Thursday 2nd February 2023

It was a difficult day today, as I didn't sleep very well last night, so I was up very late this morning. I think everything has just caught up with me a bit. I have been working very hard over the past few days, and I forget how tiring it can be just being out here in a completely different culture, where I am adapting every day to what is going on around me, but often fail to really appreciate that - until it catches up with me all of a sudden.

I decided to catch up with my washing - including my bedsheet and pillowcases - as it seemed reasonably warm and breezy when I made the decision. It was a big mistake, as not long after I had finished my washing and hung it all out to dry the weather turned and I ended up with the wettest day I have had so far, with it literally teeming down most of the afternoon, so there was no way I was getting my washing dry before the end of the day!

The highlight of my day was chatting to Val in the afternoon, as she seemed in very good spirits, having enjoyed a lovely weekend away in Scotland with Ben, Hannah, Dominic, and some friends of Hannah's. She is back in Bury looking after her Mum, who has been having problems with her vision - post cataract complications, which can fortunately be sorted out with laser treatment very easily.

I caught up with some paperwork this afternoon, including having a look at Tea Leaf Trust's Volunteers Guide, which is very comprehensive but in need of a bit of updating. I always found as a Headteacher that documents seemed to get out-of-date all too quickly, which is probably true for most organisations. This evening, I started to get ready for my weekend away with Daya in Ella, which I am very much looking forward to.

There are no new photos today, as it really wasn't a very exciting day at all, so I have posted a few from my trip on Monday that I haven't shown you. We visited a Catholic church opposite the second school that we visited in Ragala, and from the church you could also see a Buddhist temple and a Muslim mosque, which is very commonplace here.






Comments

  1. CharlesFebruary 3, 2023 at 12:56 AM

    Stunning photos, Keith. I dare say there are other places in the world where you see examples of Christian buildings co-existing with Buddhist temples and Islamic mosques, but do you get the sense that on the whole the co-existence is harmonious, or are there religio-ethnic tensions bubbling away under the surface?
    Pity about the rain - did you manage a good night's sleep without the luxury of bedclothes?!

    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

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

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