Keith in Sri Lanka

Daya and his wife, Vino, arrived in the middle of the night, and it was lovely to have them here for the weekend. After the business of the past three days, it felt great to have the weekend free. We had a lovely morning just catching up, with Chinu and her daughter Deepthi joining us. Daya went shopping in Norwood with Bara, so I ended up having a long chat with Vino, and I also sorted out a lot of my stuff, ready for my long journey to Pussellawa on Monday morning. Akka's eldest daughter, Chithra, also arrived later on in the afternoon, so Akka had all three of her daughters with her (Chitra, Sangeetha, and Chinu), and I took photos of them outside the house. At that point, I happened to notice two new little shops had appeared next door to Daya's house. When I went to investigate, I ended up chatting with Ms. Kuganeshwary, who has recently started working for Tea Leaf Trust, supporting the KNH (Kindernothilfe) project. Kindernothilfe is German for 'Children Without Help...

Today was a very full-on one, but also my best day so far. Shameer picked Bara and me up in his tuk-tuk, and drove us to Ambals Cultural Hall in Maskeliya, where the Tea Leaf Centre Maskeliya Speech Conference was being hosted today. It was lovely to return to a venue that I am pretty sure I haven't been to again since Gobi and Kavi's wedding on 28th November 2019. It is such a magnificent venue to host a Speech Conference in and I loved being there again today. I received such a warm welcome from staff and students this morning, and Mr. Umaharan Sivabalan, the excellent Principal at Tea Leaf Centre Maskeliya, and his team of staff facilitated a wonderful event today. The masters of ceremonies, presenting teams, and speech givers delivered a high quality Speech Conference. I was delighted to be a Chief Guest again today, which just involved witnessing the event, voting for the winners, and giving out certificates. The event finished by 14:30, after which Bara came with me into ...

Today was a very special day, as I had been invited to attend the Tea Leaf Centre Bogawantalawa Speech Conference. For many reasons, not least being that I have felt a part of this Tea Leaf Centre since it first opened three years ago in October 2023, this is my absolute favourite Tea Leaf Centre. I also love Speech Conferences, whichever Tea Leaf Centre I attend them in, so I was well pleased - indeed, quite excited - to be one of the Chief Guests in Bogawantalawa today. Staying at Daya's means I only have a fairly short three-wheeler ride to Bogawantalawa, and it is a beautiful journey, and so much more comfortable now that most of the road had a serious upgrade not so long ago. I met this cohort of students when I last visited this Tea Leaf Centre towards the end of January earlier on this year, so it was particularly impressive to see them performing in their Speech Conference towards the end of their Main Diploma year. Ms. Kalyani Subagaran, the exceptional Principal of Tea Le...

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...