Tuesday 5th November 2019

Having said that Sunday was my most exhausting day so far, I can certainly say that today surpassed that! Having left our accommodation early (at 07.00) in order to get the first bus to Jaffna, we then discovered that there was no bus to Jaffna until 10.00 (apparently you don’t plan ahead in Sri Lanka and check things like this!), so we had some breakfast and then waited for the bus to arrive. We finally arrived at Mullaitivu, after one change of bus on the way, at 20.00. It is the combination of the length of travel and the conditions of travel (very poor, very crowded buses on very poor roads in very hot, humid weather) that makes these regional journeys so exhausting!

To add to our woes after an exhausting journey, Kevin, the guy from the Mullaitivu Youth Reconciliation Centre, who was supposed to meet us off the bus, didn’t appear (no idea why not) and we then found that the accommodation he had booked for us was very grim (because, as we found out later, he hadn’t seen it). Although they had alternative accommodation to offer us, when we got there that was as grim as the first place. Fortunately, our tuk-tuk driver knew of a better place we could stay that was not too expensive and we finally got settled at just after 21.30! The place we ended up at has the delightful name of ‘Pub Admin Rest’. 

(Added the next morning!). We discovered this morning why Kevin wasn’t there to meet us. The fact is that the Youth Reconciliation Centre in the Northern Province isn’t in Mullaitivu at all! It is in fact 30 kilometres away in Udaiyarkattu! It is a bit like arriving in Bath late one evening to go to a conference, only to discover the following morning that it is in Yatton, the other side of Bristol! I chatted to Daya about the fact that he is the Youth Regional Co-ordinator for Sri Lanka Unites, so he ought to know more precisely where his Regional Offices are, but, to be fair to him, this is not only the first time he has visited the Regional Offices, it is the first time that he has travelled to most of these regions in Sri Lanka! Another problem is that the Centre is called Mullaitivu Youth Reconciliation Centre, even though it is nowhere near Mullaitivu! It is the equivalent of Bathavon Rotary Club being located in Yatton, which, to us is bonkers, but in Sri Lanka it somehow makes perfect sense! You need to be here for a while to even begin to understand it!

Just three photos today! The first one is of my lovely travelling companion, Kumaravel Dayaneethibabu, whilst we were waiting at Kalmunai Bus Station for the bus to Jaffna. He has been amazing today and made an extremely difficult trip that much more bearable. The second one is me (the next morning) by the sign for the hotel where we are staying. The third one is the view from our hotel out towards the Indian Ocean.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday 4th March 2025

Image
I finally got to my last day here which started very early, as I was up at the crack of dawn to sort out a few things in the apartment, then get my last few bits of packing done. Razeena once again brought me breakfast, which was a great start to my day. After breakfast, I popped a present for Sandra in Ravi's office, just in case I didn't see her to say goodbye to her but then met her at the Junior School on my way back and said a fond farewell to her there. I left at 08:30, with Liyanage driving me to the airport - not that I was aware of that journey, because I had got up so early this morning that I nodded off for most of it. I hardly had to queue at all for either the security checks or for check-in, so I had quite a bit of time before my flight was due to take off at 12:50. I had a delicious, filled croissant for lunch, with a latte, then went to Gate 9, where I didn't have to wait too long before boarding the plane, which thankfully took off on time. It was an 11-hou...
Read more

Friday 1st November 2024

Image
There was no school again today, as the staff were out on a staff trip somewhere (not sure where they went), so we had breakfast a little later at 08:30, then did some washing before heading into school at 10:30 to do some planning and preparation for our Maths Staff Training session on differentiation, which is taking place after school on Monday. There are 53 staff coming we have been told - across Grades 1 to 5, so I think it will be pretty challenging for us! Having got as far as we could with the planning and preparation, we went shopping for some Maths resources Valerie needed to purchase, plus a little trip to Halal Bakers to buy some bread for breakfast tomorrow. The street shops are an amazing concoction of buildings with all kinds of trades going on within them, and on the extremely busy Kurunegala to Kandy road, so Valerie took some photographs of the local shops, which you will see below today. We got back to the apartment, and I got on with planning out the Maths Staff Tra...
Read more

Saturday 5th October 2024

Image
It's my fifth trip to Sri Lanka, but on this occasion I am at last joined by my wife, Valerie, and it will be lovely not to be on my own this time. We flew out of London Heathrow Airport one hour late at 22:30 UK time on Friday, and after a rather excruciating eleven hour flight, we eventually landed at Colombo Airport just after 13:30 Sri Lankan time on Saturday. I slept for a few hours on the journey, but Valerie struggled to get any sleep at all. Sandra Wanduragala met us at Colombo Airport, and we drove into Colombo for a couple of hours - meeting up with her daughter, Selena, at the Good Market, which we really enjoyed and would love to go back to. We then went back to Selena's home, where it was good to be able to freshen up a little bit, and enjoy a nice cup of tea, before our driver, Rohan drove us to Kurunegala, where we will be based for the next two months. Arriving in Kurunegala, we met up with my good friend Tharika and her daughter, Evinka, to have dinner at Sri B...
Read more