Tuesday 14th January 2025

Thai Pongal is a great celebration, apart from the fact that you have to be up at the crack of dawn to celebrate it properly. I was up at 05:45, and at 06:30 I took at tuk-tuk to Norwood, having promised to arrive at Daya's for 07:00. The ceremonial cooking of the pongal (which is like a sweet porridge with fruit and nuts and other things in it) had already begun, and we all put on smart shirts and vestis (basically like a wraparound skirt) to get properly dressed for the occasion.

This is the third year in a row that I have been invited to celebrate Thai Pongal with Daya and his family, and I always really look forward to it now, as it is a special, ceremonial occasion that I feel honoured to be included in each year. Thai is the Tamil word for January, and the pongal bit is the sweet porridge, but for a more detailed explanation of what it's all about, please click on the following link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pongal_(festival)

The past two years have seen me eating the pongal in glorious sunshine outside, but it was pouring down today, so we sat in the middle of the building project - Thai Pongal on a building site - and then went next door to the uncle's house for a bit of breakfast. Later on, I was delighted when Ramesh came to see me, as he was one of the first people I got to know when I first volunteered with Tea Leaf in 2019. He looked very well, and is clearly doing very well for himself.

The best bit of the day for me was when the rain stopped for a while, and 6 of us went for a long walk up into the tea estate. It is a beautiful area, with stunning views, and we were lucky because the rain held off for most of the walk, but we had taken umbrellas just in case, so we had those for the last bit. All too soon it was time for Ragu to go back to Colombo, and I didn't stay much longer after that before I took a tuk-tuk back to Daresh Home Stay for my final night there.

Today's lovely photos are of the Thai Pongal celebration, the lovely visit from Ramesh, and the beautiful walk through the tea estate that we went on this afternoon.











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday 4th March 2025

Image
I finally got to my last day here which started very early, as I was up at the crack of dawn to sort out a few things in the apartment, then get my last few bits of packing done. Razeena once again brought me breakfast, which was a great start to my day. After breakfast, I popped a present for Sandra in Ravi's office, just in case I didn't see her to say goodbye to her but then met her at the Junior School on my way back and said a fond farewell to her there. I left at 08:30, with Liyanage driving me to the airport - not that I was aware of that journey, because I had got up so early this morning that I nodded off for most of it. I hardly had to queue at all for either the security checks or for check-in, so I had quite a bit of time before my flight was due to take off at 12:50. I had a delicious, filled croissant for lunch, with a latte, then went to Gate 9, where I didn't have to wait too long before boarding the plane, which thankfully took off on time. It was an 11-hou...
Read more

Friday 1st November 2024

Image
There was no school again today, as the staff were out on a staff trip somewhere (not sure where they went), so we had breakfast a little later at 08:30, then did some washing before heading into school at 10:30 to do some planning and preparation for our Maths Staff Training session on differentiation, which is taking place after school on Monday. There are 53 staff coming we have been told - across Grades 1 to 5, so I think it will be pretty challenging for us! Having got as far as we could with the planning and preparation, we went shopping for some Maths resources Valerie needed to purchase, plus a little trip to Halal Bakers to buy some bread for breakfast tomorrow. The street shops are an amazing concoction of buildings with all kinds of trades going on within them, and on the extremely busy Kurunegala to Kandy road, so Valerie took some photographs of the local shops, which you will see below today. We got back to the apartment, and I got on with planning out the Maths Staff Tra...
Read more

Saturday 5th October 2024

Image
It's my fifth trip to Sri Lanka, but on this occasion I am at last joined by my wife, Valerie, and it will be lovely not to be on my own this time. We flew out of London Heathrow Airport one hour late at 22:30 UK time on Friday, and after a rather excruciating eleven hour flight, we eventually landed at Colombo Airport just after 13:30 Sri Lankan time on Saturday. I slept for a few hours on the journey, but Valerie struggled to get any sleep at all. Sandra Wanduragala met us at Colombo Airport, and we drove into Colombo for a couple of hours - meeting up with her daughter, Selena, at the Good Market, which we really enjoyed and would love to go back to. We then went back to Selena's home, where it was good to be able to freshen up a little bit, and enjoy a nice cup of tea, before our driver, Rohan drove us to Kurunegala, where we will be based for the next two months. Arriving in Kurunegala, we met up with my good friend Tharika and her daughter, Evinka, to have dinner at Sri B...
Read more