Today Faye, Rebecca, Georgina, Ashera and I spent the day at the pre-school in the village of Hiththatiya. On our arrival, the children were outside singing and dancing enthusiastically to a Sinhalese nursery rhyme and making loud animal noises. Afterwards they stood in a circle and took it in turns to race each other in pairs with a bean bag on their heads. Each child then took it in turns to stand in the middle to play catch with the children surrounding them. The Arts and Crafts activities this morning involved the children using glue to stick pieces of bright yellow paper onto empty coconut shells to make funny colourful faces. They stuck red paper onto the coconut shells to make a mouth and cut out teeth and eyes to also glue on. Although many of the children understood our instructions and copied our actions, we noticed that one child would not react to us. We did not know whether this was because he did not understand our English or because of his very shy nature. We encouraged him to make the coconut shell himself by guiding his actions and by praising him. We took photographs of the children posing with their coconut shells that they had made, which they laughed at after seeing them. After their lunch, the children each drew a picture of a bird using pastel colours. Whilst the children did this, I enjoyed playing outside with a little boy who is visually impaired. He loves to play with a ball and bounces it on the ground for me to catch and pass back to him. He was very excited to play Piggy in the Middle with the teacher’s relation and I. When he caught the ball, he threw it back to us after we clapped our hands, allowing him to determine in what direction to throw the ball. During the morning activities, an injured bird was discovered in the playground, which the children looked at with wonder before it was taken away to be seen to by a man in the village. This morning we also planned our trip to Colombo on 31st August with the pre-school teachers, children and their parents. We will leave at 4:45am from Hiththatiya village to visit the zoo and two very important temples in Colombo. I am very excited to go on a day-trip with the children and their parents and to see their faces upon looking at the animals!

We were invited to lunch at the accountant’s house of the Sarvodaya village society, who also grows plants to sell to local people in Matara. Her garden was beautiful with lots of pretty plants with unusual names, such as fox tail and fish tail. One plant was 10 years old and in the shape of a champagne bottle! We had lunch in her living room where there was a birds nest growing on top of the lampshade! A bird kept flying in and out of the room and we could hear the babies tweeting inside the nest. It was a wonderful and yet very random thing to see – so typical of our visit to Sri Lanka which has been full of interesting surprises! We were introduced to the ladies mother who sat with us briefly before we ate lunch. We were amazed to hear that she was 89 years old! I thought of my own grandmother who is of a similar age living on the opposite side of the world and living a life that has been both very different and yet with similar parallels to this lady’s own. The lunch prepared for us was delicious and included noodles, rice, lentils, spicy potatoes, egg, salad and fried vegetables. We all thoroughly enjoyed dessert, which included green and orange jelly, custard cake with cashew nuts and raisins, curd and honey and finally an ice cream cone to finish it all off! I enjoyed talking to the Sarvodaya village society staff about their organisation and our experiences in Sri Lanka. After lunch, we were taken outside to take in the beautiful flowers in the ladies garden. We took photographs together and it was a lovely moment to be with so many of the Sarvodaya village society members in such beautiful surroundings with the sun shining down on us.

We walked back to the Hiththatiya pre-school and prepared our afternoon activities with the older children of the village. Around sixty children arrived and we asked them all to write about what they did last weekend. We gave them examples such as watching the cricket, going to the beach, studying and visiting a temple. Afterwards we played volleyball, badmington, dodgeball and cricket outside with the children, which are their current favourites. I organized a game of cat and mouse with the younger children using a colourful parachute that has been donated to the school. I then gave each child a number of one or two and upon shouting out their number, the children rushed under the parachute to swap places with each other. We then stood in a circle and played catch together. If a person does not catch the ball or drops it, they can use only one arm, followed by standing on one leg and so forth. The children really enjoy these activities, especially using the parachute which they are very excited to see! Inside Faye and Georgina organized teaching the past, present and future tenses to several older children who are keen to improve their English, while the younger children were shown how to make snowflakes. We asked all of the children today if they would like to think of ideas such as a dance, song or play to perform at our cultural show in the final week. We are going to teach each other songs and dances to perform! For dinner this evening we had egg hoppers, noodles and chicken. After the fifth round of egg hoppers, we were well and truly finished! After dinner, Katie and Anna worked very hard to put together a dance to a popular S Club 7 song in preparation for our cultural show, which they will teach the children tomorrow in Hiththatiya. I am very excited to organize a Ceilidh with the children and their parents and learn from them a Sinhalese routine or two!