Sunday 26th January 2025

I had another extended sleep last night, which was just what I needed! I had breakfast at 09:00, and at 10:00 I had an online meeting with Larry, a potential volunteer for Tea Leaf from Los Angeles - a 13.5 hour time difference from Sri Lanka, so it was 20:30 on Friday evening there. I spoke to him for an hour, then provided feedback about our meeting to James and Jesmin. I hope Larry decides to volunteer for Tea Leaf, as I think that he will be a great volunteer for us.

I had already designated today as a work day to catch up on a backlog of paperwork, and I did manage to reduce some of the backlog before having a sleep this afternoon. I woke up just in time to have another online meeting, this time with Saskia and Marcie, who spoke to me from Thailand, where they have just completed a diving course. I think that they, too, will be great volunteers for Tea Leaf, as I could see just how keen and enthusiastic they were to volunteer for us.

Volunteer enquiries over the past 2 months have been coming in at an astonishing rate compared to the previous 20 months, and we will need to ensure that we don't actually overload our Tea Leaf Centres with these volunteers. There is a balance to be found here in terms of making sure that we don't have so many volunteers that it becomes counterproductive, as would be the case for any organisation that welcomes volunteers in to support its work.

I find it incredible that I have only been in Sri Lanka for 3 weeks now, and I can hardly believe how hard I have worked in that time, but looking back over these past 3 weeks, I am very proud of what I have been able to achieve, with an obvious caveat here that I need to slow down just a little bit! Having said that, Isabelle did persuade me to go to The Grand Indian Restaurant this evening, where I was able to really relax and enjoy a fabulous meal.

The few photos I have today are of The Grand Indian Restaurant, which is a delight!





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