Tuesday 7th February 2023

I went into Nanu Oya Tea Leaf Centre with Daya today and had a very enjoyable day finishing off some paperwork and then getting involved with what the students were doing on their first official day of their one-year Main Diploma course. There were 38 students there today, but there will be more students to come after the 'A' Level exams are completed, so they will be close to their capacity of 60 students.

I bumped into a lovely family from the UK the other day at The Grand Hotel, and we ended up discussing the work of Tea Leaf Trust. They live in London, but they have Sri Lankan roots, and have ended up coming to Nuwara Eliya to help with Tea Leaf Trust. It was lovely to see them at the school today, and I particularly enjoyed their elder son Orien joining me for a conversation session with a group of students in the afternoon.

I had quite a long session after school chatting to Vidurshan and Vikas, twin boys that I have ended up having a special interest in, as they have benefitted from some money given to me by a German friend to use whilst I am out here in Sri Lanka. They are in the very early stages with their English, so one of the leading teachers, Nakiba, helped to translate for me, with Daya taking over a bit later on.

Nanu Oya (sometimes spelt Nanuoya) has always struck me as being a rather poor town, and as I left school this afternoon, I took some photos of the immediate surroundings and the town itself. I walked into town and caught the bus into Nuwara Eliya, which cost me 800 LKR (around 20p!). I spent the late afternoon and early evening at The Grand Hotel, where I ended up having a lovely, informative chat with the General Manager.

Today's photos are the ones I took as I left school in Nanu Oya today, and include one showing the Edinburgh Tea Factory building (which I understand is no longer a working tea factory and is just a huge empty shell). You will also see the Edinburgh Tea Estate sign on the hillside (with a zoomed in version, so you can see it!) in another of the photos, which is an interesting link for me now that two of my three children are now living in Edinburgh












Comments

  1. CharlesFebruary 8, 2023 at 1:55 AM

    Thanks, Keith, for sharing photos which show signs of deprivation alongside the beauty of the landscape. The 'Edinburgh' sign provides a stark reminder of colonialism at the same time as offering the personal connection you must now feel with that city - in that sense it may be symbolic of your relationship with Sri Lanka, as a Brit who feels compelled to give back to a country from which Britain profited so much in the past!

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