Today was our first day teaching in a village called Gandarawatte. We were greeted on arrival by the local monk who invited us into his house to look at photos of previous Durham students visiting Gandarawatte.

He then took us over to the preschool which also stands at the top of the hill alongside the temple and the Monk’s house. The teacher was very keen for us to take over the teaching and activities as soon as we arrived so we began by teaching the children some basic English songs such as Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses and the Hokey Kokey.

We then played a game using bean bags which involved the children running to the correct coloured bag when the colour was shouted. They seemed to really enjoy the game and we continued the theme of colours until 10am when the monk came and invited us to tea at his house. When we entered the dining room the table was already set with napkins, a tea pot, teacups, milk jug and two plates of food. One plate contained small, sweet, sticky cakes and the other flower shaped, savoury biscuits.

After eating and drinking we returned to the Preschool where the teacher had begun making small windmills for the children using sticks and folded banana leaves. It took us a while to pick up the technique of folding the leaves into a shape that would spin in the wind but when we eventually got it we were able to assist her in the activity. There are 11 pupils at the Preschool and many of them already know some simple English so it was nice to see the satisfaction on their faces when they were able to recite English words and songs to us.

At 11.30am the children’s mothers came to collect them and we helped to tidy up the Preschool after the mornings activities. We were then taken down the hill to a small building which is home to the Sarvodaya organisation. Inside we were greeted by a group of local women from the village who had kindly prepared a huge lunch for us. Unfortunately they spoke very little English but their strong sense of humour was apparent in their frequent laughter. They seemed to find our attempts at eating curry with our fingers particularly entertaining.

After we had finished eating (which took a long time due to the fact that they continued to refill our plates with more rice and daal every time that we thought we were finished) they asked us to sing them a song. This took us by surprise and although we tried to explain that we couldn’t think of an English song to which we knew enough words to, their insistence meant that we resorted to performing twinkle twinkle little star (perhaps the most surreal and embarrassing part of the trip so far). They asked us if tomorrow we would teach them some conversational English which we are more than happy to do. They also informed us that tomorrow afternoon some older children will come and meet us to improve their English as well.

It definitely sounds like the programme in Gandarawatte is going to be a successful one. The variety of age groups that we will be teaching should make our time in Gandarawatte a great experience for us but it also means that the project will be benefitting the whole community rather than just the preschool which is something the project continually aim to do.