Don and I arrived in Sri Lanka on Sunday February 2nd
and since then have been busy catching up on things.
We were really excited to meet the new baby in the
village. She is the daughter of
the fisherman, Udaya, our man on the ground who does everything for us. Born on November 29th, she is named Menushi Della
and is adorable. She has been
showered with gifts and clothes donated by my friends and colleagues in New
York.
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| Della with Menushi Della |
Our next priority was to visit both the nursery school and
the school. There is a new intake
of children at the nursery school.
Needless to say they were absolutely terrified of us. Great white
monsters drained of colour! Most of the kids we knew there have moved
on to “big school” – which is our Village School.
When we got to the Village school, the children were proudly rehearsing for the
National Day Parade. Sri Lanka became 66 on February 4th – just a
few days younger than me! Our
children are so proud and looked wonderful in the uniforms which our friend
Lawrence had bought them after his visit 3 years ago. We had not appreciated until then that the
children from our school had to march along with no musical instruments and no
uniforms. That has been put right! The instruments had been bought 5
years ago in memory of Don’s brother Declan.
On Wednesday, work started in earnest. We fixed dates for the rest of our
visit with the Principal at the School. The Sarath de Mel Memorial Day will be on Tuesday 18th
– that is when we give out the prizes, shoes and uniforms and Fun Day will be
during our last week here. We
checked the quality of the food that is being delivered to the school. Inflation has been rampant and costs
have increased so we went through the list of things the Principal needs more
help with.
On Thursday we were joined by Kiran and Sanjeev. They have been back-packing their way
around the world since last July.
Kiran works with my brother Saul and had heard about our project and so,
they are here between Thailand and India.
It is only by chance that they turned up here while we are here and we
were able to introduce them to our nursery school, the school and of course,
the villagers. We discovered that
Kiran has TEFL training and so we knew we had to put her to work.
On Friday, Kiran and Sanjeev took classes at school and the
new English teacher we have employed to come once a week was there at the end
of the morning also. We are so
determined to give the kids the start they need. Learning English is so empowering.
On Friday afternoon, we went to visit one of the most amazing women we know. Doreen is the mother of two of the children we support, Wesley and Smith. She is the testimony to life changing in a second. After we left last year she was run down by two racing tuk-tuks. She was so badly injured that she had her leg amputated. It has still not healed but she smiled as much as ever and was so pleased to see us. Without FODAD support she would be begging on the streets.
On Friday afternoon, we went to visit one of the most amazing women we know. Doreen is the mother of two of the children we support, Wesley and Smith. She is the testimony to life changing in a second. After we left last year she was run down by two racing tuk-tuks. She was so badly injured that she had her leg amputated. It has still not healed but she smiled as much as ever and was so pleased to see us. Without FODAD support she would be begging on the streets.
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| Learning English at last! |
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| Doreen |
Saturday was hard work; well for some of the pupils and Kiran and Sanjeev as they
painted all the desks and chairs at the school. They are seriously smart and brightly coloured. The children will be really surprised
when they turn up at school on Monday!
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| Painting the desks |
More to follow.
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| Lunch time |
Good jobs.God bless
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