15th July (written by Louise)

Seven of the group took a tuk-tuk journey to Gandarawatte pre-school at 8:45. We began the day with songs such as ‘twinkle-twinkle little star’ and the ever-popular ‘hokey cokey’.After this, the pre-school children sat at their colourful desks and were handed an origami swallow that we had carefully crafted on Monday night, to decorate. They very much enjoyed this task and we plan to hang the decorative paper birds from the building’s ceiling. Following this, we played outdoors with the children on the swings and the see-saw. We also played ‘catch’ and counted and said the alphabet as we moved along stepping stones with painted numbers and letters on them. For lunch, we were taken to the one of the highest houses in the village, up a very steep hill that proved pretty difficult to climb in the rain! After a lovely lunch we carefully moved back down the hill and up another to the pre-school and community building. We taught English to the young adults of the village for one hour, focusing on hobbies. We acted out a number of hobbies including, cricket, football and surfing and taught how to say if one liked or disliked each particular activity. Following this, the project team split into two groups. Myself and two others taught school children about body parts, clothing and colours and sang ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes.’ We then moved outside to play ball games with the village children. At the end of the afternoon we were kindly given a much appreciated cold drink by the Sarvodaya organization and then headed back to our guest house to rest.