Tuesday 26th November 2019

I spent the whole day at home today, which is a rare thing for me, as I normally don’t like to do that. However, I needed to complete my Youth Reconciliation Centres Visits Report and then continue finishing off a lot of things before I leave next week. Halfway through the morning, the AMMA ladies popped round bearing a Christmas gift for me, which was very sweet of them. In response to me making a banner for their entrance, they made me a Christmas banner, which I shall be taking home with me!

The most exciting moment of the day came when a group of youths appeared right outside where I have been staying, which is the last house at the end of a very quiet lane and a dead end for traffic, although there is a pathway for pedestrians to get through. They were hanging round outside for more than two hours and I was getting more and more concerned about what they were up to. I wondered if they were taking drugs or ‘casing the joint’ for a burglary later! Eventually, I called out to them through the window and they tried to engage with me, but they couldn’t speak much English. I ended up taking them round to the AMMA ladies and they chatted to one of them who could speak Sinhala. Apparently, they were all in the Sri Lankan Air Force and were on an exercise to rescue a ‘hostage’! When I looked through the trees opposite the house, I could see someone with their hands tied behind their back, but they weren’t very keen on me doing that, so I went back indoors! By the time it got dark, they were gone, and I don’t know if they had managed to rescue the 'hostage'!

There are only 3 photographs today all of banners! The first one is the Christmas banner that the AMMA ladies have given me and the other two are 'Welcome' banners that I have made as a thank you to the two sets of staff at the Nuwara Eliya and Maskeliya Tea Leaf Vision Schools. Hopefully, these banners will brighten the entrances to their schools!





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