Keith in Sri Lanka

Sunday 29th September 2019 I just had another restful day today, as I am finding I need to pace myself after quite a busy working week. I got up late and had a quick breakfast, before walking in to Nuwara Eliya town centre to have another look round and do some shopping. I ended up going to The Grand Hotel again, as I wanted to watch the Australia versus Wales game, which turned out to be a very exciting one, with the final score Australia 25 Wales 29. Wales were well-up at half-time and just managed to hold off a very spirited come-back from the Australian team in the second half. If there had been another 10 minutes play, I think the Australians would have managed to win! I came home and ironed the clothes I had washed yesterday, then I went back into Nuwara Eliya with Rachelle to have dinner at Ambals, which is where I went on my first night here. I am not sure I would ever have gone there if it hadn’t been recommended by Rachelle, but the food is very good and extremely...

Saturday 28th September 2019 Today was a lovely restful day. I slept in very late, then did some washing in a washing machine that is like something out of the 1950s! It only uses cold water and you must put the cold water in, drain it, put fresh water in to rinse the washing, then put the clothes in the spinner section of the machine to wring them out. It does seem to get clothes surprisingly clean though! I then went off to The Grand Hotel to watch the rugby. When I arrived at the Hotel, the big screen was no longer up in the Octagonal Piano Room, so I asked if it was being shown anywhere else in the hotel. It clearly wasn’t, but I was escorted into a huge conference room, where 5 or 6 people scurried round to get the rugby match playing on the big screen in there. They moved loads of furniture round, brought me a table and chairs and offered me a cup of tea etc. I felt a bit embarrassed and told them it really didn’t matter too much about the rugby, but they still treate...

Friday 27th September 2019 Today was the day of the Speech Conference. I was impressed with how well the Wedding Hall was decorated when I arrived. There was an air of excitement, as staff and students put together the final touches to make this a memorable event. There were table decorations on each of the tables for the students and special decorations on the tables for the guests. I was impressed by their attention to detail. It was all so well-thought-out and organised. Yad, Jesmin and Sudarshan arrived with Rachelle, who had borrowed one of Yad’s saris and looked great in it. Almost all the male students were wearing their smartest shirts and ties, whilst the girls had been told they could wear their best outfits and came in the most beautiful saris, with almost every colour combination you could think of. It all added to the atmosphere and the intent was clearly to make this event a very special one for the students. Everyone was taking photographs on their phones and I wa...

Thursday 26th September 2019 At 10:00 this morning, I had a Skype Conference Call with Tim Pare in New Zealand, Yad and Jesmin in Nuwara Eliya and me in Maskeliya. It was extremely useful, as it clarified what I would be doing in the next phase of my work here for the International Rotary Project, plus other bits of work for Tea Leaf Vision, which tie in with the International Rotary Project anyway. It did not cover any of the peace-keeping and reconciliation work and I will have another Skype Conference Call about that in due course. I had a little time to practice with the students for their Speech Conference tomorrow and then we all went to the Wedding Hall for a final practice at the venue. I went in the lorry and, as I climbed up into it, I split my trousers and had to grab another pair on the way to change into once I arrived at the Wedding Hall! The Wedding Hall is such a great venue for the Speech Conference and a long time was spent decorating it and having a full p...

Wednesday 25th September 2019 I had three more lesson observations with teachers (all ladies) in the first three lessons this morning and then, in the fourth lesson I fed back to them. One of the ladies, who is only in her second year of teaching, was extremely impressive. There were so many positive aspects to her lesson, but the one that I would highlight is when she made a point of asking the students why they were learning what they were covering in their Success and Ethics class. It is so important not to learn in a vacuum, but to understand the reasoning and the purpose behind that learning and I commended the teacher for this.   After lunch, I had another session with the Teacher Trainee interns on their revision for the Teacher Knowledge Test (Module 1), again looking at their phonological awareness and going through the phonemes that we didn’t cover yesterday. We practised the sound made by each phoneme and then generated words for each of them, noting that there were d...

Tuesday 24th September 2019 I had an excellent day today – in the end! It started off okay. I was up very early, had breakfast and walked to the school. I got slightly lost on the way, and went through some rough ground (more on that later), but quickly got back on the right track and arrived at school before they had even unlocked the building! I attended the morning Staff Meeting at 08:30 and had my first lesson observation at 09:00. I noticed some blood on my trouser leg, but I couldn’t work out why, as my leg didn’t hurt, so I just ignored it. A little way through my second lesson observation something dropped out of my trouser leg and started crawling across the floor. One of the students scooped it up on a piece of paper and got rid of it. I recognised straight away that it was a leech and when I lifted my trouser leg up there was a lot of blood dripping down my leg. As I crossed the rough ground this morning, I must have picked up the leech and it had been feasting on my...

Monday 23rd September 2019 I was up very early this morning, ensuring I was ready to be picked up at 08:30 for the trip to the Maskeliya School, where I will be working for the week.  We stopped off on the way at the Palmerston School on the Palmerston Tea Estate (see photos below). This is their newest venture. Maskeliya opened in 2010, Nuwara Eliya in 2016 and Palmerston opened only this month! It only has two classes and it has the feel of a little village school, with beautiful outlooks. It is a very important new venture for Tea Leaf Vision, as they were approached by the government to set the school up because of their proven track record at Maskeliya. The target they have been set this year is to see 40 students graduate from their programme and they currently have 46 students, with more due to enrol, so they should hit that target comfortably. If they do, it then puts the organisation in a great position to develop schools across the region. The drive from Palmerston,...