Today Georgina, Faye and I visited the Durham University pre-school of 2008 located in the village Gandarawatte. We arrived by tuk tuk at 8:30am and we were welcomed into the local monks home for breakfast. The monk’s house and the pre-school are located on a very steep hill that has stunning views of the coast and the fishing villages nearby. The monk introduced us to his sister and father and the High Priest, who is eighty-nine years old and who is staying with him for a week on a visit from Colombo. We were very surprised to see how much food he had kindly prepared for us for breakfast! After breakfast, we walked from the monk’s house, past the temple to the pre-school. Today there were nine children at the pre-school. We discussed with the teacher the morning activities that we had planned for them. Firstly we sang lots of songs with the children, such as BINGO, Old Mac Donald had a Farm, Twinkle Twinkle, Hokie Kokie, Ring-a-Roses, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and the Alphabet song. They especially love to sing and dance to the Hokie Kokie and Ring-a-Roses songs as they get very excited at performing the actions involved. It is so lovely to hear them singing and to see their huge smiles. In preparation for our spider making activity, we sang Incy Wincy Spider. The children made spiders using Arts and Crafts materials such as pipe cleaners and spongy balls. We found it difficult to stick the spiders together with glue and tried several different ways to hold them together. Afterwards, we handed out costumes and props to the children for them to try on. These included two colourful wigs, a pair of fairy wings, an Indian headband with feathers, a mask, a cowboy hat, a headband with stars attached on springs, a little princess crown that lights up and flashes and a Hawaiian flower necklace. The children loved trying them on and enjoyed playing with them. Several of the children love to be swung around in a circle. We quickly found ourselves surrounded by the children clinging to us for another go! One little girl would not let go of Georgina and proved to be very strong even for us to manage! We took lots of photographs which they love to look at. At 10:15am we were invited to the monks house for rotti, tea and biscuits. The sunny weather had quickly disappeared and we were presented with dark clouds and rain – just like in England we told the monk! The rotti was delicious and aromatic, fresh from the oven.

Afterwards we returned to the pre-school for more fun activities. We showed the children how to design an elephant by drawing around their hands and curling in the thumb to make a trunk, as well as adding on a tail and an eye. Their pictures were very bright and colourful! We held hands and stood in a circle taking it in turns to sing songs to one another. The children sang Sinhalese songs to us and we sang the Ellie the Elephant song to them afterwards. It was clear to me that their siblings and parents had arrived before I even saw them, as a few of the children kept smiling and giggling. The morning activities came to a close at 11:30am when the children sang a school prayer and the Sri Lankan national anthem before leaving. We said our goodbyes before returning to the monks house for lunch at 12:30pm. The High Priest was served lunch before us and while we waited we enjoyed reading extracts from books about Buddhism on friendship and how to be a successful leader. A particular quote that we found interesting and amusing was that an archaeologist makes a good husband because as you grow older you become more interesting to him! For lunch we had rice, spicy potatoes, carrots, cuttle fish, spices, poppodoms and green leaves, followed by banana and ice cream for dessert. While we ate the monk was amused at the costumes and props that we had brought for the children and even tried a wig on and the cowboy hat himself which we loved! We thanked the monk for his kindness and generosity before leaving. He has invited our Durham group of 2009 to his home before we leave Sri Lanka on the 7th September for an afternoon of lunch and trying on sari’s, which are very excited for!

Our stay in Sri Lanka is drawing to a close and I realize already, especially after watching the Durham University Postgraduate students final cultural show last Monday, how sad I will be to leave this beautiful country and say goodbye to all of the friendly, open and welcoming people who I have met. I will never forget their kindness and hospitality and I very much hope to visit Sri Lanka again in the near future to see them. In the meantime, I will make the most of our last few weeks here, of which we have so much to organize – the final cultural show at Hiththatiya, the beach party for the children, the English tea party for the teachers and our friends, as well as our trip with the pre-school children to the zoo and two temples in Colombo!