Today we all dressed up in our sarees and sarongs and celebrated the end of our project with a closing ceremony in our pre-school in Kirelawela. The main event of the ceremony was a cultural show that showcased a combination of Sri Lankan and Western culture.The team performed several English songs, including ‘Waving the Flag’ (currently a very popular song in Sri Lanka), an acoustic version of the Beatles’ ‘Let it Be’ and also attempted a well-known Sinhala nursery rhyme – which went down well with the audience despite our pitiful pronunciation. My favourite part of our contribution to the show was the Sri Lankan dance we performed to a popular Sinhala song (‘Sudu Gawume’). Rassandeniya’s dance teacher, Krishanthi, kindly taught us the choreography the Sunday before the show, and we had to rehearse many times thereafter to get the moves and timing right. The final performance was far from perfect, but we had a great time with it.
The show also featured performances by the pre-schoolers, as well as by the older children who came to our afternoon sessions. The young ones sang ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ and ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, both of which we have gradually taught them over the past seven weeks. They also performed a pera hera dance for which they dressed extravagantly in sarongs and makeup and glitter and which they clearly enjoyed immensely. The older children performed both a traditional dance and an unexpected Western-style dance that completed the cultural exchange and put our own attempt at dancing to shame.
After the show we finally had to come to terms with the end of the project by making our final goodbyes to those who have made our experience in Sri Lanka so memorable. These exceptional individuals include the teachers (including those from other pre-schools such as Rassandeniya, who also came to watch our show), the pre-schoolers with whom we have slowly but surely bonded, the older children who came to our afternoon sessions with such eagerness and enthusiasm, and also numerous other people who generously helped us along the way with translation and other kinds of assistance. It was a wonderful yet sad way to end our physical presence in Kirelawela, but something tells me that our relationship with this village and with this country has far from reached its final conclusion.