There’s no internet up here anywhere, so I can write these entries for the blog, but I can’t post them. Day 8 & 9 were spent mostly driving in the Up country. All the tea plants are on what they call here as Estates. Each estate owns land and grows tea on it. Each estate has villages that the workers live in on the estate. All the tea, and it’s a lot, is hand picked. The areas are picked once a week because they only take the tips of the tea “bush”…that’s really what it is, a bush, are picked. It’s really hard to fathom hand picking all the tea bushes that we’ve seen, even harder to fathom is how steep and high these hills are and the back breaking work these people do. I’ve been told that they used to make 100 rupees a day and they have to fill their bags with 20kg’s of tea. Now they get around 400 rupees a day. But lets consider what they’re doing and then consider that roughly 100 rupees is 1 dollar. Actually 1 US dollar right now is worth 113 rupees. So this work is being done for $4 a day. This should makes you appreciate the next cup on tea you drink.
Day 8 was spent going to a small congregation on one of these estates in Rapahanock. The plan is to build a church for the members on a piece of land that the estate has given the church. Considering the road we came in on I honestly can’t imagine how they’ll get building materials up there. The church that they are in now in is basically…..a shed. It’s maybe 16 x 16, made of anything that they could get their hands on. It was a little stuffy for the 30 or so people but it was an interesting experience to say the least. We drive back to the hotel was interesting because the roads that were scary and treacherous in the daylight were more so in the dark. At least a consolation was that you couldn’t see how far down you’d crash to your death…..
Day 9 was off to another estate area close to Upcot, Village. This area, that is above 5000ft, is considered where the high tea is grown. We were at about 2400 meters or about 8000ft. Again the church is located on a tea estate and it was the first church building that they we had in Sri Lanka. The most interesting thing is that there is no road that goes right up to the church, so we parked in a field and had to walk thru the tea plants to get to the place. I’ve never done that before.
We also were able to drop off some medical supplies to a local hospital in the area. They appreciate any help we can give them. We spent a couple hours with the members and then headed out to our 4th hotel in 4 nights. This place was on the side of a pretty large hill and it over looked a lake. Quite a beautiful view surrounded by tea.
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