A little bit of Blackpool in Sri-Lanka.In the morning there was no pre-school as the children were having a lie in from their fun packed trip to the zoo yesterday. We joined the teachers in the afternoon still on a high from yesterdays party bus. The electricity has now been switched on, so it was brilliant to walk in and hear the radio playing with the teachers humming along. We sat down and planned the lesson then went off for lunch to one of the school children’s house (Hamasha).

Lunch as usual was a gorgeous spread-the full works. Rice, noodles, Dahl (Lentils), potatoes, different fish dishes, the list is endless! Followed by a huge variety of desserts. The family were very welcoming and felt very satisfied when they saw us struggle to waddle back to our seats in the living room, full to the brim!

Natalie and Hamasha have become really close friends, as Natalie has spent extra time with her teaching her English and improving her grammar. As a surprise Natalie got her mum to send a few packets of unusual stamps which Natalie gave to Hamasha at the meal. Hamasha is a huge stamp collector and was so grateful for the gift, especially for the English stamps as she competes with her friend on who could get the most!

We returned back to the school ready for fun activities outside, when suddenly the heavens opened! The rain came of no surprise to us as recently we felt that the English weather has followed us here! So just like Blackpool when it rains, we whipped out the Bingo cards and played maths Bingo! The children loved it and the game lasted for over an hour, as we made sure that every child had a chance to scream Bingo and come up to collect their prize which was a fountain pen and a gold star.

The excitement continued from the maths Bingo to musical chairs where the last two people still in the game were a boy and a girl. There was some healthy competition of boys v girls but unfortunately the boy won!

To round off the day and keep the excitement flowing, the children showed us their dances and songs for the cultural show. It was great to see all the children singing along, banging their tambourines and enjoying the music. For the final song, shyness was pushed to one side from our part and we joined in to dance and sing “Oya magenam jeevithe mal” (If you are mine, life is flowers).