Keith in Sri Lanka

Astonishingly, today's blog entry is my 400th blog entry since my very first one on Sunday 15th September 2019. I can only hazard to guess how many hours it has taken me to download all my photographs for my daily blogs, write the scripts, then attach the photographs each day. It can take anything from 30 minutes to an hour to do all that, so I have spent a huge chunk of time doing this, and I can only hope my readers feel that it has been worth all that effort! I had yet another sports event this morning, and this time it was the Nursery and Upper Kindergarten (UKG) Games Day, which had all the elements of the other two larger sports events, but also the 'cute' factor of seeing the Nursery children (3-4-year-olds) engaged in some rather amusing athletic challenges. The organisation of each of these events has been second to none, and I have been hugely impressed with the hard work and dedication of all the staff. My attendance at the Games Day meant that I only had time fo...

There was no school today, because it was another Public Holiday to celebrate Maha Shivarathri, a Hindu festival celebrated in honour of the deity Shiva. It was lovely to have a day to relax, which is pretty much all I did as I needed to. It was a little cooler today, because it threatened to rain for much of the day, then finally did this afternoon. Although it was lovely to be a little cooler, it was also very humid, so it still felt rather oppressive (much better than being cold though!). Despite the humidity, I took the opportunity to do a big pile of washing, and I will now only have to do one smaller wash at the weekend before I leave next Tuesday to fly home. Everything dried very quickly, so it was a good decision in the end, as I am now starting to think about tying up any loose ends before the end of this week. I have quite a few things to sort out in terms of leaving some stuff here, as I usually do now, and taking the rest back home with me. I had a meeting with a prospecti...

I had more observation of English in lessons today, including another Buddhism lesson and a Science Lesson. I also taught Maths again - odd and even numbers with another Grade 2 class (Year 3 in the UK). As with yesterday's Maths work on paired numbers (working out X + 12 = 25, 11 + X = 18 etc.), the learning of Maths is a cumulative process, so knowing about odd and even numbers will lead on to much more complex Maths work as they get older. Although I said yesterday that X+12=25 is basic algebra (which it is, of course), we didn't actually ask them to find X, but gave them an empty box instead, as it was all about understanding how you can work out X+12=25 by taking the 12 away from the 25. Prior to this, of course, they had looked at number pairs to 10, with an understanding that 1+9=10, but that 9+1=10 as well. So, the progression yesterday was to look at 2-digit numbers, which they managed very well, I thought. There was a buzz around the RIS this evening. I saw young chil...

It was an interesting day today, as I continued to do some Maths teaching and observe the quality of English in various lessons. My Maths lesson today was dealing with paired numbers in addition sums e.g. X + 12 = 25, 11 + X = 18 etc. which is, of course, very basic algebra. They were Grade 2 students (Year 3 in the UK) and some of them found this quite challenging, so we had to think of different ways to explain how to arrive at the correct solutions for these. One of the lessons I observed to look at the levels of English was a Meditation lesson - nothing to do with Buddhism, just thinking about using meditation as a way to relax our bodies, so some breathing techniques were involved. I found this fascinating and extremely useful for the children. Another lesson I observed today was a Social Studies lesson, where they were looking at the role of friendships in our lives - again a very useful thing to be discussing with them. I spent a long session with three Co-Teachers from Grade 1,...

It was another eventful day for me today, as I went to Kandy for a proper visit. I have passed through Kandy on numerous occasions, but never visited any of the key sites, with the Temple of the Tooth being the most famous one. Rohan picked me up at 09:00 this morning in the school van, with Madonna joining us, to take us both to Kandy, where we dropped Madonna's stuff off where she is staying for the next few days before meeting Achini in the centre of Kandy. Achini was joined by her lovely husband, Kosala, and we had a coffee together before Achini accompanied me to the Temple of the Tooth, which is one of her favourite places in Kandy. It was an extremely interesting experience for me, although we had to take our footwear off again today, and in today's soaring temperatures, it was so hot underfoot, that I couldn't bear it in the end, so Achini had to retrieve me sandals for me before my feet got burned! Part of the temple complex by the lake that dominates Kandy is an e...

Sandra had invited me on a trip to Umandawa Global Buddhist Village today, which was lovely. We went in the school van, as Madonna from Texas, USA, and Agatha and her daughter, Sohalia, joined us. It is a very interesting place, as it is spread across 70 acres, being envisioned as an aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly 'walking monastery', with hamlets, gravel paths, gardens, organic farms, ponds and larger bodies of water, and sculptures. It was another incredibly hot day today, to the point where when I had to take my sandals off as we entered the complex, it was too hot to put my feet on the ground, which I remembered happened to Valerie and me last year in Batticaloa, when it was so hot that when we took our shoes off to enter the mosque there, we could barely walk across the marble-tiled pathway to the entrance of the mosque. We really have had some scorching weather over the past few days! I certainly found the Global Buddhist Village aesthetically pleasin...

Today was Games Day for Grades 1 and 2, which was a very scaled-down version of the recent Sports Meet for the Grades above them. It started at 08:00 which, given the likely top temperature today of 37 or even 38 degrees, was probably a very wise move! Despite the lower-key nature of the event, we were still processed in by the junior brass band, the Olympic flame was lit, the flags were raised, and the Games Day was officially opened and closed. Although it wasn't the spectacular event that the recent Sports Meet was, and it was, of course, much shorter, it was still a very enjoyable occasion, with a former student, who has excelled at sport - particularly archery - being today's Guest of Honour, and giving what I thought was a very inspiring little speech. The event only lasted a couple of hours, but it was already getting extremely hot on the sports field by then, and it would have been too hot to continue any longer. I only had one Maths lesson to teach after the Games Day,...