Today I spent the day in Hiththatiya helping teach in the pre-school alongside Faye, Fiona, Georgina, Jack and Matt. During the morning, we played games outside involving lots of hand actions and singing! Unfortunately one little boy had an accident where he fell over and hit his head. The teachers immediately rushed to help him and checked that he was okay. To our great relief, he was not seriously injured and he was later back laughing and singing at school the following day. I suddenly thought of the worry a parent must feel with regards to their child’s safety! I admired the teachers at the school for acting so quickly. While Fiona comforted the little boy, the rest of us helped to keep the children occupied and relatively quiet with games inside the school, allowing the teachers to contact the little boy’s parents. We sang with the children the ‘Teapot song’ as well as a song called ‘Cup and Saucer’ that goes as follows: ‘ Cup and Saucer, Cup and Saucer. Ready for Tea? Ready for Tea? How many Children? How many Children? One, Two, Three. One, Two, Three.’ An alternate version we discovered goes as follows: ‘Bed and Pillow, Bed and Pillow. Ready for Sleep? Ready for Sleep? How many Children? How many Children? Four, Five, Six. Four, Five, Six.’ The children enjoyed singing this song and it appeared just right for their level of spoken English. Some children are more easily distracted than others and love to sing loudly while others can be very shy and have to be encouraged to participate in class activities. As a group we have realized the difficulty of organizing children who speak little English and without being able to speak much Sinhalese ourselves. Thus we have discussed different ways to organize the class and improve the children’s understanding by using hand gestures, emphasizing our tone of voice, speaking slowly and simply and repeating our instructions clearly.

At 12:30pm we were welcomed into the home of a member of the village Sarvodya society for lunch. She cooked us a delicious meal that we all thoroughly enjoyed. We thanked her and told her how tasty it was in Sinhalese! A note to future Project Sri Lanka students: some very important and useful phrases that we’ve learned so far are ‘Bohoma ist tooti’ (Thankyou very much) and ‘Godak rasai’ (Very tasty)! We were introduced to her family and friends and were shown lots of photos of her children, husband and family. I thought to myself how lovely it must be to grow up here in such beautiful surroundings where there is such a strong community spirit. The curd, honey and banana for dessert were absolutely delicious leaving us all full and well prepared for the afternoon activities!

In the afternoon, between 2-4pm we helped the older children to design a food menu for a restaurant. They each made a leaflet with a front cover and menu describing their favourite foods for breakfast, lunch (shorts), dinner and dessert in English. Whilst some of the older children managed to complete this task fairly quickly and so continued to play games outside, some of the younger children found the task more difficult. I helped them by describing different fruits and vegetables in English for them to draw and write the names of on their food menu. Several teenagers speak very good English and I helped to test their geographical knowledge (a subject I favour!) of the capital cities all over the world. They seemed to find this task exciting and I was very impressed by how many cities they knew between them. The favourite subject of many of the boys and girls is Maths and they enjoy answering equations that I set them. They also enjoy testing me, in which case I have to frantically remember my GCSE and A Level Maths knowledge! They are very keen to learn and I hope to test them further with their Maths, in particular Simultaneous Equations. I enjoyed discussing with the children how many siblings they have, their favourite subjects and hobbies. Several children enjoy dancing and have told us that they will prepare for us a dance to display in the final week cultural show! I am very excited to see this and learn Sri Lankan dancing, especially after visiting the Kandy perihelia festival this weekend. At 4pm the afternoon activities came to a close. I am always sad to leave at the end of each day as I enjoy teaching and playing games with the children and talking to them and their families. The children always rush to say goodbye and shake our hands, which is a real pleasure. We arrived back at the guesthouse feeling exhausted but in such high spirits. A swim in the sea is always a great way to cool down and unwind before dinner. I received two packages from my uncle today who has kindly donated 200 coloured ink pens to the children of Hiththatiya village and the children at the Sarvodaya orphanage in Colombo. The package also included newspaper clippings of the floods in Durham, which we were shocked to see! We felt that this was such a kind gesture that the children will highly appreciate. It is so lovely to think that they are in the thoughts and minds of people so far away. I’ve realized that even a small gesture can mean so much to the children and their families here. I feel honoured to have had the opportunity to meet the village children and their families, to learn about their livelihoods and interests and to be welcomed into their culture. The people who we have met in the teaching villages are so kind and welcoming to us. I’ve realized how important family, friends and community spirit is here in Sri Lanka, which I highly value and admire.