Another busy packed last few weeks...also not very up to date here again so lots to say. Hope everyone is great at home and will be seeing you all very soon!
In the last few weeks we have been all over the place...
starting with finns birthday on the 2nd of June, we (tris, finn, emer and i) went away the following weekend to mirissa beach about 40 minutes from here towards matara. We spent two nights there - watched lots of england vs sri lanka cricket, swam, Tris and i went for a walk up to a temple and met a lovely lovely family who gave up king coconuts to drink and we played games/drew pictures with the kids - was all really lovely!
mirissa bay
The next week it was Tris' birthday on the sunday, so we went to opposite direction, north to Ambalangoda. We stayed the weekend at my family friends house (the one my family and i stayed in when the came over in april - cant believe its now July!!!!!!!), it was a very relaxed weekend, we didn't leave the house much - but to be honest didn't want to its such an amazing house - Thanks again to Aileen, Harry and family for letting us stay there! We did however have a tv and dvd played so emer and i went and rented out some dvds and we watched some films - including the new (well maybe now not so new but new since we have been here) Harry Potter - actually not all the impressing... Emer and i also bought some yummy fresh prawns from the market and made a "makey upy" fish (prawn) pie, it was so yummy though - quite proud of our cooking skills for once! The next night we also made some yummy pasta, tomato, bacon combo and then for tris' birthday breakfast we made some pancakes with ice cream and bananas!!!! We also had a very intense game of manopoly - which i like to think i should have won but didn't as i was ganged up on by the other 3...
while im on the birthday note...as a present from jo and alan to tris and finn for their birthday they took all 4 of us with them to a villa along the road from here to play tennis, swim in a snazy pool and eat some snazzy breakfast. We had a lovely day - tennis was fun even though im pretty rubbish it was fun all the same, slighty burnt soles of my feet because i played in bare foot as a result but thats my silly fault oops!
Teaching has been going great and i can't believe there is only 5 more weeks left untill the end of term and we finish teaching - time is/has flown! We have had some great grade 2 lessons involving making and wearing fruit masks and then say while wear your banana mask for example - "i like yellow banana", it was hilarious for us and the kids, great learning fun! I have also taken some smaller groups out of classes in Mihiripenna - all of which have been great and show so much improvement, which is so rewarding. I took some very weak boys from grade 5 who were adorable, tried so hard, we just focused on the basics of alphabet and phonics but it was great to see them try so hard and eventually get some of them stuck. In grade 1 to 3 right now we have been doing a lot of focus on formation of letters - which is also so rewarding as the kids realise that there is actually a correct way to do it and they can do it - really sweet! also been taking smaller groups from grades 6, 7 and 8 recently - 6 and 7s being weaking ones from the class and 8s being the stong ones - nice to have a mix.
emer, miss cante and some grade 2as sgv with their fruit masks - lots of laughing!
me and some grade 2as and fruit masks - pretty scary!!It was poson poya day last month and to celebrate we went to a girl, Danu from UMVs house where we had some special poson snacks. Danu was wearing a sari for the first time in her life and she looked amazing! After there house we walked to a dansal (free food giving ceremony - like the same things that were going on on vesak, the other big poya day) in unawatuna where we had some lovely rice and curry! it was a really nice night and good to get to know danu and her family a bit more!
Since i last wrote in here we have also had a week off as a kind of half term break. So Emer, Tris, Finn and I all went to Trincomolee along with one of Finns friends from home, Peter. peter, tris and finn headed up before emer and i on the sleeper train and got rooms etc. The next day emer and i headed to colombo, got some food and hopped on the sleeper train ourselves - not very sleepery, we ha slightly reclining chairs - was good fun however, Emer and i pretending to be from Switzerland and speaking in funny accents for a long time kept us going and laughing. We left at 9ish and got in at around 5/6am the next morning - think i slept 2/3 hours max...fun fun fun! Anyway Trincomolee is beautiful and well worth the travel! We were staying on the beach, which had flat calm water for once which was a change from here. Trinco has only recently been fully open to tourists since the war so its fairly quiet and very different to the south coast where i am now -it seemed a lot more dry not so green and lush, women seemed to be out and about a lot more freely (lots of girls at night and cycling bikes everywhere - doesn't happen so often here) - it was great! Really nice to go to different parts of sri lanka and experience different lifestyles. We spend lots of time relaxing/swimming at the beach, we explore trinco (bought some presents for home), went into the fort and the temple which was on a cliff (think thats the first proper cliff i have seen here...). One more i rented a bike to cycle to the train station and check when we could get a train back to colomobo - loved the bike, was a fairly old ladies bike with a basket - amazing, had a lovely wee cycle looking around at everything as i went.
emer, finn, tris and peter eating ice creams on the way up though the fort in trinco to the temple at the top - looking over trinco bay
finn and tris at the temple!
yesterday we (tris, finn, emer, jo, alan and i) went up rumassala hill to lachmees (jos friend teacher from umv) house for an armsgiving (celebration - giving food, chanting, monks came etc). It was a lovely morning and then after we went for a well wash also which was so refreshing in the jungle like area of rumassala hill.
bay on the way to mihiripenna on my bike from here. just a nice photo. in the back ground the bit of land the sticks out far away is where rumassala hill is and where we had our well wash and lachmees arms giving.
emer and i in galle fort!!
Well i think that is all for now from me but i will try get a couple more blogs in for my time in sri lanka! at least one while im here and one when i get home maybe!
Hope everyone is great and having lots of fun. love kirstin xxx
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