So the second week of our programme has finished and even though it has only been two weeks it feels like we have been for such a long time as we have done so much! We have been to every pre-school at least once. The children there are a delight to work with and even though their lack of English can make explaining what we want to do quite tricky, we manage to get there in the end. We have done songs with the children such as Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, The Wheels on the Bus etc. However the activity that the children seem to love the most is Duck, Duck, Goose. The amount of times we have played that over the past two weeks and the amount of running I have done, I almost feel like it has been as much as professional athletes! Despite being exhausted after our days at the pre-schools, it is fun and worth seeing the children enjoy it so much.

As well as this we have all started our own mini projects, my own being football coaching sessions with elder children from schools around the area. I did my first session on Wednesday and was impressed with how good some of the boys were at football; I never realised how popular football was in Sri Lanka before I came, I had assumed it would be all about cricket over here but I have been pleasantly surprised. News has also got round that someone England is doing free football coaching and as a result I have been asked by few more people to do sessions with school kids. As I will now be doing sessions Monday morning, Tuesday morning and afternoon, Wednesday morning and afternoon AND Thursday morning and afternoon, next week will be a very busy week for me! No doubt I will end up sleeping for the whole weekend.

Away from the project we have managed to relax in our spare time in the evenings and on the weekend. For me it has consisted of going to the beach swimming and body surfing in the sea and watching Game of Thrones before bed (which I have become addicted to!) We’ve also visited Galle where we went to see the Dutch Colonial fort. Then yesterday we visited Uda Walawe Safari and saw a lot of Elephants and Water Buffalo.

Now our third week starts tomorrow, on my birthday incidentally and it will be interesting to see how my football sessions develop over the next couple of weeks.