Since being home I have had time to reflect on my time in Sri Lanka.  The trip this summer was undoubtedly one of my best and worthwhile life experiences.  I have learnt so much about myself and about an entirely different culture.  I have made some lifelong friends along the way, both from the team […]

The day of the cultural show arrived bright and sunny; fortunately we had been blessed following the rain and clouds of the preceeding days. Though the girls evidently took a lot longer than the boys to prepare themselves (though I will admit that the sarees must have been difficult to fit), we were able to […]

Waking on the day of the cultural show, a huge range of emotions were stirred within me as it dawned that this really was the end of the programme. It felt comforting, however, to look back to the opening ceremony, full of nerves and excitement as we drew up to our village for the first […]

The cultural show epitomised what the whole project was about; an exchange between two cultures that had much to offer one another. Preparations began early, with the dance te4acher from Rassendeniya offering to teach the team a Sri Lankan dance. This was so much fun to learn, and the song chosen to dance to was […]

Today was one of the most memorable days of the project.  We were all filled with very mixed emotions of excitement, sadness and nerves as we prepared to put on a show to remember to conclude our time at Kirilewella School and say our Goodbyes.  We arrived at the school with all the girls on […]

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’ […]

Sitting here in Colombo during my ‘free week’ I can hardly believe that the Project Sri Lanka 2010 program is actually over.  The past 10 weeks seems to have flown by yet I also feel as though I have been here so long that Sri Lanka is home. I have become so comfortable with the culture, […]

This week Neesha, Becky, Charlotte, Kara, Joe and I returned to Colombo for our second, very different, visit. The focus of this week was on viewing and assisting various Sarvodya projects based in the capital which gave us an interesting new insight into the different aspects of the organisation.We returned to the orphanage where I […]

Today Vivian, Laura and I had our last day in Kirelawela. We spent the morning at the preschool doing all the usual activities: reading, counting and naming colours in English, painting, and singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ and ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’.At midday we visited the […]

HITTATIYA…Although it was the last day of the programme, it was our first time back at the school since the opening week. We were glad this time to find an actual school day taking place as opposed to the fruit market we ended up at on our previous visit.

Today was a special day as Nic, Abi, Rach and I accompanied the children and families from Rassandenyia on a school trip to the zoo in Colombo. After getting up at 4.20am, we began our journey to Colombo in true Sri Lankan style – over 40 children and adults crammed into every available inch of room […]

Following the unfortunate cease of the Sri Sumangala project, we were able to expand the project to maintain a more formal teaching element, thanks to an invaluable contact gained through the monk at Gandarawatte: the charismatic Sisura.Sisura had accompanied a few of the team to the Sinharaja rainforest on the Sunday prior to the initiation […]

Unfortunately as university hostel accomodation was no longer available for us to use while in Colombo, we were the first group to be lucky enough to have the use of a house owned by Lali in the outskirts of the city. It was situated in a place called Watarakka and we had to catch a bus […]

Today was my long awaited return to Rassandenyia for ’round two’ of my attempts to learn the Peacock Dance.  Kara, Alice and Nic were also with me as we were hoping to become competent enough at the dance to perform it at the cultural show in Kirelawela on the 31st of August which marks the […]

Today we were joined by Rach, Joe and Charlotte for the day at Kirelawela. It was lovely to come back to our school, as we hadnt been since the first week of the project. Although we have enjoyed visiting all of the other schools, we felt at home returning to Kirelawela. One thing that stood […]

On Thursday, Will, Abi, Joe and Laura were in Hiththatiya, a preschool built by 2008 team and it was really a happy day because we played several English games such as Bingo, Anagrams and Cross Word. Since it is during the school’s vocation, we had only afternoon activities. However, we got about 20 children involved […]

This week at Kirilewella I started on the mural drawing for the school wall.  The team had decided on a bug and garden theme since the children all love to draw butterflies and flowers. Putting the first mark on the wall was very daunting because it wasn’t until I really looked at the wall that I realised […]

This week in Colombo saw 5 of us staying at a different hostel to the one which Lauren and myself stayed in during the first week. The hostel was much newer than the one on Muttiah place, and certainly a fair bit nicer. Unfortunately it was also a lot quieter as all the first years […]

