The closing ceremony for Project Sri Lanka 2011 seemed to appear out of nowhere! The trip has gone so quickly; I had no idea that we would end up at this day so soon!

The morning started off early as all the girls had to be helped into their saris by Lali’s wife and a couple of other ladies that came to help. I had my sari tied the kandian way and some other people had theirs tied the indian way; everyone looked very beautiful! The boys even wore their sarongs!

We arrived at Aththudawa school to be greeted by the villagers who loved the fact that we were all dressed up! We were given a flower each as we walked through the door. Then the ceremony, that we had spent the last couple of weeks preparing for, began! I was quite nervous at first as I thought I would trip over my sari during the Sinhalese dance that we had to perform! However I found that I relaxed as it got going and everything went without a hitch! The girls performed two dances one Sinhalese and one hip hop dance. We had less space than we had practiced with but the dances still looked great! During the ceremony Alex, Chris and Phil all performed speeches which thanked the village for all their hospitality and kindness towards us; everyone else also got to say a few lines about their favourite moments in Aththudawa. Mine was when we taught the pre-schoolers about the weather and got them to perform a play!
In between our performances the village children and the pre-school children also did some songs and plays: The pre-school children sang “Ring-a-ring-a-roses” and sang with us for the “Peanut Song”, whilst the older village children performed a Sri Lankan play. It was really good to see all the children speaking English confidently; I think we all felt that our hard work had really paid off!

We also sang a few songs during the ceremony. The boys sang a version of “Sweet Home Alabama” which was called “Sweet Home Aththudawa” which the villagers absolutely loved (especially Bandula who asked us to send him the lyrics!). Alongside the “Peanut Song” the whole team also sang the “Hello Song” and “The Time of my Life”. For the latter Emma and I were assigned to sing solo parts; I was also pretty nervous about doing that but I just sang and hoped for the best! One thing’s for sure; I definately won’t be watching myself back on the video!!
After a few more speeches from Sarvodaya and the school’s teacher Rassika the ceremony came to a close. All of the children asked us for our addresses and we took lots of photos to remember everyone by! I really hope that they will write as it would be so nice to keep in touch!
We then said our final farewells to the school and went to one of the villager’s houses for lunch. There was so much amazing food, although my sari was so tight I couldn’t manage much! After lunch we them made our way back to Moonbridge. It was really sad to leave the school but at the same time I had the feeling that I had a part to play in something amazing and our work will hopefully be remembered for a long time to come in Aththudawa. My time here will always have a place in my heart I would not have missed it for the world!