Being out in Sri Lanka has been an amazing experience. The first day in Pelena, meeting the villagers and seeing the Pre School that our money has helped to build for the first time will certainly be a memory I will certainly treasure for years to come. The sheer gratitude and hospitality that has been shown to us throughout our involvement in Pelena has been overwhelming. We have been made so welcome, hence when it came to discussing the projects that we would really like to achieve before we left I jumped at the opportunity to put forward my idea of a mural at the pre school. I thought a mural would be a great opportunity for the group and the village to join together not only to officially show the name of the school but also I felt it was a chance for the group to leave behind our own personal mark in Pelena, a lasting memory in the village of our work together. A mark of Project Sri Lanka’s first trip and achievements. A mural seemed to me the best way of doing this, something for the Pre School to be proud of.
I have found being in Sri Lanka really stirs up my creativity and so I really wanted to channel it in to a mural design. I designed and planned a design, which the rest of the group and the Pre school teacher’s really liked. It was decided that as the design involved the hand prints of the Pelena children we would start it on the Pelena West Family Day that we had arranged for out last weekend in Pelena village.

Saturday the 20th August arrived with a hive of activity and a buzz of excitement. Luckily the monsoon rains gave way to a glorious day and the painting was soon under way. Numerous shade of blue and green paint glistening in sunshine and the excitement of the day proved too tempting for some I think more determined to paint us and each other than the wall. It was a frenzy of people once the first hands had been printed, the sea of hands being thrust through to us to be painted seemed to just grow and grow and get more and more determined to have their go. It was amazing to look down on a sea of hands all shapes and sizes from tiny babies fingers smaller than the paint brushes to the wise hands of the elders.

It was brilliant to watch the faces of those who had printed their hand, the smiles and look of sheer pride radiated from them. Babies, toddlers, teenagers, mothers and elders all joined in, often coming back time and time again to admire their prints or show yet another friend or relative where their print was. It was a lot of fun, painting all the hands, lifting the tiny ones up to reach those far away they were determined to get to and getting everyone involved. I was really pleased that the teachers, parents and older members of the village all joined in, often it was the grown ups that came back to admire their handiwork more than the children. Once the hand printing was completed the more fiddly parts of the painting began with the teacher’s and helpers from the Pre School lending a hand. Much of the painting we did was done under the watchful eyes of what at the time felt like Sri Lanka’s top art critics! But only with good feedback which was pleasing.

The family day was going down really well once the excitement of the painting had started, all the activities from kite and lantern making to decorating t shirts began and soon there was paint covered children running around in overly large (now much more colourful) t shirts clutching at kites. It was fantastic to survey such scenes, to stand back and watch villagers of all ages working and engaging in conversations with the group, now in our 8th week I suppose it could be said just like old friends.

It was brilliant fun to create mural, made even better by the local involvement. Everyone worked really hard on the mural, putting up with ‘just a few’ of my bossy artist’s instructions and comments and did a tremendous job in completing the design I had imagined for Pelena.

The sense of achievement at the end of the day was brilliant, walking back into the village from the beach activities with the sun beginning to go down and seeing the mural over the railway line was a fantastic sight. It made me feel very proud that it had been achieved and that same sight would be seen by anybody who enters Pelena West or travels pass the Pre School on the train. A new and lasting signature for a village trying its very hardest to rebuild itself post tsunami and mark what is hoped to be the first of many similar DUCK pre schools.