A Sri Lankan Muslim Orphaned Girls Marching Band

Now there is something you don’t see every day:

We went to the orphanage this morning (without C or the kids) to meet the girls “at home”, see their school, and to arrange to give them some musical assistance which some D&D family members had offered to fund in memory of Don’s brother Declan, who died suddenly last year and was a very keen musician.

The girls are clearly pretty accomplished and well equipped already in the band, so we chose to use the funds to fund their music teacher.

It was also fascinating to see the kids at school. The orphanage has pretty good sources of local funding and has built a new school block where the girls receive well organized lessons in small classes. It’s a world away from the state village school, and justifies the decision to spend most of the effort at the village school. But it also shows how reliant the charity is on good structures being in place in the organisation we are helping. Here you know that the funds will be spent on something clearly beneficial. At the village school, without an effective governing body, its more difficult to tell.

While they were at school, I popped up to see the girl’s dorms. These are still orphans. They have no family to go to, and grow up in these rooms from whatever age they arrive. One of the few times a year they leave the building is to go on the trip to the beach funded by our charity.

Wave Stops Play

Monday was a “Poya Day”, a full moon and therefore a Buddhist and national holiday. The beach was packed, but we made our way down the railway line to a particular stretch in front of the village which has been the focus of Della and Don’s efforts since the Tsunami.

But we didn’t come for charity - we came for cricket. A “tenty - tenty” grudge match between Udaya’s team and Steve’s team, following the inaugural match on their last visit on New Year’s Day.

The conditions were slightly ,more challenging to the purist than even the slope at Lords, but actually intermittent pitch floods were welcomed as a way of clearing the footholes and flattening the surface.

I was on Udaya’s team, but even my sterling efforts (including a diving catch, a well struck “2” onto the roofs of the village houses/shacks, and 3 wides bowled in my one over) could not prevent a humiliating loss by several wickets to Steve’s team.

Check out a great bowling action, as I bowl to Gav:

Once again, the royal duties were performed by Della.

And you can see that Steve was of course very gracious in victory.

J ignored the chance to watch Daddy’s heroics, and instead playing with a local lad from the village and his mum for over an hour.

However, despite the fun, the immediate surroundings behind the pitch reminded us of why we were here. Although quite a few people (including Udaya), had been rehoused by the government over the past couple of years, too many still remain 5 years after the tsunami, living among the wreckage.

This woman is brushing her teeth from a stand pipe just behind her "house":

others are still living in tents.

Colin’s boat is still here in the village `- the one bought by Della and Don from the initial funds they raised.

One final point of note. After a particularly large wave soaked J, he was lent a new outfit from the boy he had been playing with, which turned out to be a Spurs kit given to him by some British tourists a while a go. Who would have thought J’s first Spurs kit would be borrowed from a boy who lived in a small shack on the beach in Sri Lanka, and whose mother had been disowned by her wealthier family for marrying a fisherman for love?

And don't forget the "official" blog of the charity (http://wwwfriendsofdellaanddon.blogspot.com/) - written by Steve and Gav. More details and photos of the trip (and the cricket) there.

Child Development

Just to show that our children are still making fine progress:

S has teeth (2 at the bottom)!

and J composed and wrote his first sentence "I am 4 and I am Jacob":

His portraiture skills are also coming on nicely I think:

And what do you do?

Today was the closest I'll come to understanding what it must be like to be the Queen, or maybe Prince Phillip.



The role of the queen was very definately taken by Della. Check her out, garlanded with flowers, saying good morning to the children at the school before we presented them with the uniforms that the "friends of della and don" had bought for them. We think that she had been practicing all year in Oxford along the Cowley Road.

Personally, I would be far happier if the school just gave out the uniforms, but they insist on making a serious ceremony of it, with one teacher making very long speaches in Singhalese, which bored the pupils just as much as us, and they could understand what the teacher was droning on about. We then all took our turn giving out uniforms to grateful pupils:

But at least this shows what the whole thing means to them. This is not a bit of charity which gets lost in the general mix, but its we think the only attention paid paid to this school by anyone outside of their immediate community.

There is a lot to do. Attendence at the school is not great, partly because of the poverty of the families close by, and other priorities taking precedence over edication, and partly because in a school in a poor area such as this, the government pays the teachers such a low wage that they are unlikely to be motivated themselves. The school's English teacher left a few months ago, and has not been replaced. A volunteer teacher attends, but to say that this teacher's English was poor would be exaggerating. C and I hope to do a small amount about this starting next week, by going in and helping with English lessons.

As with any poor school, there is a limited amount that can be done through the school itself without addressing the underlying severe poverty in the neighbourhood, but Della contribibutes directly to a few families where parents are motivated to want their kids to attend school, while poor enough to not be able to do without their help earning money. We learned of one more child who could benefit from this today. His mother died in childbirth last week, and his father does not have the means to keep him at school.

