Two years ago my sister Lucy met two boys the school which FODAD supports. A year later, due to tragic circumstances they were moved to an orphanage. Our family is supporting these two boys until they turn 18 so that they can have a start in life.
We arrived at the orphanage which is about 2 hours away from Mount Lavinia when the children were having their lunch. The orphanage holds 20 children. There are 16 boys and 4 girls. The size of the orphanage is quite small but big enough to house that number of children. They are mainly supported by a generous woman in Germany and local villagers who feed them. We were quickly introduced to the people who run the orphanage and some of the children there. We were asked to go into a room where we met the 2 children who my family is sponsoring. Their names are Sanjay and Sanjeeva and they are 15 and 11 years old. They seemed quite confused about who I was. I gave them a cricket set and then went and played cricket with them. After that, I was asked to explain what our family was doing for them. Udaya, who had accompanied us to the orphanage, translated and I think they got the gist of what I was trying to say. Udaya is the “leader” of the local fishing village and knows the boys quite well.
I was really happy to see that my old bats that my sister took over last summer were still in use.
We said goodbye to the boys and to Mr Patharana who is known to the children as Papa, and runs the orphanage. I promised to keep in touch and send postcards.
As a conclusion, people say that these trips out to Third World countries change the way you see life back at home and make you realise how lucky and privileged you are. I was never totally convinced by this, but now I have come out to Sri Lanka and seen all that I have seen I can confirm that it does change the way you look at life.
OOH YEAA BOIIIIIIIIIII
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