Lime and Spoon Race anyone?

Today we were at the school for a “sports day” that Steve and Gavin had very ably organized.
The hot, rainy muggy conditions proved challenging for visitors, but the school children, divided into teams of mixed ages, just could not stop running. Here's Don with his team:

There were some tried and tested European style games, which of course we participated in, such as the sack race,

And the 3 legged race. Here's Della in action:

We quickly discovered that the cliché that the difference in height affects performance in this race held true in our case:

More unusual games (apparently more common locally) included, the “Lime and Spoon Race”:

And of course the “dancing with a balloon between you” game. As you can briefly see below, Della and Don particularly excelled at this one, despite blatantly breaking the rules by touching the balloon.

Finally, Della continued with her regal duties (this time adorned in a tiara given by Steve), by handing out prizes to the winning team and clothes to all the children which had been donated to the charity by well wishers in the UK and US.

Monday 14th July

Back at the school today. We taught a couple of lessons to groups of 15-17 and 12-13 year olds.

J loved every second, participating in the songs and games that we set up. Perhaps he is missing the structure of an institution, and he also gets a chance to show off his knowledge. His English is better than most of the school children's, which is great for his confidence.

Here he is with the younger class and their teacher for the morning:

J was also very excited to see C's parents, who arrived today in Mount Lavinia and will be staying for another week, after a whistlestop tour of some of the rest of the country.

Milking The Crowd

Couldn’t resist another post from the elephant orphanage. This is a baby elephant, just after having been fed with a bottle, milking the attention of the assembled tourists.

There are plenty more photos of the trip which did not make it onto the blog at http://www.flickr.com/photos/saulvenit/

Saul meets bloodsuckers - 12th July

Up in the hills for a couple of days - and we can breathe! The humidity in Colombo is really oppressive, and we spend quite a lot of time hiding in air conditioning or by the pool.


Up here, its more like an English summer's day, quite warm but you can actually sit outside for more than 10 mintures without feeling uncomfortable. And the swimming pool was not so warm as to feel like a bath, so I had a real swim for once.


We're at the Hunas Falls hotel, right next to a waterfall, with a dramatic view for miles across the hills. J had a couple of good draughts sessions on the balcony - and later we cllimbed the large hill to the right in this picture.

J was an intrepid climber...

...but complained a couple of times about black worms trying to creep into his shoes. Turns out he was right to be concerned. When I got back I realised that the black worms that J had shaken off were leeches, and I had one attached to each of my legs. They washed off with a bit of soap and water, and the holes bled for a while, but the strangest thing to me as a leech novice was that at no point did the wounds hurt at all. Maybe being bled by leeches was not that bad after all.

S was also pretty intrepid - see her as a small dot on my back having hiked up to one of the waterfalls.

Who needs computers?

Loved Kandy. They have a temple dedicated to the Buddha's tooth and hundreds of fruit bats hanging on the trees just outside our hotel (J v excited about the latter and a bit non-plussed by the former).

And we'll be back in a couple of weeks for the biggest festival in Sri Lanka.

Maybe I should think of moving here. They certainly have a distinctly more traditional aspect to legal practice. Quite fancy this office opposite the temple which houses several "attorneys at law":

I had a peek through the door and its there was just a pile of dusty files and an old fashioned typewriter. Forget those e-mails...

Boy meets elephant - 9 July

J made friends with an elephant or two today.

In fact there were a hundred or so around at the “elephant orphanage“ , all of which he decided to name “Jack”.

Three Jacks came to say hello in particular, and J fed them giant “olives” that were growing around the café in which we were sitting.

All a little nerve wracking - those trunks are strong, and we moved away when a mother an her one month old baby came closer.

A cliché I know, but it can so much more fun looking at world through the eyes of a 4 year old. Even a fairly tacky tourist “cultural dance” in Kandy where we sat amongst white faces than we have seen since we got here, is imbued with a new sense of wonder when the dancers with masks are like real monsters to J, or you have never seen the fire walkers before.

Then to our distinctly “old school” hotel, complete with wood paneled billiards room. And we had to teach J how to use a 1970s phone.

Monkeying around in class

We went down to the school today to teach our first proper English lesson.



But before we could get started the so-called English teacher dashed off on his moped for a couple of minutes and arrived back with a monkey, which he tied up in the main school room for no apparent reason. I explained to J not to expect monkeys to turn up in his break times when he starts school...

Meanwhile, the headteacher, who was just a couple of yards away talking to Della, didn't bat an eyelid.

Eventually we got started in an area outside, and it was great fun. Interesting to see that the older kids vocabulary was pretty good, but when they attempted a sentence of any sort really struggled. Here are a couple of the students who seemed the brightest when we were playing word games, having a go at role playing a shop situation with Caroline:

We also gave 5 kids cheap cameras with instructions to take photographs of things that are important to them. They are to return them on Monday after which I plan to pass them on to another 5 students. After developing the pictures I will talk through the images with the kids, hopefully learning more about their lives, which we can share with a school in the UK which supports them. But first I will have to see whether I'll get all five cameras back...

We're off to Kandy and the hills in the morning for a long weekend - not sure how much internet access I'll have up there but will post if I get a chance.