Wednesday 15th February 2023

Yet another whirlwind of a day in Maskeliya that started with an online chat with Tim Pare, the co-founder of Tea Leaf Trust, with his wife Yasmene. It was lovely to have a catch-up with him before heading off for more lesson observations. I have been so impressed with what I have seen over the past two days at the Tea Leaf Centre here in Maskeliya, and it was great to be able to share that with Tim this morning.

I have completed 6 lesson observations over these past two days, but there are 18 teachers, so I have only seen one third of them. I spent another 90 minutes looking at a Teachers Knowledge Test Unit on Phonology with the Advanced Diploma students this afternoon. We went through the rest of the 44 phonemes in the English language that we didn't cover yesterday, but I did break it up with a word game and a bit of singing, as it was rather dull!

Tamil Sri Lankans struggle with the 'w' sound, and substitute a 'v' for it, so you can just imagine what it looked like with me and the 17 young ladies out of the 20 in the group who were there today, all standing up and repeating frequently: 'We are women', which started off sounding like: 'Ve are voman', but we got there in the end! It was a lot of fun working with a great group of ladies with such huge potential, and I wish them all much future success.

I spent a lovely last evening in Maskeliya at Butterfly Mountain Lake Side, run by Kana, who remembered me, as I stayed there for Gobi's wedding in 2019. (People always seem to remember me - I must have that kind of face - or personality!). I went with Rory and Nini, two Tea Leaf volunteers, and we had a lovely meal by the lake whilst watching the sun setting behind Sri Pada (Adam's Peak).

Today's pictures are of the day's activities at Tea Leaf Centre Maskeliya (I am sorry but I didn't catch one of me shouting 'We are women' with the ladies!) and my evening down by the lake.