Today was my first day at Kirelawella School since the opening ceremony. In the morning we were assisting the local teachers in there normal teaching routine. The general layout of which is to begin the day with a Buddhist prayer spoken in Singhala. All the children face a Buddhist flag and poster of the Buddha and chant a prayer with their hands held against their foreheads. The children take this very seriously and it calms them before beginning the day.For the next hour and a half the children are involved in some form of activity with learning of numbers, colours, animal names etcetera. They then have a snack at 10:30; unlike the average British schoolchild’s lunchbox the Sri Lankan lunchbox usually contains rice or noodles.  I always find it amusing to watch the children eating because they seem decidedly uninterested in the food and seem to enjoy playing with it more than actually eating it. For the next hour and a half the children are involved in more activities ending with a simple English song like ‘Neelie the Elephant’ or ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. At the end of the day the mothers arrive and the children take another Buddhist prayer before leaving.

We then took off in a tuk-tuk heading for the teachers house for a traditional Sri Lankan lunch involving fish, dhal and rice followed by tropical fruits. As there is a language barrier between ourselves and our hosts the meal is usually rather quite but smiles are reciprocated and comments of delicious or very good are made.

From 2PM to 4PM a low key after school club is run for the local children in Kirelawella. Usually we arrange some arts and crafts activity or sports and let the children choose what they want to do. The turn out is good and they all seem to enjoy themselves. To finish of we tidy the school and make our way back to Moon Bridge quite exhausted.