Quick question...what do you think do people want to just see photos and a little bit of writing or should i write lots too??? feed back would be good...
Right so don't think i have written a blog for 3 weeks now.
Teaching is now back up and running mostly in full swing, taught grades 1, 2 and 3s lots and split older classes with Alan - As it is a new year at school (school year from january to august) there are brand new grade 1s to the school...first class with them and 3 already cried - didn't realise we were quite so scary...may take some getting used to! As a welcome to the new grade 1s the old grade 1s (now 2s) put on a concert for them with songs/dances, speeches (weird for a grade 1 concert but sri lankans do love speeches) and a small parade - with a band wearing something close to green tartan...
day of grade 1 concert...amazing coconut tree at SGV
love this photo of the grade 1 mums in their beautiful saris
Teaching is now back to normal as sports meet has come to an end...we managed to make it back to UMV to watch the finiale of the sports meet...like a mini olympics! each house had to make there own hut...the winning house had made an amazing boat out of palm leaves - they could even sit on top of it, was insane! During the sports meet there was an arranged cricket match between UMV (Tris, Finn and Jo work here) and SGV (Emer, Alan and i work here)....it was great fun but sadly SGV lost!! Tris and Finn have been coaching the UMV team and are unbeaten so far!! We also managed to watch some athletics here...the kids are soooo FAST and don't even train and its around 30degrees sometimes...no idea how they did it...really wanted to join in too...
SGV v UMV cricket match
final day of sports meetAs sports meet has been on there was not a lot of teaching in January, so at Mhiripenna Emer and I will help from some children painted our english classroom!! keep in mind that this classroom used to be white with posters....
some of the pupils, head of english and emer at our beautiful wall
Emer and the boys painting the first layerAfter painting the classroom one day Emer and i walked to the beach literally 400 meters away and ate our rice packets from lunch...we met some fishermen who offered to teach us stilt fishing...we still need to go along there to actually do it! they also showed us a small shark they had caught and put in a rock pool! We bought 3 very fresh (still alive infact) fish off one man to eat...mmm
man we bought our fish fromWe have also had our first "music night" with the 6 of us (Jo, Alan, Emer, Tris, Finn and myself) and it was held in our house - at last we managed to make it look nice enough to have people in it! As some of you probably know i personally am not musical at all but everyone else was amazing! Tris and Emer sung songs they had written themselves and played the guitar, Finn also played the guitar with some pots and pans and drum parts and Jo and Alan did some great sing songs!
tris, finn, emer and i in our kitchen for the meal -tidy and with food for once!
Jo and Alan singing!Last weekend was fairly busy - we met a girl, Fiona, from Blairgowrie scotland for lunch and listened to all her amazing stories about sri lanka. Then on Sunday we went to our "sri lanka ama (mum)" house for lunch. She owns the highland ice cream shop in Unawatuna so as Emer and i love the ice cream there so much we have got to know her very well so she invited us to her house for lunch, where she cooked amazing rice and curry, taught us to make egg rolls (sri lankan short eat...rottie things...) and we met her amazing family (husband, 1 son and 2 daughters) and her crazy dog - Bruno!!
me and the amazing highland ice cream family!Last Friday was independence day = holiday, emer and i decided we would go for a cycle to the rock temple close by...we took a small detour to the really pretty mangroves (still finding so many new things even close by...)....then my bike chain broke completly...first thought of Emers was " ok kirstin you get on your bike and i ll push you as hard as i can down the hill and see if you can make it back some of the way..." hahaha we were about 2km home...as you can guess i didn't get very far and Emer very quickly caught up with me...so new plan "lets find some rope in this jungle..." ...only some old rags...oops they break -fail no.2! so genius use of the chain to tie on to the back of Emers bike while i held on to the other end on my bike...Emer cycled pullling me and my bike along (hard work) while i hung on scared for my life haha! We made it back to the bike shop with a lot of funny looks, got the bike fixed by a lovely man who didnt even want to charge us for it - kindness of strangers!
sadly no photo of this bike trip...
All and all the last few weeks have been great and sri lanka is still as amazing as always!
Although Emer and i are both very excited to see our parents and sisters in April! Hope they are too!
Hope everyone is great and having fun!
kirstin xxx
p.s is that too much writing????????? FEED BACK...
p.p.s Dear Kirstins Gran, Kirstin has continued for the past while to accept cups of tea regularly, happy days, mission nearly complete. On another note you are now on my list of legends for the nicest most thoughful xmas prezzie ever, i listen to her whilist i write letters, cheers! love to home, Emer x
nice work...so u guys teaching kids?
ReplyDeleteYou're a real Sri Lankan.
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