Thursday 23rd January 2025

The work carries on relentlessly! This morning I started by interviewing two more staff - Mr. Chathuranga, the new Outreach Project Coordinator, and Ms. Cafoor, the Finance Officer. I was particularly moved by my interview with Ms. Cafoor, who I know simply as Shameera. Like many other members of staff across Tea Leaf, she has faced immense personal struggles, and continues to do so in an effort to better herself, which for me was very humbling.

It's good for me to conduct interviews like that, as I have been feeling very overwhelmed with my workload, and reached the point where I was feeling extremely tired, but that all pales into insignificance when you talk to someone like Shameera, and you appreciate the struggles she has experienced and the sacrifices that she is still making to try to provide a better future for herself and her family. These interviews are both humbling and inspirational for me.

I tried to catch up on some more paperwork (every meeting I facilitate, or visit I make has to be written up in some form or another, which is where the pressure comes, as a full timetable during the day is inevitably followed by more writing up at the end of the day). I was lucky that my next visit was just an informal one to see the Cookstove Project warehouse in Bogawantalawa, and that was a visit that didn't lead to more paperwork, so I really enjoyed that one!

In fact, I enjoy all the interviews and visits enormously, and it's just the paperwork that is rather tiresome! This evening, for example, we visited two potential guest houses for volunteers to stay in if they volunteer here, and that was great for me, as I am keen to place volunteers here, and in other more remote centres, like Pussellawa and Ragala, as almost all of them currently go to the larger, more established Tea Leaf Centres in Maskeliya and Nuwara Eliya.

Today's photographs are from the two interviews I conducted with Mr. Chathuranga and Ms. Cafoor, plus a few from my visit to the warehouse for the Cookstove Project.









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