So here is the final portrait with the whole school - or at least those that made it in today (dodgy English "teacher" sneaked in on the chair on the left; Colin, the fisherman who saved Della in the front on the right, and Udeiya, the fisherman who has taken on the role of coordination for Della, in the front):

And finally, I could not resist another post from yesterday's trip. Check out the girls from the orphanage singing their version of the Hokey Kokey:

Now its only half holiday

We're in Colombo now. Or the sort of suburbs, or maybe the outer reaches of Colombo, in a an area called Mount Lavinia.


We're in an urban flat, which is still only a few yards from the beach, but its quite a different feel. The owner, a Sri Lankan guy called Upendra, went to school in Wood Green - bizarre. Here's the view from our window:


We arrived on Sunday, and it was initially quite a culture shock after the south to be in the midst of so many people. Della, Don, Steve and Gavin arrived the same afternoon and are staying a couple of minutes tuk tuk ride away at the Mount Lavinia Hotel, which still has a bit of quaint old colonial hotel charm, meaning a fairly old fashioned rooms for Della and co, but also has some seriously luxurious buffet breakfasts and a very nice pool for us to make use of.


Our days are now split between spending time with Della visiting the projects, and meeting her contacts, and time hanging out by the pool with J, S and the others.



So far we've visited the school and nursery briefly, and met the main people who have been helping Della here - principally Udeiya, a guy from the village which is the focus of the project, and Colin, the fisherman who saved Della's life on the day of the Tsunami and so started all of this off.

But the highlight so far was the day out yesterday to a beach a couple of hours drive away with about 60 or 70 orphans who Della helps support. They are rarely allowed out of the orphanage so this is a chance for them to really have fun and let their hair down (quite literally, as this is an Islamc orphanage and they all wear headscarves most of the time).





They were packed like sardines into their bus and sang all the way - surreally things like My Darling Clemantine, mixed with their own compositions about "Aunty Della". They also were completely obsessed with S, she was mobbed like a pop star, being passed around between them so much that we often had to step in to rescue her.






After some organised dancing and games, the girls were finally allowed down to the sea, accompanied by the strict instruction "no girl should enter the water above the knee". Well, that didn't last long...

All in all a tiring but rewarding day:

A stay in the South

I've been writing this for a while, but only just got a connection good enough to set this up and post it.


Here goes:



Wed 17th June

Day 1. Still 54 to go.


The journey was long and thankfully relatively uneventful. The main highlights were:


-an expedition back “landside” once we had got through security at Gatwick to decant two pots of Marmite into clear smaller pots of 100ml or less so that they could be taken onto the plane. Apparently marmite is a “cream” and therefore a restricted liquid for flying in hand luggage. Still, it had to be done. C had dashed off to buy some yesterday morning before we set off from my mum‘s, and was in such a stressed state that she ran over one of my mum’s flower beds in the car on her return. In the regulation containers it looked more like liquid poo than marmite. Was it worth it? Jacob declined an offer of a marmite sandwich this evening and opted for an omelet



-our first experience of Dubai. In transit. The terminal was just as shiny and pointlessly expensive looking as I gather the rest of the city is. We had a “Cosi” sandwich, a chain which was a regular of ours in New York and famous for its particular salty bread. C pointed out that this bread was really just middle eastern flat bread, and so there we were in Arabia, eating a staple of their diet which had been imported from New York. Given that the other food options were Starbucks, Burger King and Paul, it seemed that the Dubaiees, or whatever they are called, were happy to at least in their airport be subsumed into Western culture.



From Colombo, it was a 4 hour minibus ride to “Marley‘s Beach House“, during which I began to think that the dangers of Sri Lankan driving had been exaggerated until I saw a similar minibus to ours flat on its back in a ditch at the side of the road with various onlookers picking at the wreckage.

But we made it in piece, and the Beach House is amazing, a piece classy glass fronted modernist architecture sitting on its own tropical beach. The only thing that makes this less of a picture postcard paradise is the sea. Not a turquoise pancake flat reef rimmed sea, but instead more of a surfers dream. But the currents can apparently whisk you away in an instant, so not so surprising that haven‘t seen any surfers yet. It makes it feel a bit like the sea has been transplanted from Cornwall to the Indian Ocean - reminds me of staring at the waves at Polzeath, just as transfixing.
J is coping OK, but the reality of being in such a different environment must be a bit of a shock for him. He is switching between excitement, frustration and asking whether he can go back to the flat now, or whether Sam can come to play tomorrow.

S is teething we think. Or she’s jet lagged. Or hot. Or who knows? Happy just now, though. We’re hanging out with her on the bed while she eats our boarding passes and generally giggles away although we’re knackered and its 11.20 at night. But we get to stay awake by having alternate luxurious showers in our swish outdoor bathroom with massive rain head while looking at the stars.

Not so bad really.

Thursday 18th June

I’m sitting in candlelight writing as this evening’s full on tropical storm has put paid to a power line somewhere between here and Galle.

