Sunday 24th April 2022

I had a strange old day today, and, in many ways, it was very amusing! It was always going to be a very relaxed Sunday for me, so I spent the morning quite leisurely getting on with some paperwork for Tea Leaf Vision, and doing a bit of sorting out and packing, ready for my move down to Maskeliya tomorrow morning, as I now have an extra suitcase of stuff to contend with!

When I was at Yad's on Wednesday afternoon, she invited me back for lunch today. Reggie took me home in his tuk-tuk that day and agreed to pick me up at 13:00 today to take me to Yad's. He arrived well on time, but I think something must have got lost in translation, as the journey seemed rather odd to me - and it certainly didn't have the familiarity of my journey to Yad's on Wednesday.

Eventually, we got to where Reggie thought we were supposed to be going, and he beckoned me to get out of the tuk-tuk. He took me to a front door and Jesmin appeared! It transpired that Reggie thought I was visiting Sutharshan, Jesmin and their lovely daughter Adhira in Kandapola, which is, sadly, nowhere near where Yad lives! However, we all saw the funny side of it and had a quick cup of tea!  

I eventually arrived at Yad's very late, and they had already eaten their lunch - but had saved some for me and it was fabulous! I had a great time chatting with Yad, who is wonderful company, but it was tinged with sadness that life is so overshadowed by the current political situation here. To find out more, please check out the link below shared with me by Hendrik from Bathavon Rotary Club.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/24/humanitarian-crisis-sri-lanka-rajapaksa-spark-real-change










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friday 16th February 2024

Image
It was my final day in the Pre-Primary Department of the Royal International School today, which was kind of sad, as they have been so welcoming, and I have had the most amazing time there. Miss Agatha and Miss Tharika run a very tight team that manages 902 children from Toddlers to Nursery to Lower Kindergarten (LKG) to Upper Kindergarten (UKG) extraordinarily well, and which provides an excellent foundation for these pupils' learning journey. I had a wonderful morning where I was observing Number lessons with the UKG Co-ordinator and the English Co-ordinator (seeing the level of English in the Number lessons). In almost all the lessons, the quality of the teaching was exceptionally high, with the attention to detail - and in particular with the resources they had prepared - quite incredible. And apart from all of that, it was great fun, which is, in my opinion what learning should be for children. I had a nerve-wracking afternoon, as I had to deliver a session on time management
Read more

Wednesday 14th February 2024

Image
My younger granddaughter Esther is 5 years old today, so I messaged her 10-year-old sister Isabella to ask her to wish her a 'Happy Birthday' from me. It was much less of a crazy day today, with a morning filled with lesson observations - this time observing English lessons in the Upper KinderGarten (UKG) classes, which is the equivalent year to Reception, so I could imagine Esther being at school with the children I was with all morning today. It was really useful today to watch the teaching of English to the 5-year-olds, whose level of understanding is already very impressive. As with the Tea Leaf Centres, it is a fully immersive system, so everything is conducted in English, and it is impressive how much English these 5-year-olds already know, in the same way that the progress Tea Leaf students make through the one-year full-time English Diploma is also extremely impressive. If you have been reading my blog, you may remember that Erica, who I had a wonderful weekend with in
Read more

Saturday 6th January 2024

Image
I would say that this was easily my most enjoyable day so far, but it got rather spoiled this evening when I handled an extremely frustrating situation very badly. Let's focus on the good part of the day, because it really was a pleasure to work with Miggy and Stephanie all day, as we went in search of accommodation for Stephanie from next Tuesday 9th January, that we could also recommend to future volunteers who are working with Tea Leaf Trust in the Nuwara Eliya area. We visited 10 different Guest Houses between 10:00 and 16:00, with a brief stop for a delicious buffet lunch (that only cost 500LKR - a round   £1.25 -  per head) in b etween. We found some very suitable accommodation to suit a range of budgets in a variety of locations, but there was one place that was exceptional, where we returned at the end of the day to make a booking for Stephanie, who will go there at the same time as Isabelle, a new volunteer, next Tuesday. Our ideal accommodation (and I would happily stay t
Read more