Friday 3rd June 2022

The Tea Leaf Vision School Maskeliya has been closed all week, with just a few of the teachers or KNH staff popping in some days, so I just worked from home again today, which is becoming increasingly tedious, although there is nothing I can do about it. I have almost completed my Rotary International Project Report, and then I have lots of editing work to do, which is all a bit dull really!

I went for an early evening walk before dinner tonight, and took a few photos of my immediate surroundings, so you will see the guys in the garage towards the end of the day, a bus which it would appear is next on the jobs list, and a few other photos, including the Riverside shop at the other end of the bridge, where you can see there is plenty of firewood for sale in these most desperate of times.

It was Artem's last night at Ananda's, and we had a special dinner that included some apple-flavoured jelly for dessert. We don't usually have desserts here - just various fruits, which is a lot better for me really - so this was quite a treat. Artem is off to Ella tomorrow morning, then flying back home via Turkey and Moldova next week - hoping to be back in his home city of Poltava by the end of the week.

I had a good catch-up with Val this evening, and she was filling me in on the joys of this extended weekend break for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, which I feel completely out of touch with. We are both looking forward to flying out to Croatia on Tuesday 19th July, which doesn't seem that far away now. With everything that is going on in the world, it feels like quite a sanctuary for us out there!









Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 3, 2022 at 11:22 PM

    Good to see the plentiful supply of firewood, Keith, and the beautifully prepared leaving dinner for your Ukrainian companion. Much as it is reassuring to mark the passing years of our most loyal queen's reign, you are experiencing the reality of the current world economic crisis which the jubilee celebrations only serve to mask.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

Monday 7th October 2024

Image
We got cracking today with our prime reason for being here - to support the work of the Royal International School in Kurunegala. We worked together today to give Valerie a chance to settle in at the school, and we are having a gentle start at the Pre-Primary Department, where we will be spending 3 days seeing what they do so well there, before moving on this Thursday to the Junior Department, which is, of course, where our true area of expertise lies. We received a wonderful welcome from both staff and students as we arrived at the school this morning, including a group of girls performing a beautiful, traditional dance for us. It was lovely doing the few lesson observations with Valerie today, before we work separately from tomorrow onwards. The standard of teaching in the Pre-Primary Department is truly impressive, and we were pretty amazed by what we witnessed today. We are both enjoying it so much already! Sandra (who founded the school) and Ravi (the Managing Director) popped rou...
Read more

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