Today, Laura S, Emma, Andy and Franky were stationed at the university. At 7:30am they started the fitness programme, this included coaching the students dodgeball and ultimate frisbee. After the fitness programme the group divided. Andy and Franky took the boys for a cricket session, whilst Laura and Emma coached the girls long jump. After a short break Dr. Ranweera requested that the group take the pre-school children for a swimming lesson. This lesson was taught in the little children’s pool on the university campus and Dr. Ranaweera also took part. On returning after lunch the team found that the garden was on fire. A neighbour had lit a fire in his back garden at the hottest time of the day and had simply left it to burn. Needless to say he found it very funny; however, the Durham students soon had the fire extinguished and went back to their much needed lunch break.

The other four students, Sam, Laura B, Emma and I all visited the village of Ihalagalagama. Our initial task was to entertain the pre-school pupils. We put our reading and colouring-in skills to the test and even managed to complete a few pictures in the lines. With one hour to go we decided to introduce some sports, I took two of the boys and played football with them and AJ played catch with two of the girls. Having bought some small-scale badminton equipment with us, Sam and Laura encouraged the children to try and play some badminton, which two of the younger boys took to immediately and would not let go of the rackets. Just before we left we had a brief introduction with the Regional Coordinator of the District Schools, who discussed the differences in our cultures and education systems. We then presented a pre-school level dictionary to the teachers of the pre-school, which will hopefully help the pupils to further their English skills. At 10am we went down to the main school, the pupils had finished their morning exams and were eagerly awaiting our arrival so that they could play some games and take part in some sport. A.J, Laura and I took the younger pupils and played games such as domes’n’dishes, robbin’ hood and clear the yard, whilst Sam took the older pupils and arranged a game of cricket. We then progressed onto a game of volleyball with the staff and a game of football with a mix of pupils.

Just before we left for lunch, we went for tea at the house of an Army Major who was back home for a visit. We had tea and crackers, and we were offered but declined the blackest bananas I have ever seen. We ventured about 15 minutes down the mountain for lunch in one of the pupil’s homes, where we ate a feast, planted a tree and we were shown a rice machine that prepared the rice for cooking. Two young girls came to visit us whilst we were at this house and asked if we could visit their home too. We had another little walk down the mountain to the girl’s house where they too asked us to plant a tree in memory of our visit. Having taken the rickety old bus back to the university, the group returned for a half hour break and to plan for the evening coaching sessions, that evening the two Laura’s, and AJ played Squash and took part in the karate session, Franky and Sam coached rugby and Emma, Andy and I went swimming.