Day 5 and Day 6
We finished clearing the plots. In total, we cleared 33 - 20 with young growths where we had to carefully hoe inbetween the trees and 13 new ones. The ground seems to be getting drier at least in some of the plots, making the work that much harder. Never did I imagine I'd be missing the soft muddy turf of earlier. But we labored on and gladly finished on Saturday.
Day 7
Our reward for our labors was visiting Kataragama as well. However, wanting to make sure we that we didn't go soft in one day, we also decided to ascend the Vedasiti Kanda, a small Buddhist temple on top of a large hill. It was a beautiful hike up the steps, but we were drenched by the end...just like another day in the field. We visited Udawalawa National Park (Yala is closed due to recent LTTE actions). Although smaller, we saw some elephants, including some baby elephants at the Elephant Transit Home, peacocks, boars, deer and some birds, including an eagle. It was a full day.
Day 8
The measuring and planting of our own plots begin.
The measuring and planting of our own plots begin.
