blog 6:

so this morning we woke up to a giant roller behind our house flattening the railway - ment to be up and running again by Janurary which means no need for alarms then as trains go by at 5 anyway... (may feel like home next to the railway...). then this morning i had a very sri lankan breakfast of my favourite sambol (slightly too spicy) and bread, mmmmm. heres an old picture of me attempting to make it on a proper grinder:

the last 2 weeks have flown again...freaking us out a little how fast it is!

teaching:
Mhiripenna is going great, really getting in to the swing of things there, even if it ment having to create a naughty chair. kids in grade 3 learning vocab and alphabet:

emer and i took 2 private lessons with "the rottie families" (rottie is a food that they sell not some kind of nasty name we have created) kids, both of different ages and abilities so was kind of tricky but we will see how that goes...working progress...

i really enjoyed helping out in one of the sri lankan english teachers classes this week at SGV, sat at the front with grade 4 boys who seemed to be picked up everything with a little encouragment. I also really enjoyed being in one of Alans 9B lessons where there is a girl who doesn't say a world, i sat next to her to try and help her along, still didnt say much but you could tell she understood and was laughing about things which was really nice!

at SGV assembly this week it was so sweet 4 grade 2 boys went up to "stage" and were all passing the microphone back and forth between them and gigglying majorly, until one just decided to keep it and they sang the sweetest song - so cute! wish i had had my camera...

Emer, alan and i also helped out at Sunils (a english teacher at SGV) english tution school this friday. We went on a really gorgeous (although wild) bus journey to get to his house/tuition school where we spend 3 hours teaching 53 grade 5 kids who were so willing and keening to learn - really enjoyed it! after the teaching sunils wife had made a feast for us with a european twist, so yummy!

meal in sunils house after teaching - sunil and his family in the back ground

alan reading piggy wiggy

　other things that have been going on these last 2 weeks:

we were invited by a family (whose son goes to school at UMV and we met when we danced in the parade...) to there house for lunch last weekend. so we turned up where we said we would meet them, then hopped in the dads "sri lankan tractor" (also want to point out we were wearing our sairs in the tractor haha) which took us to there house in the middle of no where but was so beautiful to get there and when we were there! the drive there was halarious it was like some sort of wacky race! i actually got a stitch in my side (or what i thought was a stitch - shows how unfit i am..) because the tractor was so shakey...haha!
the dad and his tractor (we sat in the traylor like bit at the back):

when we got to the house we ment the family, had a drink then they took us for a walk around there area - so so beautiful, walked through a rubber tea plantation and watching as shane (the son who is at school here) smacked jack fruit off the top of trees.
rubber trees:

me and the family off on our walk:

lunch being cooked on the brick fire

oh i forgot to mention last weekend i got up ealry (for the weekend) and cycled along to see the stilt fisherman - unfortunately i didnt see the guy i had met before (or he was on his stilt and i couldnt tell) but was really nice to watch it, although wasnt the best day and started raining. had a nice cycle afterwards too:

i also had another cycle this week where i thought i woudl be brave and try out my lack of exercise here and cycle up this massive hill (well felt like it was massive), made it to the top but did feel the most out of breathe i have been yet, then started to head back down...then realised i had no breaks....dun dun dun! not good, emergancy feet down stop, luckily realised before i got too fast...haha.

some other amazing moments i can think of the top of my head (should actually start writing things down or i forget everything...): emer and i had a movie night as she got sent a usb of films over (watched fantastic mr fox), so we moved our bed side table and squashed our beds together to watch this film...it created so much space in our room and for anyone who has seen the film "step brothers" it was seriously like the activity space they make when we make there bunk beds... so funny (or at least was for us...). another funny thing happened yesterday on our way back from the beach (which was so nice to chill out although it rained a bit...), we bumped in to our local entertainer...chooti/sampat, almost every time we walk around the village we bump in to him and he either hides under his umbrella, puts his thumps up and always has the same conversation - about where he lives on rumassala hill with the bats (emer loves te bring up the bats...). anyway yesterday we saw him first for once, so emer screams "hello" and he jumps a mile then bursts out laughing (forgot to say he has a voice like he has been sucking helium), then he just randomly bursts into song and makes us film him singing, was pretty funny and sure he just loves to entertain!

so dancing, volleyball, arts and crafts, singing, badminton etc all still going on aswell.
All going great! hope everyone is great at home and all having fun! love kirstin xxx