Keith in Sri Lanka

Thursday 21st November 2019 I woke up this morning to the most beautiful experience. The place where we are staying is mainly a wedding venue and conference centre, with just a few rooms for overnight guests, and we are the only people staying here, so it felt very creepy last night to be all alone in this huge venue. However, as you will see from today's photos, it is in the most idyllic spot. We were up early, so we had a cup of tea by the lake and I caught up on a bit of work. We were then brought the most delicious breakfast and I don’t think I have eaten breakfast in a more beautiful venue in my time in Sri Lanka (apart from maybe the Ella Waterfall View Guest House). We went to the Matara Youth Reconciliation Centre, which is the nicest Regional Centre we have visited so far, where we observed Hanshi teaching a Business Studies lesson. We also had a long chat to Chaminda Jayasekara, the Co-National Director of Sri Lanka Unites, which I found fascinating, as it gave me...

Wednesday 20th November 2019 I was up at 05:30, as we had to be at the Bus Station for 07:00 to get the bus to Matara. Fortunately, there was a bus that went all the way from Nuwara Eliya to Matara and it was very nice not to have to change buses along the way. We sat right at the front of the bus and it left at 07:45. It wasn’t too bad a journey, just incredibly long, with just one break on the way, about half-way through the journey. If you look on the map it really isn’t that far from Nuwara Eliya to Matara, but here is no direct route and we went east via Bandarawela, Ella and Wellaway before heading south to the coast. We travelled through Hambantota and stopped just before Ambalantota, as we had to change a tyre. We then passed through Tangalle, which brought back great memories of my time there back in October. We arrived in Matara just before 14:30 after a six-and-a-half-hour bus journey that left me feeling quite exhausted. However, it was no surprise to find that Mata...

Tuesday 19th November 2019 Today was another very quiet day, as I seemed to be playing a bit of a waiting game until I received confirmation that we really were going to Matara. I half expected the whole thing to be called off in the end, so I just got on with things at home. I have made a list of things I need to complete before I go back to the UK, so I worked my way through that. Eventually, I got fed up waiting to see what was going on, so I went downstairs to see Sutharshan and asked him to contact Daya to see what was happening. He called Daya and, apparently, we are going to Matara tomorrow and Daya then confirmed that in an email to me. Daya then arrived this evening and we walked into town for something to eat. We had a basic meal of fried rice at Remarko’s and then went home in a tuk-tuk, as we needed to get some rest before our long trip tomorrow. I haven't taken any photos today, so there is just one photograph of a beautiful card I bought for James and ...

Monday 18th November 2019 Today was a very quiet day. I was supposed to have travelled to the Matara Youth Reconciliation Centre today with Daya, but he messaged me last night to say that we would have to wait until Tuesday to go (still not quite sure why!). This was quite useful for me, as I wanted to meet with Yad and Yesmin to let them know the outcome of my visits to primary and secondary schools in the Maskeliya area, although that didn’t happen until 14:30 in the end. I spent the afternoon expecting Daya to turn up, as we were supposed to be going to Matara tomorrow, but he messaged me late in the afternoon to tell me it was now happening on Wednesday (quite definitely this time and again I am not quite sure why not tomorrow, but this is Sri Lanka!). Donald and Ramesh popped in this evening for a cup of tea and a chat, which was very nice and later Musthaq joined them. It can get a bit lonely here in the evenings now that Rachelle is no longer here, so I appreciated h...

Sunday 17th November 2019 I stayed at home this morning and caught up on domestic stuff, including doing some more washing. My trousers got so dirty when I travelled to Kulmanai and Mullaitivu that, even after a couple of washes, I am struggling to get them properly clean again. I must admit that one of the things I am looking forward to getting back to is a decent washing machine. That sounds so mundane, but we take our modern appliances for granted and fail to appreciate how wonderful they are until faced with a situation like mine, where I am longing to get my clothes properly clean again. I went out just after lunch to do a bit of food shopping and the town was eerily silent, with only a handful of shops open due to yesterday’s Presidential Election. As expected, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has won and with a substantial majority, which is going to be tough for the largely Tamil community in this area of the country.  Having done a little food shopping, I then paid a second...

Saturday 16th November 2019 Today was the voting day across Sri Lanka for the Presidential Election, which is a VERY big deal over here. Although a huge number of candidates put their names forward, it looks like it will be a close run thing between Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Sajith Premadasa, and even though the former is a completely unsuitable candidate (for reasons that I haven’t time to go into here), he is, sadly, very likely to win. In this area of Sri Lanka, Sajith Premadasa is very popular with Tamil voters, but across the country, Tamils are hugely outnumbered by Singhalese, who may well favour Gotabhaya Rajapaksa for all the wrong reasons. That is a huge over-simplification of the scenario, but it does have some interesting parallels with the battle in the UK between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn. I went out this morning, but I was back mid-afternoon, as Presidential Elections are dangerous things here and can erupt in violence, so there is an official curfew today, w...

Friday 15th November 2019 Today was an extra day off for many people here, as the Presidential Election is being held tomorrow, so it was quite a relaxing day for me, as I was able to work from home before going out to do some shopping. It was a rather mundane day really, with not a lot to report! I had a rather unusual evening though, as I was invited to sing at the Indian Restaurant at The Grand Hotel, which was quite a nerve-wracking thing to do. I have sung there on a casual basis two or three times when I have gone there on a Friday or a Saturday night to eat, and through that I have struck up a friendship with Dinuwan Amarakoon, the mandolin player who performs there regularly on a Friday and Saturday evening. He asked me if I would join him this Friday night to sing whilst he played. I was very hesitant to do this, as I really didn’t want to put people off their food, but he persuaded me to give it a go. I quite enjoyed it, but I did find it tricky, mainly because he is ...