Keith in Sri Lanka

I woke up this morning thinking: 'Remember, remember! The fifth of November, the Gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason why the Gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!' I also thought how ironic that millions of Americans are voting for their next President today, and I make no secret of who I would like her to be, as the alternative would be as calamitous in my opinion, as if Guy Fawkes had been successful in blowing up the Houses of Parliament in 1605! We may have to wait a long time yet to find the outcome of the election in the USA, but here in Sri Lanka, on a beautiful sunny morning, we headed into school, where we were able to catch up on various bits of work today, including, for me, a Grade 3 Maths lesson observation that I very much enjoyed. We are reaching the end of these now, as everyone is moving into a time of revision for the upcoming end of year tests across the whole school. There were close on 170 Government School Principals from across the region b

I was up extremely early this morning - and I often am most mornings - as I tend to go to bed extremely early out here - a complete reversal of how I am at home - or even in Croatia. I used the time this morning to catch up on a few things including more preparation for the Maths Staff Training later on today, which is going to be quite a big thing - not least because there will be a large number of teachers in that meeting, and, being such a perfectionist, I want it to be good. The Maths Staff Training dominated our day today, right from the start, as we were called downstairs to get the room sorted. We were in a large conference room, which was a great space for the meeting, as we needed to have the teachers sat in rows facing a white board for the first part of the training session, then working in their groups at tables for the remaining part of the session, where they would be able to apply their learning to their lesson planning. The key focus of the training was to think about d

What a bizarre experience today brought for us. Sandra had arranged for us to take a double decker tour of Colombo, so we had a pretty early breakfast, and Shehara, the sister of Sandra's son-in-law, Sahan, drove us into the centre of Colombo where we were to catch the bus. There was only one other party of 12 booked on the bus, but they had caught a sickness bug overnight, and so they were 'purging', which I must admit was a new addition today to my vocabulary. As these 12 folk were 'purging' away, it left just Valerie and me on the bus! Can you believe that we took a 2 hour city tour of Colombo on our own double decker bus! It was hilarious, as Michael Fernando, our tour guide and commentator still took it ultra-seriously (absolutely refusing to go off-script), and as we set off said: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we are commencing our tour of Colombo ...', and at the end said: 'I would like to thank you all for touring with us today ...! It was, indeed, a ve

Well, what a wonderful day this turned out to be! We were due to set off for Colombo at 08:00, but it was actually closer to 08:30, which was nice really. It was a longer journey than expected, but we eventually arrived at the Good Market around 11:00, which was lovely, as we had gone there briefly on the Saturday that we arrived in Sri Lanka, but this time we were able to have a good look round the various stalls and do a bit of shopping. I had a huge surprise at one point, as I bumped into Jit Seneviratne who, of thousands of people in Colombo, just happened to be at the Good Market with his wife, Udeni, and daughter, Aleyha, at exactly the same time as me, which was some coincidence! I have known Jit for the past 5 years, as a member of Colombo West Rotary Club, which was the fundholding Rotary Club for our Rotary International Project, and is currently helping with another Global Grant application. We went back to Sandra's daughter Selyna's house after our time at the Good