On Monday, 3 of us went to the pre-school at Gandarawatte, which is last year’s adopted village. The first thing that struck us was the idyllic views the pre-school had from the top of the hill. When we arrived at 8.30am we were greeted by the ever friendly villlage monk wh furnished us with a curry breakfast!The first part of the morning was spent teaching some traditional English nursery rhymes. It really was amazing how quickly 3 and 4 year olds could pick up new English songs. The children then tried to teach us Sri Lankan songs but with limited success. We were beginning to feel slightly embarrassed by our terrible Sinhala language skills so are manically trying to learn the phrase book by heart.

Once our voices had gone hoarse, the monk invited us for Round 2 of the food sitting. This time we were swamped with tea, biscuits and more bananas. We then returned to the class and taught the children how to make butterflies by drawing round hands. This went down well and helped improve the class’s grasp of basic English.

The morning flew by and before we knew it we had been invited in by the monk for the 3rd and final time for a “spot” of lunch. At this point we did not realise it was physically possible for 3 girls to consume such vast quantities of food without exploding. A rice and curry round commenced, followed by curd and syrup and ending with the infamous bananas. We really were treated like royalty. The monk even showed us some Buddhist culture books and we got a great insight into the Buddhist way of life. Speaking to the monk left us in no doubt the amazing impact Project Sri Lanka has had in the community.