(Josh and I conducting a survey. Pic cred: Mr. Lockwood)

Adventures in Sinharaja for the DP 1 Geography IA

(Note: this post is more of a reflection of an activity outside of general CAS, rather than a conventional CAS post)

Day 1 of the Geography trip constituted first of leaving school after homeroom (sometime around 8:50). The two hour long drive to Sinharaja was not overly exciting, and everyone on the van simply made conversation or listened to music.

After arriving near the Kudawa bus station and packing our luggage into a jeep, we set off on a walk to Martin’s Lodge – the place we would be staying at for the entirety of this trip. The walk was mainly on a paved road, and I did not find it difficult as it was fascinating to look at the overhanging trees and nature around us.

After crossing a shortcut across a stream (in which many of us fell in, myself included) we finally arrived and had a lunch of rice and curry.

(The view from our balcony. Pic cred: the author)

Following some unpacking, we booted up with leech socks and made our way on a 5 minute walk to the gates of the Sinharaja forest.

Once we met up with our guides, the class walked along the pathway whilst observing very interesting species of plants and insects. Eventually, the group decided that we would go and observe the Nawabe Tree.

It was quite a hike to get to where this tree was situated, and along the way it started raining quite heavily. I think that this was a very unique experience, it’s not everyday you hike with your Geography class in a forest while holding an umbrella. I was most surprised that my umbrella made it out in one piece through the thick natural growth – Josh can’t relate!

Once we saw the tree, we made our way to where a pit viper was habiting. After quite a muddy walk to where it was, and many photographs, our group made their own way back to the lodge. One the way the forest started to fog up, a bit scary but majorly cool.

(Thank god I wore leech socks, look at all the leeches! Pic cred: the author)

The rest of the day was spent de-leeching and playing card games.

Day 2 was a survey day, after breakfast and a walk to the Kudawa bus station, we headed off to nearby houses to conduct our IA surveys – consolidated questions in relation to our IA research question.

My group comprised of myself and Josh, I functioned as the translator and wrote the answers to the survey on paper – while Josh noted it down on Survey123.

All the people that we met we extremely nice, although we did meet some that were a bit hesitant to answer questions for fear of distributing information’but several people even offered us tea and homemade jaggery! I believe that Josh and I were able to accumulate some very valuable information toward our IA. The two of us shared giving out the OSC water bottles as gifts to the people we surveyed.

(Josh and I saw that one of the people we surveyed had an OSC shirt, a gift from a previous IA survey. Pic cred: the author)

After concluding the surveying for the day at around 1:30, we had lunch at Martin’s daughters house and headed back to the lodge on a jeep. When we arrived back there, everyone had fun swimming in the stream that we had previously fallen into. The water was absolutely freezing, and fishes bit us from everywhere, but I think that this was one of my most favourite parts of the trip!

In the evening, Mr. Lockwood had planned a frogwalk to find a pit viper, yet this was delayed due to a storm. Once the storm had calmed down a bit, we walked around looking for interesting creatures, up to a research center.

Once we got back we all rested while playing some card games. That was it for Day 2.

Learning outcomes:

• LO2 – Challenge and skills
  • I think that talking to the people we surveyed in only Sinhala was rather challenging for me, as generally at home I would codeswitch in a mix of Sinhala and English. As a result of this, sometimes it was difficult to perfectly convey what I wanted to ask the people.
  • Yet, with the help of our guide, I was able to clarify myself and give myself a refresher on some of the bigger Sinhala words – and even learn a few more along the way!

• LO4 – Working collaboratively with others
  • This trip was definitely a primarily collaborative one, and the IA surveying work that we conducted were highly dependent on working together with the team member(s) that you were assigned to.
  • I believe that Josh and I demonstrated this learning outcome very well, the two of us would accumulate answers from the people we were surveying concurrently, and had a steady stream of communication over what we must do.
  • Another exhibition of this learning outcome was whenever alert each other and work together to prevent leeches!

• LO6 – Global engagement
  • The questions that we asked in particular were in relation to the economic and political crisis that is occurring in Sri Lanka currently. Therefore, I think that interacting with the public and asking about their perspective on it really allowed me to observe the general publics reaction to it.
  • I think this definitely allowed me to engage with the issue on a national scale.