blog 12

Hello all!

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

Day 2 of the trip - we had a very very brief stop of at Arugam Bay beach then headed for the proper beach stop at Batticaloa (furthest north i have been in Sri Lanka yet) - having a juice break at a three wheeler shop...The beach we went to was beautiful - we all went swimming although most of the pupils can't swim (i think its something like 3 per cent of sri lankans can swim!) but it was very shallow out far so lots of splashing and playing in the water went on, great fun! After washing, lunch, frizbee etc at the beach stop we went south again for Ampara where we were to stay that night. That night was similar to the first with a lot of "extreme cooking" and all sleeping in the big assembly hall - we slept behing some cutains on the stage. That morning with another 3am start (even though it was saturday the school we were staying at had lessons due to losing lesson time during the flooding) we managed to find buckets to wash our hair, breakfast and lunch were made and headed straight off to eat breakfast at our next stop.

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!!

hello!!

sorry for not writing in this in a while...seem to have been busy recently and haven't found the time to fill you all in on sri lankan news...although this may be brief too as i dont have too much time to write this...

ok so think this may be mainly photos...but then again i always say this and get carried away!

last night we went to watch sri lanka v pakistan in the world cup in colombo. spent 2 nights in colombo with emer, tris and finn and had an amazing day at the cricket! although sri lanka lost by 12 runs it was so good - they are mad about cricket here and everyone was constantly singing and dancing! loved it!!!! pretty sky above too...

emer, finn and tris looking "cool" at the cricket...

emer and i with our sri lankan flags at the cricket

we have also been back to our highland families house for lunch and have been tutoring her daughter Ishara - trying to help her sort a cv and plan for ineterviews for jobs in agriculture.

We got stopped by a man on his motor bike in the street who then wapped out a big chunk of cow (or beef as you would usually say but this was practically a cow...) and emer screamed in her acting ways, went on to tell him she was a vegitarian and to put that horrible thing away, then he went on to swing the bag of cow in my face with my "veggie friend" close by...shes not an actual veggie just to keep it clear but funny all the same!

SGV sports day! loads of fun, had to stand at the end of each race and just "catch" 3rd place coming in to the end. Also emer and i ran in the teachers 200metre race!!....in our saris and bare feet! was halirous for us but even more funny for the kids watching.

Emer and the SGV boys after there football match against UMV.

from our room at umv - kids practicing dances for the parade they are doing this friday to the temple!

We have been practicing cycling on one bike...basically one person sits on the cross bar and one sits on the seat and peddles...all the sri lankans are awesome at it...emer and i fell of the bike 3 times in the space of 5 minutes....

we arranged a cricket match for Mhiripenna to play UMV - unfortunately we (Mhiripenna) lost but it was a great game all the same on there pitch - more like a field...did have a cow in it previously, also had a road through the middle and a hill...fun fun fun!

Emer and i went for a cycle to a temple we had not been to near by and met some kids for UMV (the cooks children who are always here after school so see them lots) - they showed us around and had a lovely time with them. then their dad climbed the coconut tree and brought us one each to drink...yummy!

Emer has taken on extra cowricular activities...she is mooooving slowly with her new... pupil

(emer wrote that cheesy pun NOT me.)

we attended a sri lankan grade 3 teachers training day - which we have found actually very useful!

we have been to lunch at 2 other families homes the last 3 weeks and to the post office as weird as it seems for a lunch/arms giving - community spirt!

we have found a new area of galle that is amazing - so different from main street!

we have also taught 2 great lessons outside! one with grade 5s doing directions using blind folds etc and the other with grade 3s doing colours...we had coloured bits of paper made some kids hold them in all areas of the play ground then made the rest stand in the middle while emer and i shouted what colour and they ran to it...this went slightly wrong when the kids with the paper decided it was even more fun to run away with the paper so turned in to a big chasing game...sorted it out well and think colours is going down a treat!

grade 1 still seem to cry a lot but are getting sooooo much better!!

all for now!!

hope everyone is great and having lots of fun! all great and fun here so hope it is with you too!

emers famiily - she is doing amazing, we are having loads of fun together, very lucky to have her! looking forward to meeting you in april!

love kirstin xxxx


emer here...feeling extra settled at the mo couldn't ask for a better partner, been very busy the past weeks (even teaching cows) as you have read. cant wait to see mummy, daddy and orla and to meet kirsts parents and anna banana. love to all e-mcdizzle!!! xxx

blog 9.....

hello!!

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 meet

As 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 layer

 

and is now yellow and green (much to Tris and Finns disapproval) with animals (including bambi), fish, numbers and alphabet...not going to lie it looks pretty amazing - mainly due to emers awesome artistic skills on the drawing!! Hopefully it will make the kids want to come to our lessons...or just distract them...or distract Emer and i...



