(Feature Photo Credit: Mr Lockwood)

From the 16th – 19th April, the geography class went to Sinharaja, where we will be getting data for our IA. This trip was supposed to be done in Arpil, but due to SAISA, this trip had to be postponed to May.

Day 1

After a long drive and a stop to the shops, we finally made it to Sinharaja. Since this was our first day, we spent the time exploring around the forest and finding some species which we’ll need to remember the names to.

This was so nice to see because it gives you an overview on what species are in different parts of Sri Lanka.

After a long day of exploring the area and walking around, we had our first interview with Chandralatha, who the granddaughter of Martin Wijeysinghe (who is the owner of Martin’s Lodge). This was good because it gives us an introduction on what the next 2 days will be like for us.

Day 2 + 3

These 2 days were spent by us splitting into 3 different pairs to get our survey answered. My partner for this was Lara and Ms. Sen was the teacher who chaperoned us. We walked around the town to find different people to interview and have our data for our IA.

One challenge I remember was on the second day, we ran out of bags to gift as we only had coloring books and pencils, which meant that we could only interviewed people who had children. Gifts are important because everyone would be expecting a gift after they were done being interviewed by us. Luckily, we had enough gifts for everyone on the the third day.

One strength I achieved during these 2 days was better Sinhala understanding skills. Being someone who lived in a foreign country longer than Sri Lanka and who was surrounded by English speakers my entire life, it was hard for me to adapt to speaking Sinhala. I managed to be better at speaking and got to asked a few questions to the people.

Day 4 

Since we were done with our survey, we hiked a mountain. Moulawella Peak to be exact. One thing I remember was the memories of the Highlands Week Without Walls I was in last year and how I could use my old skills to make it through this hike.

Mr Lockwood also motivated me by using his “mountain is like life” metaphor. How climbing up symbolizes struggle and pain, but you get to feel relieved when you reach the top, so you feel more relaxed when you climb down.

Last of Mr Lockwood’s Trip

This was very informative for us as we got to see how different people would answer to our surveys and how we can add this data onto our IAs.

With this, I can answer my research question, which is “To what extent does affluence affect the waste management in the Kudawa study area ?”. I use the answers on the ‘Primary Method of Solid Waste Disposal’ question for waste management and the answers on ‘Electrical Appliances at Home’ question for affluence.