This is part I of my 3-month journey in Sri Lanka, as a volunteer for WECare Worldwide.
Arriving in Colombo, I was immediately thrust into an alien world.
Landing on a late evening flight, I opted to stay the night in the city rather than risk a multi-hour journey south. This decision, born of caution, proved wise. I later heard a horror story from a fellow volunteer who was extorted for $10 for a mere bottle of water by an unscrupulous driver. Such brazen exploitation was my first taste of how unprepared I was for the local norms.
My sleep was punctuated by a symphony of barks and howls. It was a stark reminder of the unfamiliar territory I had entered. As dawn broke, I slipped out of the hostel, treading carefully to avoid both disturbing other guests and alerting the relentless tuk-tuk drivers. But it was the omnipresence of street dogs that drove home how far I was from my comfort zone. Their curious stares followed me as I hurried towards the train station, my foreignness apparently as evident to them as theirs was to me. When one began to stroll alongside me, I felt an odd mix of comfort and unease. Though I knew no one in this bustling city, I was never truly alone — there was always a street dog in sight, a constant reminder of the strange new world I had stepped into.
The train journey south continued to challenge my preconceptions. Crammed into second class, I stood for hours, surrounded by a sea of unfamiliar faces and customs. Unable to shake off my deeply rooted suspicions, my ingrained wariness clashed with the local culture of mutual assistance as I found myself reflexively declining offers to hold my bags.
Four grueling hours later, I arrived in Matara — only the 14th-largest city in Sri Lanka, a fact that underscored how far off the beaten path I had ventured. But my journey wasn’t over yet. WECare Worldwide, the vet hospital focusing on street animal healthcare that I would work with, lay another 10 kilometer away in a small fishing village.
There were no food deliveries, no quaint cafes. Only monkeys and intermittent power outages. I later learned that the hospital staff would take a bus to Colombo for a “night in”: staying in an air-conditioned room, enjoying unlimited WiFi watching TV. These revelations trickled in over my first week. They served as constant reminders of how my world had shifted, leaving me feeling increasingly untethered from the comforts and conveniences I had taken for granted.
This magnitude of the transition I was undertaking hadn’t registered when I applied to be a volunteer animal care assistant with WECare. I wanted to see dog welfare from a different perspective, having been a volunteer with a dog rescue in Korea for three years. “There are an estimated three million street dogs in Sri Lanka, lacking even the most basic veterinary care. As vets, we find that unacceptable,” WECare’s website said. The concept had appealed to my idealism, and I had applauded their passion. But deep down, I questioned the viability. There was only one way to find out how this all works.
The familiarity of Uber in the city — only the city — provided a final, fleeting connection to my comfort zone. As the car finally pulled into Gandara, a street dog welcomed me. Naturally. Ingrid, a resident of our homestay complex, wagged her tail and sniffed me with great interest.
Over the first week, as Ingrid and I grew closer, I found myself grappling with conflicting emotions. Her frequent visits for affection and her occasional self-invitations into my living room provided a semblance of normalcy. Yet, the irregular and infrequent feeding by residents highlighted the vastly different human-animal dynamics at play here. Ingrid’s red collar, signifying her status as a WECare dog — vaccinated, neutered, and entitled to lifelong vet care — marked her as one of the lucky ones.
But even Ingrid’s “lucky” status couldn’t shield her — or me — from the harsh realities of street dog life. It was easy to enjoy her company whenever I stroll down the street. But I watched with growing unease as she scavenged for scraps, heedlessly crossed dangerous roads, and ventured into rival territories. Her occasional return with significant wounds from dog fights drove home the brutal nature of her existence. This was a far cry from the controlled environments of the dog shelters I was accustomed to, and it left me feeling out of my depth.
In Gandara, street dogs were ubiquitous. Each short stretch of road hosted its own resident canine, sometimes three. A simple stroll became an exercise in sensory overload. Here is Blacky. There is Rosy. They roamed freely, played with each other. Some — not all — wagged their tails in hope of brief human interactions. A few lived out a more tragic lifestyle, competing fiercely with monkeys for discarded curries, or hobbling on three legs, even if they were never deterred by their injuries.
The rules of engagement with these animals were entirely foreign to me. My ingrained instinct to shower every dog with affection clashed with local customs. I found myself under the concerned gaze of locals, as we volunteers showed affection to the street dogs. The locals were often left puzzled: most people, turned off by the dogs’ filthy appearance or the fear of rabies, choose not to interact. Coexistence, much less companion.
I found myself torn. I always wanted to love every dog I encountered. The potential consequences of my actions — dogs becoming attached, following us, risking accidents or territorial fights — forced me to reconsider every interaction. At least one dog had already become so attached to a WECare volunteer that shooing her away felt impossible.
With each passing day, I was reminded that I had stepped into a different realm. This new world — where dogs and humans maintained a careful distance and engaged in a nuanced manner — left me feeling like an outsider.
This is part I of my 3-month journey in Sri Lanka, as a volunteer for WECare Worldwide.