This week the preschool teacher left us in charge for two days while she was away on training. We were pleasantly surprised by the unchaotic nature of these sessions. The children made beautiful sock puppets and palm tree collages and danced enthusiastically to a variety of English songs.We met for a couple of English lessons with some of the people who we taught last year. We were pleased that they remembered so much and one of the ladies enthused about having been able to help her daughter with her English homework.After a village meeting on Thursday it transpired that some of the women wanted to have involvement in our activities, and we arranged to meet regularly with two different groups. On Friday we had the first of these sessions, and were surprised to find that they wanted to play games. We are keeping an open mind about what the second group will want to do on Wednesday! A parents’ society was also set up at the meeting and this will support the after-school club and other events for children. They are also going to arrange for greater access to the resources in the community centre.There were only three sessions of after-school club this week due to two village meetings but there is a plan in place for next week’s activities. We are working on increasing participation of all children and counteracting the tendency for sessions to be dominated by some of the more boisterous older boys.On Sunday we had the pleasure of attending the opening ceremony of the new pre-school at Gandarawatte with the fifteen Durham students who will be working there. They were welcomed with flowers, dancing, and singing, and the students were invited to light candles in the new building.It is hard to believe that we are already half way through our stay in Pelena and the next few weeks look set to be even busier than the first.