It took the group a while to settle in due to jet lag but the first 2 days in Colombo were definitely an experience new to us all. The work the Sarvodaya organisation do is amazing and we were honoured by the friendliness and appreciation! We were shown around the orphanage for needy and unwanted babies and teenage mums help centre- most of the girls were rape victims (some were 11). It was so sad, especially to meet a girl who had been burnt by her father. It really hit home how lucky we are in our society. But the girls and children were so happy to see us. The journey to the Uni was beautiful and the change from the sights of Colombo to the countryside were so different! We briefly stopped at the gem museum at Ratnapura.We were warmly welcomed to the University. Both the people and the views are amazing!!! There are green mountains everywhere you look. On arrival we dived straight into the swimming pool to cool off and managed to involve some of the students in a great game of water polo!

We went to the village yesterday and word’s just can’t describe how amazing it was! The journey is up a very steep, windy hill so I’m sure the local bus journey will be an experience! The village where we are working is more of the village centre for all the local people around the area so we were shown the school and community centre (built by Durham previously!) It was just amazing! The people gave us flowers and Garlands when we arrived and the children sang a song for us. Everyone was just so happy to see us! We had a good laugh with the locals as they showed us their vegetables and bee hives. Some of them are quite good at English but they are really eager to learn more!

Another unforgettable experience was the lizard found in Laura’s bed! It took a great team effort to remove it and put it outside-an exciting end to the day!

We had a meeting with the Vice Chancellor and PE department this morning as well as being given a tour around the sports facilities. We are excited to start our programme!

Thursday afternoon saw the start of our coaching. Cricket, badminton, swimming and basketball were all being taught and the session showed us that there were a number of talented athletes at the university who were enthusiastic to learn new skills, techniques and tactics.

On Friday the full programme started with a 7.30am fitness session followed by some more sports coaching with two members of the group teaching a sport. We introduced the students and staff to the concept of circuit training; doing a number of different activities for two minutes each, moving around in a circuit from one to the other. They loved the practice and want to do more of these sessions! The sport coaching was again successful. The group returned to our bungalow at around 9pm for a pub quiz which proved extremely entertaining; Question- What bank of the Thames is the City of London on? AJ: “What, do you mean like left or right?” !!!!!!

Saturday was our first ‘chill’ day which was needed after our busy week. A nice lie in and then an afternoon by the pool with some of the university students was just what the doctor ordered!

All refreshed after our day off we visited World’s End on Sunday. We were told that the journey would only take about 45 minutes but this was a huge underestimate! We left the bungalow at 7.30 and about 30 minutes into our journey the mini bus broke down! So as we waited for a replacement from the University on of our guides took us into the forest to a beautiful waterfall. After some great photo opportunities and relaxation time we headed back to the bus, but not before one of the guides spotted an extremely poisonous viper snake slithering through the straps of Louisa’s bag! It was just where we had been walking and standing so we were lucky not to have disturbed it previously! It’s a good job it was spotted otherwise we would have had a new friend on the bus with us!!

We continued on with our journey which took a further 2 hours! We stopped for tea at the driver’s house half way up the mountain which was a nice break. We were given tea and biscuits; the Sri Lankan tea is so lovely, very sweet and much nicer than English tea in our opinion! They don’t drink it with milk either. We drove up the mountain through forests where a number of the trees looked to have been burnt on the trunk. We thought it was probably due to a forest fire, but on the journey back to the university we saw the more likely source; there were a large number of trees on fire in the shape of a V. Our guide said that it is hunters trying to catch animals. They work in the shape of a triangle, setting the two sides on fire so that the animals are trapped between them and then the hunters walk up from the bottom of the triangle. The government is trying to stop this form of hunting but it does not seem like they are having much of an impact.
We arrived at Horton’s Plain (the name of the national park where World’s End is based) at around lunch time, and whilst eating lunch we had a visit from a very tame Elk who had smelt our food! She ate out of the palm of our hands!!

Setting off on our 9.5km walk we could see how beautiful the area was. As we walked along the path there were information points telling us about the surrounding jungle and the animals which included Purple Faced Monkeys and Leopards, although it is apparently very rare to see a Leopard. We first reached ‘Mini World’s End’ which provided views out over the hills below us. This gave us even more spectacular photo opportunities- I’m sure family and friends will be bored by the millions of photos we took! We then walked further up the mountain to ‘Big World’s End’ and more photos just had to be taken!! Again beautiful views and the drop at the edge of the path that we were walking on was terrifying but at the same time fascinating!!

The final stretch of our walk brought us to ‘Baker’s Fall’, a beautiful waterfall which we could walk right up to. The spray coming off it was extremely refreshing!! More photos for those whose cameras hadn’t run out of battery (!!!!) and then we set off on our final stretch of the walk.

After completing it there was a sense of achievement and a feeling of amazement at the beauty of the place. We quickly visited the museum which had an elephant skull and bones in it. Next to it there was a story about a British man who had come to Sri Lanka during the 20th century and killed around 1400 Elephants. He was one day struck down by lightening and killed, which locals believe was an act of punishment from the Gods. His gravestone has since been struck by lightening twice which is again believed to be a warning from the Gods to others.

A quiet trip back to the university as we all slept briefly, and an early night!! A great time to reflect on the brilliant day we had had!!

By AJ and Laura!!