice to bond with these kids, and I could tell they felt the same way. After our visit we yet again did some reflections and did our reflections for the day.

Day 4

Today was the day that we were leaving Anuradhapura to go to Pidurangala. Because of this we didn’t do a morning ride, but instead had breakfast, packed up and drove to Kalu Diya Pokuna, or the black pond. Here we did some creativity work. I again did photography, but I also did some writing to just try something new. I also had a close call with a monkey, where I had to throw my chocolate bar out of my hand so a monkey wouldn’t snatch it. After our time at the pond we then went to Ritigala, where we had a short hike through some ruins and a forest.

After Ritigala we went to Habarana, had lunch and then headed to Back of Beyond, the place we would be staying for one night at Pidurangala. At Back of Beyond we unpacked, had some downtime and went on a bird-watching walk or went on a bike ride. I went on a bike ride and rode for almost 10km, just up and down a flat straight nice and fast.

After our bike ride we again did our reflections and mosaic work, but also had an amazing barbecue dinner.

Day 5

Today was the final day of our trip. We started early and woke up, packed and went straight out of our hotel and began the climb up Pidurangala. I have been up the hike before and knew what to expect, and it really wasn’t a long or hard hike, and I found climbing up over many rocks very fun. At the top we had a great view all around us, with Sigiriya right in front us.

After spending some time on Pidurangala we hiked back down to our hotel, had our breakfast and then began our long ride back to OSC. We arrived at school at 3:30, and that was the end of this great trip.

Learning Outcomes

During this trip there were many learning outcomes which I found to be present. During our reflection time every day I wrote about the learning outcomes in relation to what we did during the day.

Identify Strengths and Develop Areas for Personal Growth

For this first learning outcome, the strength that I identified was photography. I came into this trip ready to take lots of pictures with photography as my main creativity aspect. I did this as I took many nice pictures during the trip, with my favorites being of the peacock and eagle. I also realize that I found where I can grow in my photography skills, which is to find creative ways to use objects to get some unorthodox pictures. I usually take pictures of animals and objects around me, but I would like to improve my skill of taking different compositions.

Demonstrate to Have Undertaken Challenges

I again definitely fulfilled this learning outcome, by doing sketching and writing as some of my creativity aspects. Drawing really isn’t one of my strong suites, and I realized during this trip that it is actually quite fun and calming. I think my writing skills are stronger than my drawing skills, but still to me is considered as a challenge, and I again developed this skill by writing poems and by doing some writing creative exercises.

Planning and Initiating Activities + Working Collaboratively with Others

I fulfilled this learning outcome by helping to plan out the visit to the SOS village. Together as a group we decided what we were going to do on the trip with the kids, which is how I worked collaboratively with others.Individually we came up with plans on what books we were going to read to the kids.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this Week Without Walls trip. I feel like it was a mix of many different trips all wrapped into one. With the Activity of cycling and hiking, the Creativity of photography, sketching and writing, plus the Service of spending time with the SOS village kids. I also have learned a lot from this Week Without Walls, and am glad to have gone on such a great trip for my last WWW in OSC.