{"id":1094,"date":"2012-04-10T10:58:48","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T00:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2017-11-05T08:03:45","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T08:03:45","slug":"research-for-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/countries\/asia\/sri-lanka\/1094","title":{"rendered":"Research for Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m feeling nervous and excited today. In a few more hours I’ll be on a plane to Sri Lanka<\/a> for 6 weeks of volunteer work<\/a>. I’ve done very little in the way of research on the country since a school project in 5th grade (1982) and I had even forgotten what the flag looked like.<\/p>\n

I prefer not knowing much about my destination when I travel so I don’t have any expectations. Even a wonderful place can be disappointing if it isn’t quite what we imagine. This effect is similar to the second noble truth of Buddhism which states that desire is the root of all suffering. John Powers<\/a> explains this as ‘we want things to be different from what they are, and as a result we are disappointed.’<\/p>\n

I do feel, however, that it is important to respect your hosts when travelling so I always try to learn a few words<\/a> of the local language before I arrive – even if the locals mostly speak English. Apparently ‘hello’ in Sinhala is ‘ayubuvan<\/em>‘, though they also say ‘halo<\/em>‘, and ‘thank you’ is ‘istuti<\/em>.’<\/p>\n

I have also checked the safety rating<\/a> of Sri Lanka. Normally I’m not worried by these ratings, and find that because I tend to stick to one neighbourhood, danger is minimal. However, my parents recently had to deal with fear for my brother when he decided to backpack into Afghanistan and I don’t think they would forgive me for making them live through that again. So, I have discovered that the kidnappings and other problems of recent times are located in the north while I’ll be living in Wadduwa in the south. Nothing to worry about.<\/p>\n

I’ll spend my days teaching kids how to use computers. Beyond that I know little, but I’m looking forward to being part of their lives over the next 6 weeks, and of course I’ll be sharing my experiences here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m feeling nervous and excited today. In a few more hours I’ll be on a plane to Sri Lanka for 6 weeks of volunteer work. I’ve done very little in the way of research on the country since a school project in 5th grade (1982) and I had even forgotten what the flag looked like.… Continue reading Research for Sri Lanka<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[114],"tags":[115,116],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1722,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions\/1722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}