Wednesday 28th January 2026

It was a bit of a blow this morning when the light went off in my bathroom and the hot water went cold during my shower, but it was even more of a blow when I came to leave and found that the shutter over the exit door was padlocked shut and I was trapped in the building. It was 30 minutes before someone unlocked the padlock and I was free at last, by which time I had missed my breakfast, and my tuk-tuk to take me to Tea Leaf Centre Bogawantalawa was already there!

As you can imagine, I was in a fairly angry state, and I fumed at the guys who had gathered outside whilst I was banging loudly on the shutter. 'You cannot lock people inside a guest house', I exclaimed! 'What would have happened if there had been a fire, and I was trapped inside the burning building?', I shouted angrily, to which, one of the guys standing there just looked me in the eye, and with an expressionless stare responded, 'You would be dead, Sir!'

It took me a while to sort this mess out and I did have some breakfast before my tuk-tuk driver, John Solomon (he really is called that!), finally got me to Tea Leaf Centre Bogawantalawa an hour later than planned, where I was straight into assessing the Trainee Teachers, followed by two visits to government schools, followed by a coaching session with the Teacher Trainer, a staff meeting on 'Pair Talk', and an online video call with a few of Kavi's English Programme teachers.

I was quite exhausted by the time I left at 16:30 and almost fell asleep on the way back to Daya's in the tuk-tuk, but very satisfied, as I had done absolutely everything that had been asked of me today. As you might expect, with only two full days left before the wedding now, it was all systems go at Daya's place, with a constant toing and froing of people completing a thousand and one tasks that simply have to be completed before the wedding of the year on Saturday!

In what has been an incredibly busy day today, I have only managed 6 photographs from the two visits to the government schools, which were an absolutely delightful experience, particularly my chat with the bi-lingual class of students. I have also added a 7th photograph that Gobi took of Kavi and me having an online chat with a few of the government teachers from the latest cohort of the programme.