After 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 from

We 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
　

blog 8

hello!!!

so first 2 weeks back at school teaching since last term. it is a new year for teaching here so things have been fairly slow at getting started, time tables all over the place but think its just about up and running now!
thought i would just chuck a few photos up for you all to see. big highlight the last 2 weeks was our well wash yesterday up rumassala hill!!! absolutely loved it!! felt cleaner after a well wash than a shower - so refreshing!!

January in schools here are packed with sports as they dont do them any other time of the year so this month we have seem some cricket matches, netball, running races and more to come.

the boys arranged a cricket match, against st pauls school from london who were touring sri lanka, to play the team they had been coaching at UMV:

running races on the road outside SGV:

kids watching the races:

"dolls houses" - made of saris by the new grade 1 parents. they are used to welcome the new grade ones as a cross over point between leaving home and joining school:

emer, Lady (the amazing school dog) and her puppy (name still not sticking...been tibs, boxer, sebastian - sebie or bassie for short...i like bassie). he is so cute! lady is a great mum too, a snake was just outside where they sleep and lady was so fast to chase it off and save her wee puppy - emer and i watched from the balcony...:

Jo, Lachmee and myself heading back to Unawatuna after our well wash:

Emer and i playing in the sea in our saris:

Hope everyone is great and having loads of fun!

Also thank you so much to all of you who helped me to raise the money to come out here, i am so grateful and having the most amazing experience, thank you!

Love kirstin xxxxx

hey emer here. quick note to kirsts gran- she is now readily drinking tea and eggs are no longer a problem. mission complete! ha!
LOT'S of love back home to everyone and hope that the snow is slowly disappearing (although we're jealous!!) miss you all, Emer xo

christmas holidays

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE, hope you all had a great new year and Christmas!

back from travelling now had an amazing time getting to see some more of Sri Lanka. it is really nice to be back and have people in the village recognise you and ask where we have been. start teaching again this week, excited to see all the kids again. also came back to a nice surprise to find lady (if i have not said before she is the school dog that we named and love) has had a wee puppy!!! he is so cute, still to think of a name. anyway pretty packed full holiday so will just put loads of photos and a rough idea of what we were up to.

emer with lady when she was pregnant just before we left:

emer and i left first and went to tangalle, tissa, monaragala then to Arugam bay where we met Tris and finn, lasted about a week until we met them.

so tangalle: we just chilled out on the beach and "learnt" how to play Karum (sri lankan board game - a bit like pool but smaller and using your hands). swam a bit although the waves were insane and splashed out the last night to stay in an amazing hotel right on the beach. drank ALOT of banana milkshakes!

tissa: ye took the bus from tangalle to tissa, through all the paddy fields further east and inland. first thing that happened when we arrived was the yala national park touts convinced us to get off the bus at what they said was tissa, but really wasn't. it even said in the book not to fall for these people but sadly we did...oopsies! so anyway we escaped them and ended up where we were planning on staying. the place we stayed had bikes so emer and i took them everywhere we went. Tissa was definitely one of my favourite places, it had a massive lake with "bird island" in the middle, wasn't too touristy and an amazing big market. we cycled up to the lake and ended up getting a free boat ride to see all the birds on the island, it was beautiful, pelicans on the top of trees that looked far to small for them! oh i also managed to pop the tyre on the bike we borrowed so emer and i did some sri lankan bike riding...both on one bike, i sat at the back and held on to my bike that needed fixed. we took it too some lovely man who shared some mango with us...

we arranged to go to yala national park at 5.30am one morning from tissa. hopped in our fairly old looking landy and headed for yala...fingers crossed our photo copies of our residents visas would work, after much persuading at the gate we manage to get in a local price yah. it was amazing! we saw 4 leopards! some in the distance but one was so close. our driver stopped under a tree and grabbed my camera from my hands, we looked up and this leopard looked straight back at me as if he would eat me...ahhh, he then ran away...we also saw some elephants, peacocks, crocodiles and loads of other birds. one of the best things though was getting our land rover well and truly stuck in the mud - i will just show you pictures for this as you probably wouldn't believe how stuck we were if i told you...we had to be pulled out and we very lucky as no one usually gets to get out of the trucks in yala (we did to help push...):

looked even worse from behind

　


monaragala was really just a stop off point before heading for arugam bay but we did go for a really nice walk up "peacock rock", covered in rubber trees!

