Sunday 18th February 2024

Today was another of the great highlights of my two months in Sri Lanka this year, so it has been a marvellous weekend of them! Madam Sandra took me out for the day in the school minibus. We had a driver for the day, and Agatha and her daughter Soralia, plus Tharika and her daughter Evinka came with us. We visited a 'Forest School', then went to Sigiriya, then went to Madam Sandra's secret surprise for me to thank me for my time with the Royal International School.

The whole day was simply wonderful, with the visit to the 'Forest School', where Madam Sandra's son, Ravi, the Managing Director of the Royal International School, and Buddhika, who is Ravi's Mentor, and her husband met up with us. The Royal International School will have a close working relationship with this 'Forest School', which is in stunning surroundings, including a lovely lake that students will be taken across by boat when they come.

We drove on to Sigiriya, which I have always wanted to see, although this time we only went close enough to it to get some good views of it, as it was an extremely hot day, and I am not sure that it would have been very wise to climb it today. I only then found out that a key reason Madam Sandra was not expecting us to climb Sigiriya today, was that she had an alternative plan that she told me involved taking me to a bit of heaven!

To be fair to Madam Sandra, her description of Kandalama Hotel, which is a 5-star luxury hotel in the middle of the jungle, did not disappoint. It was certainly one of the  most amazing hotels I have ever been to, situated by a huge lake, with views of Sigiriya in the distance. The buffet lunch I had there was one of the best I have ever had in my life, and I felt very humbled to be treated so kindly today, just for spending a week helping at the school.

Today's photographs show the 'Forest School' visit, views of Sigiriya, and our ultimate destination - Kandalama Hotel (which is 1km long from one end of the building to the other end of the building), and has as an abundance of monkeys!






















Comments

  1. CharlesFebruary 19, 2024 at 12:06 AM

    What a treat this excursion must have been, but also a sign of how much Sandra valued your input over the last week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousFebruary 19, 2024 at 12:16 AM

      How lovely it all looks 🐘❤️😀

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

Wednesday 14th February 2024

Image
My younger granddaughter Esther is 5 years old today, so I messaged her 10-year-old sister Isabella to ask her to wish her a 'Happy Birthday' from me. It was much less of a crazy day today, with a morning filled with lesson observations - this time observing English lessons in the Upper KinderGarten (UKG) classes, which is the equivalent year to Reception, so I could imagine Esther being at school with the children I was with all morning today. It was really useful today to watch the teaching of English to the 5-year-olds, whose level of understanding is already very impressive. As with the Tea Leaf Centres, it is a fully immersive system, so everything is conducted in English, and it is impressive how much English these 5-year-olds already know, in the same way that the progress Tea Leaf students make through the one-year full-time English Diploma is also extremely impressive. If you have been reading my blog, you may remember that Erica, who I had a wonderful weekend with in
Read more

Saturday 6th January 2024

Image
I would say that this was easily my most enjoyable day so far, but it got rather spoiled this evening when I handled an extremely frustrating situation very badly. Let's focus on the good part of the day, because it really was a pleasure to work with Miggy and Stephanie all day, as we went in search of accommodation for Stephanie from next Tuesday 9th January, that we could also recommend to future volunteers who are working with Tea Leaf Trust in the Nuwara Eliya area. We visited 10 different Guest Houses between 10:00 and 16:00, with a brief stop for a delicious buffet lunch (that only cost 500LKR - a round   £1.25 -  per head) in b etween. We found some very suitable accommodation to suit a range of budgets in a variety of locations, but there was one place that was exceptional, where we returned at the end of the day to make a booking for Stephanie, who will go there at the same time as Isabelle, a new volunteer, next Tuesday. Our ideal accommodation (and I would happily stay t
Read more