Friday 26th January 2024

The rumours of Tim Pare's imminent arrival were sort of true, in that he has arrived in Sri Lanka, but what I didn't know was that he is staying in Colombo for a couple of days before arriving in Nuwara Eliya at some point on Sunday afternoon, so I shall look forward to meeting him then. I went off to school this morning thinking that he had already arrived late last night, as there was a car parked outside the front of the house that I had never seen before!

I watched a couple of lessons at school this morning, but around 10:30 I went out with Anushan doing some promotion work with two of the alumnae from last year. We went to Mahagastota and Meepilimana, two fairly remote places. Mahagastota is one of the poorest villages that I have encountered in my four trips to Sri Lanka, and I was delighted to support them in trying to encourage young people from there onto the Main Diploma Programme.

When I go to a village like Mahagastota, it really helps me to understand what I am doing in Sri Lanka. My core purpose here is to try to support the work of Tea Leaf Trust in terms of creating opportunities for young people in the tea estate communities to escape the cycle of poverty that so many of them are trapped in. It helps a great deal to actually visit the communities that many of the students live in, so it was a privilege to help with the promotion work today.

I find myself on a bit of an emotional roller coaster when I am out here in Sri Lanka. There are wonderful highs in terms of experiencing the sheer beauty of the country and the warmth, humour, and great resilience of the people, but there are also many things here that can bring you to tears. We simply don't know how lucky we are in the UK, and in the West in general, and I will be forever grateful for the way that Sri Lanka has transformed my life.

Today's photos show Anushan in the school tuk-tuk at the start of our journey, then the various places we passed though in Mahagastota, including a picture of two sisters, one who was on the Main Diploma Programme last year, and the other who will take part in it this year. The photo of the single girl is of another one of the students who completed the Main Diploma Programme last year and lives here. It felt too intrusive to take photos in the villages themselves, so that's why there are no photos of their homes.