Keith in Sri Lanka

Having gone to bed at 20:45 feeling exhausted, I was able to sleep almost straight away, but woke up just after midnight to find the house in total darkness in the midst of a heavy storm. The power cut, a common occurrence in Sri Lanka, especially in the Hill Country, continued throughout the night, but the power came back on just after I woke up. For people who live here, this is just part of daily life, but I am not used to it yet, so it does frustrate me a little bit. Anas picked me up in his three-wheeler (commonly called a tuk-tuk in the west!) with Gowri waiting for me in the back. Having communicated with her a lot recently, it was lovely to meet her in person, and we spent the next 5.5 hours travelling around 4 different schools to get some feedback from teachers who had been on previous cohorts of the 6-month English Programme (including Cohort 11, the most recent one) and to also promote Cohort 12 and future ones. My most embarrassing moment of the day came at Barathi T.V. (T...

Even though I was exhausted by the time I went to bed at midnight last night, I struggled to sleep, and I was up again at 06:30 this morning, as my body clock is still working out what on earth is going on. There wasn't much for me to do, as when I tried to sort out my photographs for yesterday's blog entry there was no internet connection. I ended up making an ornament with stuff I had brought with me from Bath and popped it on top of the fridge in the dining area. It was a strange day, as the government schools and Tea Leaf Centres were closed because of the weather. I waited in this morning to meet the guy from Sri Lanka Telecom that Daya and Ragu had arranged to sort out the internet connection, and he then gave me a lift into Norwood, so that I could buy a few essentials, one of which was an umbrella! In this climate you are lost if you don't have an umbrella, as you are never quite sure when it will pour with rain. Having said that, the rain held off whilst I was in t...

I left my home in Bath just after 14:00 yesterday afternoon, and took a Flexibus coach to Heathrow Airport, with my direct flight to Colombo taking off shortly before 21:00. It was a 10-hour flight and landed just before 12:30 Sri Lankan time. It was okay as long-haul flights go, but after the evening meal, when everyone tried to go to sleep, it was weird being woken up at 04:30 UK time to have a breakfast that I really felt unable to eat so early in the morning. Arriving at 12:30 Sri Lankan time was only 07:00 UK time, so I had been on the go so-to-speak for 17 hours by then, with just short bursts of sleep on the plane. I was met by Gayashan, my driver for the trip to Norwood, and we left Colombo Airport just before 14:00, with a 5-hour journey (that included a short stop for food) ahead of us. The weather got steadily worse, so tough driving conditions for  Gayashan, but we arrived at Daya's home in Norwood shortly before 19:00. 19:00 Sri Lankan time was only 14:30 in the UK, so...

I have reached the final day, so there are a mixture of emotions; a deep sense of satisfaction for a job that even I think has been very well done this year; a lingering sadness that I am leaving behind a country that I have grown to love so much; a mighty sense of relief that I have a direct flight from Colombo to London Heathrow; and much happiness to be returning to Val and the family after such a long time away, with great anticipation of a relaxed time together in beautiful Croatia. I was up early and had my final breakfast at the Colombo Swimming Club, which has been a delightful place to spend my final days in Sri Lanka for a number of years now, as there is a relaxed familiarity about the place from spending so much time here. I booked a transfer to the airport, then set about packing up my things, which didn't take long, as I had already spent a long time sorting out my luggage before I came to stay in Colombo. I was picked up at 10:00 to go to the airport and everything w...

It was my last full day here in Colombo, and I was on a mission this morning to find beach towels. That may sound a bit bizarre, but when I asked my granddaughter, Isabella, what she would like me to bring back from Sri Lanka this time, she asked me for a nice beach towel, and I hadn't found any up until now. I googled beach towels in Colombo and found towels.lk, which is a shop in the busy wholesale area of Pettah in Colombo, so that was where I headed. To say that Pettah is a busy trading area would be the understatement of the year, as I have never been anywhere so crowded in all my years in Sri Lanka, and it took me some time to find the towel shop, but I got there in the end. I am disappointed that I failed to take photographs of the Pettah experience, but I was rather relieved to escape in the end, as it was all a bit too much for me, although the sights, the sound, the smells etc. were absolutely incredible. I made my way to meet my good friend Aruni and her son, Yash, for l...