Aththudawa this week has been wonderful. After being out of action last week I really enjoyed getting back into the classroom.

On arriving Monday morning I was astonished by the change in the building, which was full of illustrations from some of the many nursery rhymes, songs and stories that we have taught the children over the course of the programme. However, most of these were unpainted and we knew that there was a lot of work ahead of us, so, tearing ourselves away from the children as much as possible, we commenced work on completing the outside of the school.

Personally, I’m no artist, but I thoroughly enjoyed painting the walls. After a few short days it was really starting to come together, and on Thursday and Friday and swapped with other members of the team to resume teaching. Along with the usual songs and games, Alex and I decided had fun helping the pre-school children to make and decorate hats. For the after school children we also moved on to the slightly trickier making of ships, which the children decorated and then floated in the paddling pool we brought in. However, after the initial thrill of seeing the ships float, some of the kids seemed more interested in shaking the pool to make them sink, and flicking the water at each other. The younger children ran around madly, as they had done in the pre-school – my favourite part of the day was probably seeing Nimasha run giggling around the classroom as several others followed suit with water in their hands.

On Friday I couldn’t believe it was our last day of teaching. In the afternoon we brought in loads of scraps of paper and materials and the children made masks out of paper plates (I made a lion!). We also taught them a couple of dances, like ‘Cotton Eye Joe’, and after this I realized they’ve become very talented at Musical Statues! We tried to make the day especially memorable, and the after-school activities went on long after the appointed time with photos and games, and the children begging us not to go. As we left the school was brightly illuminated, inside and out, with loads of different colours and pictures. It was a really moving experience.