Arugam bay: stayed in a palm leave hut on the beach! very basic and had a rat friend but loved the place to stay. we literally chilled out very majorly here and didn't do a lot - ate my first beef in 3 months...and it rained quite a bit.

our hut was on the left side

from there we heading via monaragala again to Badulla in the hill country. that was an amazing bus journey through all the tea plantations on cliff edges, exciting! Badulla was great too! we walked to Dunhinda falls and then further down the river to a place we were shown was good for swimming - it was gorgeous, small waterfall and pools, was some weird crab things in it but loved it all the same.

dunhinda waterfall

swimming spot...

from Badulla we took our first train ride and we were all like over excited kids on Christmas - we loved it! you can just hang out the windows and doors and it has the most amazing views ever as it travels fairly slow! we headed for Ella! here we all had some sickness times but recovered pretty past... we stayed in a really friendly guest house called rainbow inn and walked little Adams peak through more tea and ella rock! both had the most amazing views at the top over the Ella Gap.

view from little adams peak across to ella rock

we then took another train to hapatale which was amazing, felt like the highest place in sri lanka (which its not...) you could see for miles, the town was basically built on the top of a mountain. we met a lovely sri lanka girl walking along the railway who invited us all to her house on a tea estate for some tea, so we did and met all her friends and family. all the children took us to see there temple where we were blessed and then we played loads of games with them. they were all so sweet and invited us back the next day for lunch, so we did this too, the food was so yummy and the family so kind and welcoming, we played more games! was so nice to meet them!

we also climbed liptons seat from here - liptons tea - man from Glasgow! i know i keep saying everything was gorgeous and beautiful, this was too, one of the most beautiful but its true this country and amazing! after we climbed liptons seat we went to have a tour round the tea factory and then our driver took us to see this nursery school he sometimes goes along to, the kids were adorable but so squashed in to such a small classroom, there were 60 kids from babies to 5/6 years old and only 1 teacher.

liptons tea!

emer and some of the nursery school kids

we thought we would be adventurous from Haputale and ignore the book...so we hopped of at a random stop and hopped that there would be somewhere to stay.....there was nothing!! we left again...
Nuwara Elyia - coldest place we went to! was very strange turned up and it was fairly like home...they call it "little England". it was cold, everyone wore hats and big jumpers, there was a winter market, we could see our breathe, there were christmas lights all over the place, golf courses, strawberries, redish pavements, no mozies...all and all a very unsri lankan! it was amazing to be cold though. we met jo and alan here and had some lovely meals with them. we played tennis twice and a lot of pool, we also arrange to go to horton plains national park to "worlds end" - big cliff basically! once again amazing views and a really really lovely walk through the park!

"worlds end"

view from the top...

kitugala - we got the bus here via hatton. here we went white water rafting...just planning on doing it the one day and leaving but ended up loving it so much we stayed and arranged to do the harder longer route the next day! great fun! even stopped at the side of the river ditched out raft and then jumped in the rapids being thrown all over the place and swept down. it was just so nice seeing everything around us too, first big river i have seen in sri lanka and it was very very pretty....(if any of you know the film bridge over the river Kwai, well thats the river we rafted on...under that bride).

ok this is at the top of admas peak (read below...cant move these pictures very well...)

adams peak on the right

Dalhousie - we met jo and alan here to spend christmas with them! we had a really lovely christmas - up at 2am to climb adams peak, 5200 steps apparently, we got to the top at 5.30am and caught the sun rising!!!! stunning (new use of beautiful words...)! the top of the mountain was packed but it didnt matter! we arranged a secret santa for the top of adams peak, so after carrying our presents up there we all opened them and hopefully loved them, i love mine - a coconut knife with a hand painted by jo red handle, cant wait to use it! after we got back down about 9am i went for a swim in the river which was freeze but refreshing...then we all slept! for christmas dinner we had a BBQ mmmmmm!! played some games after dinner!


from dalhousie we were pretty indecisive on where to go next, ended up spending the day in Hatton and then catching the night train to Hikkaduwa via kandy and colombo....wow well we left at around 12.15 at night and arrived in to hikkaduwa around 9/10ish am... Emer and i stood for the first 4 hours as the train was so so so so so so packed people sleeping all over the place and unlucky for us we picked a very bad place next to the toilet which then decided to leek....nasty! it was an experience...haha, i am glad we did it though!

hikkaduwa - right on the beach, very touristy, lots of surfing, hot compared to the hill country we had been in...had a great time before and over new year. tried surfing once, no lesson just got a board and had no idea where to start just ended up body boarding on a surf board, made it on to my knees....was good fun though and realise we are not far from there at all so may go back and learn to do it properly...
now back and amazing to be here...even with all the washing we now have to do...

hope everyone had a great christmas and thank you to everyone who sent me presents and cards will write back to you all very soon! lots of love kirstin xxx