Wednesday 12/17/14 only ten days left :(

After work and lunch today, Felicia (another volunteer in my same hospital) and I met up with one of the nurses that we have gotten really close with. She has been saying for weeks that she wants us to come see where she lived and meet her 2 year old daughter. We didn't think much of the friendly banter until Friday of last week when she wanted to schedule a time. She picked us up in a tuk tuk and brought us about 10 minutes from the hospital to her home. She lived in a different part of Panadura than we had been shown. The neighborhood that we live in is right off the main road, close to all of the placements. Her house was further into Panadura and each home had a lot of land and gardens and shrubbery. It was very pretty. There was more wild life, a million different types of trees and plants. Her house was really cool because you went downhill on a longer than normal drive way to an opening in the shrubbery to her house. She lived with her whole family (parents, husband, daughter, house keeper). Her father and her were so excited to show us their land. Her father, who didn't speak much of any English, would start explaining and telling all these facts about the trees and garden area and our friend would have to translate. It was really nice to see how excited they were and how passionate they were on their way of life. The nurse's mother had prepared some pancake type dish with coconut on the inside, it was delicious. We tried a new kind of tea with ginger in it and it was equally as amazing. and the entire time that we were chatting and listening and eating, the nurse's 2 year old daughter was running around and speaking to us in Sinhala and so excited to have us there. She kept telling her mom and the grandparents to leave the room so that she could hang out with us alone. It was very fun. The little girl also wanted to show us "the bridge," so we took an extra little trip to a bridge that had been built about 4 year ago over a very pretty river. Apparently, before the bridge was there, there used to be a man with a boat and a rope that extended from one side of the river to the other. You would get in his boat (and pay obviously) and he would pull along the rope to bring you to the other side. So, the development of the bridge was a big deal. When Felicia and I got back into town, we went out and brainstormed little gifts that we could get for the little girl and the nurse as a thank you. It really was a generous day on her part and we really enjoyed it.