District Welcome Home Dinner - 15 March

The team was reunited this evening for an casual dinner sponsored by District 7630 and it was great to see everyone again.

Rotarians from around the district showed up to enjoy traditional American food with the team and to hear about our wondrous adventures! The team fielded questions for over an hour - it was a lot of fun to recount our journey. The questions were varied and touched on topics relating to religion, culture, business, economics, industry, Rotary club meetings, Rotary community projects, the educational system, the civil conflict, and of course elephants.

Due to a bit of a misunderstanding about who would provide the projector we were unable to show photos of our trip. In the coming days I will post photos online and provide links to them on this blog. 

For those who didnt' get to see the elephant video or really want to see it again, here is a link to the elephant charge video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScvWDaWsxEA

Since my return home - this evening included - I've gotten a lot of questions about the civil conflict and my brief but rather direct experience with it. So here's my story:  Lynsey and I were staying in Colombo with the Jafferjee family. It was Friday night around 9:00. We were getting ready to go out when suddenly the power went out. We didn't think much about it, actually we were a bit disappointed because we were without AC and it was darn hot. Not long into the outage we heard what sounded like gunshots, then heard and felt an explosion. After our stomachs flipped back around to their normal position, curiosity took us to the second floor porch where we saw anti aircraft fire in the sky. Periodically we heard gunshots, but for the most part we only saw red tracer fire crossing the night sky. It was so hot inside that Lynsey and I decided to brave the mosquitos as well as the unknown and sit out on the porch and watch the military fireworks. Within an hour or two all was quiet and power restored. Traffic was back on the streets and life in Colombo pretty much returned to normal. We immediately turned on CNN to try to find out what happened. I have since located the following links to articles with photos and videos which tell the story more accurately than I can:  Javno, Townhall.com, Reuters, IBN Live, and Truveo. This page puts faces to the two LTTE pilots - Tamilnet.com.

Gala Beach Fiesta - 21 February

Saturday night's conference function was a big beach party. Here the team is pictured with the RI President's Representative PDG Aziz Memon (Pakistan) and his wife Samina. The party went on with dancing and fellowship through midnight and then relocated to a night club until 3:30am. It wasn't much fun getting up the next morning but we were all on our game for the presentation. I spent the afternoon cramming all my stuff in my luggage as I packed for the trip home. Sunday evening we had dinner at the Galle Face Hotel with the Sri Lanka Foundation Alumni where we had one last opportunity to socialize and relive our fond memories with our hosts. 

The Dream Summit -21 & 22 February

The Dream Summit is District 3220's 18th District Conference. It is well attended with over 700 participating on Saturday. Our presentation is on Sunday and we're looking forward to the opportunity to thank our hosts and share images of our exchange experience.

DG Nalin Fernando gives his "State of Rotary in Sri Lanka" address at the opening conference session.

Last Stop - 20 February

My Mid Town Hosts - The Jafferjee Family

My Regency Hosts - The Fernando Family

Today we shifted host clubs for the last time. Its astonishing how quickly the trip time has passed. Our new host club is the Rotary Club of Colombo Mid Town, the home club to IPDG Thariq Thulba and DGN Imthiaz Ismail. Our new host club has nothing scheduled for us to do except shop and eat. Oh yeah, we have that little thing called the District Conference to go to as well. It's with mixed feelings that I anticipate the arrival of the District Conference - I'm excited to experience another district's conference, I'm sad because the conference pretty much marks the end of our trip, but I'm happy to see again all the friends I've made as I've traveled from club to club.

MAS Intimates Unichela - 19 February

The garment industry is the second largest revenue producer for Sri Lanka so our program would not be complete without a visit to a garment factory. MAS Intimates Unichela is located in Panadura, a town about a 45 minute drive south of Colombo. This factory primarily makes bras. They will make any type of bra for any type of function - from intimate to sport - for well-known brands such as Victoria's Secret, Nike, Amante', Adidas, and others. They will also make matching pieces to bras such as panties for intimates and shorts for sport. We all had to giggle when the operations manager told us the garments get really raunchy during the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day!

The factory focuses on lean manufacturing techniques and they are always searching for ways to minimize the amount of work and time required to sew a product. It takes on average 12 minutes to sew one bra. The factory was impressive in its technology, size, scope, and most importantly, ethics. A good place to work, the factory is clean and safe, it provides transportation for its employees, and two meals per day in addition to weekly pay. 

Rotary Club of Colombo Regency - 19 February

This morning Rotarians from the Colombo Regency Club took us to one of their vocational projects at the Dudley Senanayake College, a public school in Colombo. The Rotary club was providing vocational counseling to eighty 10th grade students at the school. Primary grades in Sri Lanka are 1 through 9, secondary 10 through 12. After grade 10 or 11 students can quit school but their career options are more limited than if they complete grade 12. The program provides for a counselor from the Vocational Training Authority to explain career options available to students as they complete each school grade with the primary goal of encouraging students to stay on through the end of year 12. In the picture above the student is completing a personal evaluation form to help him align his personal interests with career opportunities. Regency Rotarians explained that it is a real challenge to find schools to participate in this program. Schools have a tight schedule to complete the required syllabus and often can't make time for training even this valuable. It was quite an accomplishment to get this school's administration to donate four periods of classroom time for today's vocational counseling.

On the Road Again ... Back to Colombo - 18 February

How cool is this banner?

Well, we hit the road again. We've just about come full circle. We're back in Colombo for the final leg of our journey. It's been fun being out of Colombo - or outstation as folks who live in Colombo would say. Sri Lanka really is a beautiful country and it is full of variety. You can drive for two hours and find yourself in a completely different landscape with a completely different climate surrounded by completely different people. What is consistent though is the hospitality. All of our hosts have been very friendly, very professional and have really gone out of their way to make us feel welcome. It's been great and I fear I am getting spoiled.

Later this afternoon we will shift hosts to the Rotary Club of Colombo Regency. Until then we've been relaxing at Jayantha and Asanthi's home in Colombo. I was able to spend some time talking with Jayantha about his club's (RC Wariyapola) Milking Cow Project. I really like this project because it's all about giving folks a hand up, not a handout. A milking cow costs about 75K-80K rupees. Jayantha's Samakaroon Foundation accepts applications from families to receive a cow. The Foundation screens the applications and the Rotary club extensively interviews the family to ensure their suitability to the program. Upon selection the family is provided a female calf by the Samakaroon Foundation. The family is expected to raise and care for the calf and is allowed full use of the cow's milk production either for their personal use or to sell for profit or both. The majority of folks in Sri Lanka use powdered milk and more than 85% of what they use is imported. A healthy cow will produce 15 to 20 liters of milk per day and at 40Rs per liter there is real opportunity to make money selling fresh milk. The family is also expected to pay for an insurance policy on the animal; which costs the owner about 2,000Rs per year. The other great thing about this project is that it is self perpetuating. Besides producing milk a cow can produce offspring and the family is expected to return a female calf to the Foundation within 3 years. How do they do that? Well, within the Wariyapola Rotary Club there is a veterinary surgeon and a livestock development officer and it's their job to artificially inseminate the cow. They are not so talented that they can guarantee female offspring but that's one of the reasons the family is given three years to return a female calf. This project really demonstrates the essence of Rotary - Rotarians use their resources, their talents, and their expertise to help the less fortunate build a foundation upon which they can prosper.