Saturday 31st October 2026

Daya and his wife, Vino, arrived in the middle of the night, and it was lovely to have them here for the weekend. After the business of the past three days, it felt great to have the weekend free. We had a lovely morning just catching up, with Chinu and her daughter Deepthi joining us. Daya went shopping in Norwood with Bara, so I ended up having a long chat with Vino, and I also sorted out a lot of my stuff, ready for my long journey to Pussellawa on Monday morning.

Akka's eldest daughter, Chithra, also arrived later on in the afternoon, so Akka had all three of her daughters with her (Chitra, Sangeetha, and Chinu), and I took photos of them outside the house. At that point, I happened to notice two new little shops had appeared next door to Daya's house. When I went to investigate, I ended up chatting with Ms. Kuganeshwary, who has recently started working for Tea Leaf Trust, supporting the KNH (Kindernothilfe) project.

Kindernothilfe is German for 'Children Without Help' and I have always loved this project. It basically facilitates women in very poor communities to form Self Help Groups of around 20 women (I believe) that enable them to establish financial cooperatives and also set up small businesses. The shop nearest Daya's sells clothes, and the one next to it mainly cosmetic jewellery, so I became one of their first customers and gave Ms. Kuganeshwary a great photo opportunity.

Ms. Kuganeshwary happened to be going on to another Self Help Group on the Upper Venture Estate (Daya's home is on the Lower Venture Estate) and she happened to invite me along so, of course, I went, as this Self Help Group was running a 'Children's Day', which turned out to be one of my loveliest experiences so far this time in Sri Lanka, as well as being a great opportunity for me to support another aspect of Tea Leaf's work in the Hill Country.

Today's photographs 











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