Today was a very exciting day for all of us; we finally got to see the past two Project Sri Lanka team’s schools in Gandarawatte and Rassandeniya. We were all very excited to see both what the schools were like, as well as what inspiration we could obtain from visiting the schools and meeting the teachers. First, we went to Rassandeniya, which was the 2007 team’s school. We were greeted by the very lively and friendly Mrs. Felicita. She welcomed us into her school with open arms, and the traditional Bohdi leaves and flowers, only too keen to show off the children’s work books from the past year and photos of the 2007 team in the school.

The outside of the school has been beautifully painted with various animals, a jungle scene, letters and numbers. This served as great inspiration for when we come to painting the school in Hiththatiya which we are all very excited about. We also noted how inside the building, there were different areas for different topics such as the reading corner, the play corner, and the mathematics corner. We were very impressed with the building, how well behaved and happy the children were and the way in which the children clearly adored their teacher.
We then went to the Project Sri Lanka 2008 team’s school which was equally exciting. We were greeted by a very excited group of children who gave us Bodhi leaves and flowers and proceeded to sing us some traditional Sri Lankan songs as well as old favourites such as ‘twinkle twinkle little star’. We then sang some songs to them including ‘I’m a little tea pot’ and started to teach them the ‘hokey kokey’ which they thoroughly enjoyed. We then had a little tour of the village of Gandarawatte which boats some beautiful views of the countryside, as it is situated at the top of a very steep hill. We also visited the temple and were briefly introduced to a very excited monk who we will no doubt be getting to know in the coming weeks.

We were all so excited to have been able to visit these schools, and to begin out time at our very own school in Hiththatiya.