18 March 2024 - 27 March 2024 (week 2,3)

Ayubowan!

In the last blog I wrote about our meeting with the Head of the Curative Health Department in Sri Lanka, who granted us permission to work on Project SERPENT. This week I will tell you all about our time in the field in one of the most remote areas of Sri Lanka, Mannar Island.

The drive from Colombo to Mannar is a huge undertaking but one worth the while. According to Google Maps the drive is a total of 6 hours and 30 minutes. In reality, however, the journey can easily take up to 8 hours, which was the case for us. The reason for this is the poor conditions of the roads. In the entire country there are only a few Expressways, unfortunately for us, the Expressway merely covered 2 hours of the drive. The rest of the journey we had to drive over dirt roads and even through national parks. Which does make up for an exciting adventure. 

There were a couple reasons that brought us to Mannar Island. The first reason being, local NGO Bridging Lanka (Ltd). Bridging Lanka started a holistic preschool in collaboration with The Husk Organization and Little Leaders Foundation. The preschool teachers of Little Trees Nurtury will be participating in our project. Secondly, Sri Lanka has 6 species of highly venomous land snakes, therefore considered as medically important snakes. All of these 6 species can be found in Mannar, which makes it the perfect place to conduct our field research.

Throughout our time in Mannar we worked hard on finishing the pre-test that would be taken by the preschool teachers on our last day in Mannar. The pre-test consists of 20 multiple choice questions that are based on information from both literature study and conversations we had with locals. The goal of the pre-test is not to grade the teachers but rather learn what knowledge they already have, and what knowledge they lack about prevention and first aid. Additionally we prepared a topic list for a focus group with the preschool teachers to learn about how they acquired this knowledge.

Besides all the work we also got to spend a lot of time exploring the beautiful nature this island has to offer. We also fell in love with the local cuisine and tried a lot of foods that we otherwise would never have eaten. Such as the roots of the Palmyrah Tree, fresh out of the ground. The most precious memories, however, were made together with the family we were staying with. From teaching the kids how to swim, to playing volleyball together, and tending the donkeys together.

Nanri (Tamil: நன்றி)

p.s. The guest family we stayed with are the owners of the Donkey Clinic and Education Center in Mannar Island!