This week I was back at Sabaragamuwa University.  For me, the highlight of the week was being able to engage in teaching formal classes for both students and staff.  As a qualified primary school teacher, the past year I have been out of the classroom whilst studying for my Masters has been difficult; I did not realise how much I missed teaching until I found myself back at the front of a class full of students again.  The programme for the weekend certainly gave me ample of opportunity to reawaken my passion and hone some rusty skills – two days of teaching four, two hour long classes for up to 60 students at a time certainly required me to be innovative and think on my feet.  As Poppy and Oliver have not done much formal teaching before, they were happy to take assume supporting roles.

Due to the injury I incurred in a fall 8 weeks ago, I asked Mr Wirasinghe who was organising the weekend programme if he could arrange transport from our accommodation to the classrooms a mile away as it was too far for me to walk.  Early on Saturday morning, I called Mt Wirasinghe to check the transport was coming to collect us as planned.  “Of course” he said, “the ambulance will be with you shortly”.  Amused, I put it down to a translation difficultly and joked with Poppy and Oliver about it.  To my utter bemusement, the dilapidated campus ambulance rocked up outside our bungalow to transport us to classes!  Feeling slightly like a hypochondriac who must have (due to translations problems, of course) massively exaggerated the seriousness of my injury and disability, I made a point of taking the front seat whilst Poppy and Oliver were seated on the muddy patient bed in the rear.  It was a huge relief to find that the blues and twos were not switched on once we had been collected, and even more so that we were indeed being taken to classes and not to the local hospital.  However, finding out that the ambulance had collected us, not because of my incapacity, but due to a lack of other available University vehicles over the bank holiday weekend did little to alleviate the embarrassing ‘wish the earth would open up and swallow me’ feeling of arriving to classes in an ambulance to find a large crown of my students waiting to greet me!  Nevertheless, I quickly put my feelings aside as I found myself in my element, enjoying teaching debating and descriptive writing techniques classes.

As this week’s group concluded the programme at Sabaragamuwa University for 2013, I made a point of visiting the Vice Chancellor before returning to Matara.  This is his last of the 6-year term of his position and so we are the last group of students that will have the opportunity to visit the University whilst he is still in office.  The VC has been exceptionally kind and welcoming to the groups of Sports and Undergraduate students that have run programmes at the University over the past few years, and I know he has enjoyed tremendously the company of PSL students, even opening up his home so we could learn to cook Sri Lankan food with his wife.  When I said goodbye on behalf of this year’s team, I knew I was also finishing our programme at Sabaragamuwa as we know it with him as VC and saying final thank you on behalf of all of the teams.  I was moved to see tears welling up in the VC’s eyes as it demonstrated to my just what and impact the PSL student groups have had at the University and how much the VC has valued us.  It was an emotional moment, heightened by the sincere offer to visit him anytime I wanted as his door would always be open to me.  And I might just accept his gracious offer sometime in the very near future!