Today it was Poya day (National holiday) so the school was closed. Jack and I still decided to go in as we had arranged with the teachers and some of the children to meet up and play volleyball in the playground. The other members of the group went to Gandawatta for breakfast with the monk. As it was Jack’s 21st birthday the teachers decided to hold a mini tea party. They made him a cake and brought in some fruit and fizzy drink. It was a nice surprise, as he wasn’t expecting any kind of fuss.

The rest of the morning we sat around chatting, playing volleyball and practiced the dance that we would be performing in the Cultural Show. Whilst we waited for the rest of the group, we sat around singing. The group turned up in time for some dancing and lunch. We arrived at the teacher’s house to see Jack’s birthday theme continued with balloons stuck around the living room and another birthday cake lit with candles ready for us to sing happy birthday! After embarrassing Jack for a few minutes, we entered the dining room to see a banquet laid out for us. The food was gorgeous and we even had jelly and custard for dessert. The teachers made a huge fuss over us, making us feel extremely welcome.

For the cultural show, we are all going to be wearing saris, Faye, Natalie and myself are borrowing the teacher’s saris, whilst the rest of the group bought their own from town. At the teacher’s house, we tried different saris on to see which colour best suits us. It was fascinating to see the process of wrapping a sari, they made it look so simple.

In the evening we joined the teachers in Matara town to watch the Perahera Festival. It was very colourful with lights, dancers and drummers in beautiful costumes. As we were watching the festival, clapping our hands to music, we saw Kavindu (one of our school children), as one of the dancers. We all got very excited and were waving frantically; he was also very excited to see us and was proud to tell the other dancers how he knew us.