This week, Kara, Liam, Dhanya, Joe, Lauren and I returned to Kirelawela, which was thoroughly enjoyable, especially as we now know all the children individually.The pre-school children were keen to show us how they had improved at singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ and ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ and during the course of the […]

On Monday, we went to Sri Sumangala Girls’ College in Weligama, where we had planned to give English lessons in the holidays to both the students and staff. When we turned up, there were already some girls eagerly waiting for us.Unfortunately, despite having the principal’s permission to carry out the project on school grounds in […]

The day started as Will described in a previous diary entry and had extra importance as it was the last day Alice was 19. However the day soon took an unusual twist with the arrival of a troupe of midwives and mothers. We were impressed to find out that the midwives were there to give […]

This week, Laura, Dhanya and I stayed in Colombo University and the people we met, the things we did and the memories we had together with this lovely campus made our stay wonderful and unforgettable. On the first day we arrived, we made friends with girls in our hostel. It is a really wonderful experience […]

Today was another early start for the Sri Sumangla team. The day begun with me, Joe, Kara and Abi catching the bus to Weligama at about 8am, prepared to spend the day with two grade 11 classes. On arrival, we made our way straight to class 11C where we were told we would be starting the […]

Today, myself, Neesha, Lauren and Charlotte were joined by members of the post graduate team in Gandarawatte.After having tea with the monk, we went to the pre-school where we sang songs such as 5 little ducks, head shoulders, knees and toes and other songs which involved actions and danced with the children. One of the […]

Today was my first day at Kirelawella School since the opening ceremony. In the morning we were assisting the local teachers in there normal teaching routine. The general layout of which is to begin the day with a Buddhist prayer spoken in Singhala. All the children face a Buddhist flag and poster of the Buddha […]

We spent another lovely (and hot) day in Kirelawela today. The children were lovely if a little noisy (who knew four year olds could have that Friday feeling) as we taught them the okie cokie and heads shoulders knees and toes, rounding off with the favourite ‘the wheels on the bus’.We also tried to teach […]

The ‘Colombo experience’ certainly was something that shall not leave my memory for a long time. I was met by the amiable ‘Deen’ character who turned out to be one of the friendliest, funniest and personable people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Likewise, the lads in the university hostel were similarly approachable […]

After a long journey on Monday morning the four of us made it to the hot and bustling city of Colombo.  Joe was taken to the male hostel and left under the supervision of Dean who seemed very eager to befriend us all.  We were driven to the female hostel on the other side of […]

This week Rach, Neesh, Alice and Will were working at Sri Samanagala. At the moment all grades except grade 1 and 2 are having term tests therefore our experience was somewhat different to the previous weeks.From the previous weeks we learnt it was best to work together as a four for the first day, to enable us […]

This week Dhanya, Vivian and I have been working in the villages of previous years projects. Today was mine and Viv’s first visit to Rassandenyia, though Dhanya had been here before. I was really impressed with the child-friendly set up of the school when I arrived. It was lovely to see a large picture of […]

Liam, Lauren, Becky and I will be spending this week in Kirelawela. For many of us it was our first chances to come back since the opening ceremony, so it was nice to finally get to see were our hard fundraised money was going to.The day started off as usual with us helping in the […]

PALANA…Today, myself and Laura made a trip to visit the first school of the project. After experiencing difficulty in finding the school, we were welcomed by the teacher and the 8 children out of the 10 that attend the school.The children were extremely well behaved, and obviously got on very well with the children. It […]

Today Joe, Alice, Nic and Dhanya were in Kirelawela. We spent the morning with the pre-school children, who for some reason (perhaps all the excitement from the Pera Hera festival in Dondra) were far more energetic and distracted than they had been earlier in the week.Nevertheless we continued to reinforce the vocabulary we have been […]

We arrived in Colombo at midday and were shown to the hostel where we would be staying for the week. Realizing that there were eight hundred students all living in very close quarters in basic concrete accommodation gave an initial impression of a prison.The atmosphere in the free government inner city hostel was however far […]

