After
a great retreat at Grand Canyon we all came back to Phoenix and some of the
fellows flew to West coast to continue their travels. I and few fellows had to
stay one more night in Phoenix as flights to East Coast had got cancelled due
to hurricane Sandy. Finally I arrived to Washington DC on the 31st
of October. Next day was the day to meet Robyn Dalzen and Julie Jackson at
Conservation leadership programme (CLP) based at Conservation International.
They have arrange a lunch time talk for me and was the time to say thank you to
CLP for helping me to come this far starting in 1997 with Sinharaja 97’ (was an
expedition with 4 Cambridge students and two Sri Lankan counterparts near Sinharaja
forest in Sri Lanka).
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| Lunch time talk at Conservation International |
Next
day I had some free time to visit Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and also
Native American museum. I have visited Native American Museum when I came to DC
in 2005 for Environmental Leadership programme conducted by Smithsonian
Institute. So I always wanted to come back as it was such a living place with
rich art and culture of Native Americans or “Amerindians” as they call.
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| Smithsonian Museum for Amerindians |
I had
a great privilege to visit “Climate reality project” initiated by former vice
President Al Gore. He was my one and only favorite politician in USA since I
started studying and talking about Climate Change issues. I could not meet him
but I met his Programme officer Kevin Curtis. It was such a wonderful meeting
where I was invited to be a panelist for their upcoming 24 hour Reality
programme on the 14th and 15th of November. Unfortunately
I could not get permission from Eisenhower programme as they have a mandatory
session for us in Philadelphia. Anyway now I am invited to participate the
final session of 24 hour Climate Reality on the 15th of November
where Vice president Al Gore will be speaking. So it will be an exciting event!
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| Kevin Curtis at Climate reality Project in front of Mr. Gore's office |
My next
travel destination was New York. Due to unpredictable weather conditions and
still New York airports have not started their normal routings I was advised to
take the train and it was a nice train journey which gave me more reflection time
on this leadership programme.
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| Time Square! |
Staying
at the Millennium Broadway Hotel at Time Square New York was a very different
experience for me. So many people, Neon lights, busy streets, crazy taxi
drivers really confirmed me I am in New York! I had a very good time during my
B’day weekend in New York and it was a very personal time with my aunt and
cousins and no official meetings!
Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS) at Brox Zoo was my next destination. WCS is also a
partner of CLP programme so meeting Christina Imrich for the second time was a
very happy moment. She has arranged me few meetings and also a lunch time talk
for staff at WCS. I had a great day at New York Botanical Garden on the 6th
November which was the USA Election Day. Learning about urban gardening, and
how it can be used for conservation education was very interesting. The
election night was full of fun and activities when I came back. Spending time
at Rockefeller center and Time Square gave me some insight to US election
culture.
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| Election day in New York! |
Next day was again traveling but had 2 very successful meeting at
prospect Park Zoo and with an Eisenhower alumnus Paul DiPerna. Then Saliya
Peiris and I travelled to Boston by train. It was snowing again in New York
when we started traveling.
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| With active conservation educators at Prospect park Zoo |
Eisenhower
un-conference was the conference organized by New England Eisenhower fellows
and it was a very nice and friendly event where I met many alumni and got
experience about “Open Space”. Night was full of food and music at State House
in Boston.
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| In the process of "Open Space" |
After
a day again…travelling… but this time across USA to San Francisco from Boston.
Six hours….what am I going to do???
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