Habananarama
South from Anuradhapura
Thursday 6 Jan 11 - Thursday 6 Jan 11
25 °C
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I’m sitting in the beautiful Cinnamon Lodge in Habarana, just outside Dambulla, having just come back from the largest buffet I’ve ever seen. Nondescripts are playing SSC on the telly in a tight match and I’m just about ready for a good sleep.
We left the hotel this morning just after 11 (the scheduled departure time was 10.30), having packed our bags into the truck and set off for a girls’ orphanage just outside of the town. It was pretty bare – eighteen beds for the residents, a couple of tables and chairs, few working lights, few mosquito nets and no ceiling fans – and I think at least one younger kid was very distressed to learn that people lived like this.
A mini-clinic was run, with the paediatricians seeing most of the kids and the GPs seeing a couple of the older ones, who were mostly developmentally delayed. The pharmacy was just about free of customers so I ran a few odd jobs before making up a huge order of worming medication. Dad went into the main strip and bought a pile of mozzie nets for all the beds, which were installed in front of our eyes, so that was some real difference we could make immediately, and Liam’s photo printing centre was very popular.
The clothes and toys that we brought were also popular, and unlike at the clinics, we could see here that these kids could really use them and also saw that they didn’t come back for a second go!
Rosie and Liam at Happy Home orphanage
Dr Tracey at Happy Home orphanage
We got back in the bus and went from extreme poverty to extreme luxury in the blink of an eye. Cinnamon Lodge is a huge hotel with a great pool that has a view over the lake and very nicely furnished rooms. It didn’t take us long to get in the pool ourselves, where we saw Fairlie and Dennis for the first time in Sri Lanka; they’d come from Colombo this morning. It soon started raining and some of the group went elephant spotting (they were successful, seeing one elephant and a calf), while the rest of us retired to our rooms before dinner.
And as mentioned, the dinner was delicious and plentiful, with six or seven chefs making various dishes in front of your eyes and, just as an indication of the size, a dedicated dessert room and nearly ten varieties of bread. Quite a contrast from the morning’s activities.
Back to our rooms and off to bed before Sigiriya tomorrow.
Posted by sammyhez Thursday 6 Jan 11 21:48 Archived in Sri Lanka Tagged sri_lankaanuradhapuraauslmathabarana