We arrived in busy Colombo after a scenic trip from the South Coast not really knowing what to expect. The purpose of our week in Colombo was a cultural exchange with the pupils of Colombo university, and that was certainly what we got!We stayed with the students in university ‘hostels’ – very competitive, almost free […]

SRI SUMANGALA…Becky and I were given a timetable of five lessons a day.  This involved teaching English to students from grade eight to thirteen mainly through games of hangman, categories and Pictionary!  All of the girls’ English was really impressive, and we felt welcomed into the school. It was such a change going to a much […]

This week Becky, Charlotte, Nic and I have been teaching English at Sri Sumangala government school.  Having four people teaching here has meant that we could split into two teams and teach twice the number of students each day.  Becky and Charlotte opted for teaching the higher grades, but as a Primary Education student I was naturally […]

Kara was fortunately able to join me, Abi, for the second day spent at Gandarawatte. Again we were welcomed by the monk appearing at the entrance to his temple. He ushered us to the school where more children than the previous day had turned up. This may have been due to the continuous rain lightening a […]

The group visiting the small village of Hitataya was comprised of Laura, Liam, Becky, Alice, and myself- Abi. Lali gave us a lift their in his lovely cool air-conditioned van, the trip was short and on arrival the heat outside hit us like an oven!The building was lovely with beautiful paintings on the outside- a […]

Today we split into smaller groups to visit previous Project Sri Lanka villages. Five of us went to Gandarawatte, and after experiencing our first treacherous tuk-tuk ride, were greeted by an incredibly friendly monk.If there is just one thing that the Sri Lankan people should be remembered for (and believe me there are many more!), […]

Today, we spent the day visiting the villages and schools of previous teams. Me and four others visited Rassandeniya, which was home to the 2007 Project Sri Lanka team.  Though we were unexpected guests, we were quickly welcome and including in the morning activities. The children were shy of us to begin with but they […]

Today was important for the group as it was the first opportunity we had to see first hand what all of our hard work and the kind donations we had received had contributed towards.When we arrived, we were greeted by many members of the village, numerous women presented us with bunch of flowers tied with […]

Today was a very exciting day for us all.  We went to our village Kirelewella for the official opening of the pre- school.  We arrived in the village and were greeted by all the village people and the children who were dressed in their uniform.  All the community were so eager to present each of us with beautiful […]

A wet and miserable Monday morning, more resemblant of a British morning than of a Sri Lankan; however, this did not manage to hinder our bright spirits on arriving at Kirelawela for the first time since the opening ceremony.Again, beautiful flowers greeted our arrival, as did many shouts of “good morning” by the prep school […]

This week Lauren, Vivian and Dhanya have been teaching at the Sri Sumangala school in Weligama. It is a very different experience from teaching at the pre-schools in the villages. Sri Sumangala is an all-girls school with approximately 3000 students aged 6-18, and we try to teach as many of the girls as possible every […]

Today was the first day of the formal teaching program in Sri Lanka.  Whilst some of the team went off to previous years villages and Sri Sumangala government school in Weligama, my group of six team members went to Kirelawela. None of us were quite sure what to expect and were slightly nervous before arriving at […]

We arrived at Rassandeniya School with high hopes that today would match yesterday’s exploits. We were greeted by the children and heavy rain at 9am, followed by daily prayers and ‘circle songs’; these included old time favourites such as ‘four little ducks’ to the slightly ‘purer’ ‘make a circle’. This was followed by an invitation […]

Today was the final day of the week at Kirelawela.  We all feel very anxious to return again as it is quite clear that the children have become very confident around us and have lost their initial timidity.Many of the children were copying our accents and expressions when we were helping them with their work, […]

On Friday Nic, Rach, Joe, Will, Liam and I visited Hiththatiya – last years village to the remind them of our continuing support and to help with the sustainability of the project.  When we arrived we thought a fruit market was happening; village women were trooping into the building with bundles of fruit. On closer […]

So we finally arrived in Sri Lanka, a few hours earlier than anyone expected as the pilot decided not to bother stopping in Male.While waiting for Bandulla from Sarvodaya to collect us and the sports team we sat in the entrance of the airport struggling to cope with the heat – not something we’re used to […]