this was written yesterday so may not make sense...had the most amazing thunder and lightning storm last night - watched from our door, one point there was this massive bolt so emer and i subconciously ran away...not sure where we were going... so exciting!
just re-read the start of my blog from last time and realise it has been AGES since i wrote in this - very sorry seem to have been pretty busy!
going to start with the most recent news and work my way backwards...
Last night we arrived back to unawatuna from a 4 day school trip with SGV (grades 9-13). The trip was great fun, got to know all the pupils a lot better (as we dont teach too many older classes), was so nice to spend the time with so many sri lankans but very tiring.
All the way through the trip on the buses there was drumming, singing and dancing from everyone - on a moving bus making the dancing pretty exciting! We also saw lots of peacocks and even an elepant by the road on the trip!
We left at 3am from here on thursday morning to SGV school to get on the bus - there were around 75 pupils and 15 teachers. From SGV we headed for Arugam Bay - stopping off first at a lovely park to eat our breakfast on the way then at a salt "farm" (not sure what you would call it...), massive salt pans - we didnt say here long as it started to rain and Sri Lankans DON'T like the rain. From the salt pans we headed towards monoragala where we went to a beautiful temple with a lovely brick dagoba and to a massive budda statue in an amazing park. Both were explained to everyone by the principle (who is a monk) but in sinhala so we didn't quite understand but it was so nice to see them all the same. At this point we were driving though the area that was badly affected by the flooding earlier this year - the roads were being re-built, trees were fallen down all over the place and quite a few mud slides. For that night we headed east for Arugam Bay - here we stayed at lovely little school for that night. It was like "extreme camping" - all the food, pots, oil, fire wood etc was on the roof of the buses to last us the 4 days. When we arrived straight away dinner was being made - everyone helped out, it was very organised for such large scale cooking! From here on out for the trip we ate rice and curry 3 times a day - a lot of rice but yummy! There were a couple of wells at this school for washing which was very handy. That night there was a lot of singing and drumming and then people headed to bed - Emer and i slept in a room on concrete floors with blankets on top, about 5x5meters with 10 other girls in it - cant say i slept much that night...then we were woken at 3am!!! This early start was to prepare breakfast and lunch for that day - giant camp fires were once again in use!
Mrs Shiani, Emer, Rashmi, Mrs Subaodasana and me
walking towards the big budda statue
me and some grade 9a girls on our stage/bed for the night. grade 9a girls are amazing!
Day 3 - we went to a BEAUTIFUL tank/lake to have a little look and eat our breakfast (which i forgot to mention - Emer, Alan and i forgot to bring plates so used our upside down fizbees as plates!) - this looked strangely like Loch Ranoch to me! After breakfast we went to my favourite temple i have seen in sri lanka yet - it was gorgeous on top of a rock and you could see for miles! I think this place was very special to the principle so im glad he took us there - buddhist chanting took places here by everyone. There wer soooo many monkeys here and not scared of us at all! Heading from here to Baddula in the hill country we went to two Dagobas - the first of which would have been massive but it was not fully finished a it was built sometime around 7th century (i think...) by a king who was building it as a present to the monks died during the building , it was one of the 16 places the budda visited in sri lanka (thats why a dagoba was built here). The second dagoba was finshed , it was lovely, right next to the longest river in sri lanka - Kumbukkan Oya. For the last night we stayed in Baddula in another school hall.
cooking - big pots of rice and curry on camp fires. school desks used for table to chop veg fish etc with everyone helping in the background
Day 4 - we woke slightly later this day as there was no school taking place here! After more yummy rice and curry breakfast we headed to another beautiful temple for some morning chanting, then we went to Dunhinda falls (been before but was nice to go again with the school), then to the largest budda statue in Sri Lanka carved into this massive rock face (sadly my camera had run out a battery by this point..). We also went to a train station...we went here as it was in the grade 12 textbook as it is very clever engineering as the railway goes round on itself (hard to explain in writing) - basically theres a big hill in the way so it has to go down, round it, through the hill and under its original path...the railways in sri lanka have been built by the British originally but this bit was designed by a sri lankan engineer also! After this we thought we must be heading back as we thought it would take around 8hours to get back and it was now about 3pm...but no we went to another water fall near ella which was actually amazing - it was massive! From here we did head back with a couple stops for food/water/toilet etc. By this point i was extremely tired some how the pupils have this endless energy - i have now realise sri lankans are so lively and don't even need a huge amount of sleep, very musical/great dancing, they also never complain about being tired or anything - generally amazing! So made it back by around 11pm last night very tired but had a great time!!!!
beautiful dagoba at the rock temple - my favourite temple as of yet
other than that there has actually been loads else going on aswell but i will try keep it brief!
We walked with SGV school for there peraherra - big parade, 2mile walk in the crazy heat with loads of dancing, singing, music, everyone in costumes! We also saw the older kids at Mihirpenna get ready for there peraherra a different day but didn't go with it as we taught the younger kids instead.
Emer and I with grade 3s at Mihiripenna
Kandyan dancers from SGV at the peraherra
the front of the SGV peraherra
We had a visit from our desk officer from Project trust - Nick, who arrived when we hada poya day so took Emer, Finn, Tris and I whale watching 40minutes away from here. He also came into Mihipenna one day to watch us teach and we went to the rock temple close by with him.
We have also been back up to Colombo to watch more cricket - this time Australia vs Pakistan. We saw history as Australia lost there first match in the last 4 world cups (they had won 34 matchs in world cups and we saw them lose there 35th...). We were mixed in with a big group from Pakistan so got green and white painted all over our faces!
Teaching has also been going really well - definietly seeing a massive improvement in our grade 2s which is so nice. Term is coming to an end again!! Can't believe i have almost finished to terms here and only got one more left!! So this week there is a lot of term end tests and then school will finish next friday the 8th. The week before last there were 3 days off school due to southern province elections and schools were used for polling centres - so those 3 days we made loads of resouces (books, fans, pictures, cards, clocks etc...) for each of the 4 schools senahasa works with, it was great to get them done and know they can be used lots with future volunteers.
Im sure there are lots more little bits and bobs i could say but i have written enough to lose peoples focus already. Not entirely sure when i will manage to write in this again as we finish school on the 8th and then Emer and i hope to travel a wee bit, then my family come out on the 15th till the 30th so busy busy untill May. So excited to see my Mum, Dad and Sister and show them all whats been going on the last 7 months!!
I hope everyone is doing great and having lots of fun!! Buddhist new year is coming up on the 13/14th April so Happy New Year for then!
Kirstin xxx
p.s are loads more photos just being very slow and annoying tonight!!
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