The kids seem to have already adapted to Sri Lankan time, both in bed by 7.30, after the second major curry meal of the day cooked up by out talented 23 year old cook/housekeeper/tuk tuk driver Ranka. The first was the largest breakfast I have probably ever eaten, and certainly the first to feature Sri Lankan “hoppers”, “string hoppers” roti and vegetable curry. Delicious though, and enough plain food for J to enjoy.

A few facts I have learned from Ranga and others today:

1. Most people Ranga’s age round here wanted to fight in the war. The reason he didn’t go was that his family did not let him. He knows several people who have died or have been wounded.

2. Although the war has only been over for 3 weeks, there are legions of enterprising Sri Lankans traveling north to seek out property to exploit the tourist anticipated revival in the tourist market. Both he (with his uncle) and Ranmal have been up in the past week.

3. Counterfeit Indian and western films are very common, but its harder to get hold of Sri Lankan films as the government clamps down on piracy of those films.

4. One fisherman who seemed to spend the day outside our house catching nothing, apparently told Ranga that he caught 1,500 makrel just round the corner.

5. The guest house that Ranga used to work in (just down the beach from here), was saved from the worst of the tsunami by the fact that there was a small amount of reef in front of it. Uneaten (just down the coast)suffered far more badly as fishermen have blown up or sold the reef there.

Our driver from the airport yesterday told us an incredible tsunami story. He was driving 2 Swiss tourists in the South, and the van was picked up by the wave and deposited 1.5km inland. Amazingly it floated the full way and the wheels were still turning when it hit the floor. However, that meant that he drove straight into a tree. The car was still drivable and he managed to make his escape (with the Swiss) inland.

Friday 19th June

First family excursion out of the beach house “compound” today. We all piled into Ranga’s tuk tuk, in a very illegally unsafe (in the UK at any rate) way, and drove to Galle. J loved the ride, but we confirmed that walking around an atmospheric decaying old colonial town dotted with new boutique hotels in high humidity was not really a 4 year old’s scene. So we spent a pleasant hour and a half hanging out on the veranda of the fairly swanky “Gallle Fort Hotel” eating chocolate brownies and chips, walked around for about 5 minutes, and then drove a collapsed J back to the beach house.

We knew that holidaying with children would be different to our memories of adventuring to tropical climates in our “youth”. Just about managing expectations really. We should not plan to go out for more than a couple of hours at a time, unless we know that there is somewhere suitable that we can base ourselves, ideally with a swimming pool. In fact, that is what we will seek out tomorrow…

Anyway, J and I then splashed in the waves for a while on the beach, before running back inside so as not to be completely drenched by another monsoon downpour. I decided to revel in the rain this time, and took a shower in our outside bathroom in the middle of the downpour. Fantastic.
　

Tuesday 23rd June

We’ve settled into a routine. The last few days have been beautifully sunny but hot, and we stay in the house and on the beach most of the time. J has a “friend” - Pinidu - Ranga’s nephew, a small boy who is three years old and seems to have about 10 times as much energy as J. They play in the waves or with Jacob’s toys. We’ve also found an area of calm water a little way down the beach where J can swim with his rubber ring. So good to see J swimming in the sea at last.

We had a morning yesterday a bit like some tropical ideal, with Jacob playing wih Pinidu in the water, followed by Ranga shinning up a palm tree and coming back with coconuts which he cut up for us to eat and drink. But of course J turned his nose up at the coconut.

Wednesday 24th June

Jacob’s friendship with Pinidu was a bit strained yesterday, after J pleaded with him to come over, and then decided that he was too exhausted to play and went and hid in his bed as soon as Pinidu turned up. Pinidu was his usual bonkers self, and didn’t seem to mind, running and jumping all over the place, and playing with S, sometimes too enthusiastically. Definitely easier having a frustratingly cautious child than one like that..

J had good reason to be tired, as we had spent the morning on a trip to the very swanky “Fortress Hotel”, where J swam in the pool before picking at a posh tuna sandwich and guzzling some chips, while C and I took turns showering in the expensive spa without actually booking a treatment.
We then went to Kogalla Lake, where we had a tour of a spice garden, with cinnamon, citronella, aloe vera and even apparently a cotton wool tree, before taking a boat trip around the lake and its islands. On one we were guilted into buying some cinnamon sticks, freshly prepared from the cinnamon trees in front of our eyes by a family who looked as if they were surviving on selling the sticks to about 3 tourists a year.

On the boat, S was perched on Ranga’s knee, on the side of the tiny catamaran, in a way that would look very precarious at home, but seemed fine as the lake was calm and Ranga so confident with her. England seems so over-regulated for babies from the perspective of Sri Lanka. We brought the car seat, but it seems from another world - we are happily carrying S on our knees in tuk tuks and tiny boats and are not thinking anything of it. All it takes is one accident to make us look like idiots to those at home I guess, but this is meant to be some kind of adventure, isn’t it…?

And before all of that we visited a turtle “hatchery”. The owners told us that the eggs were kept there to prevent them being taken by fishermen and eaten, and the large turtles in tiny pools were kept to educate the local children about the idiocy of eating the eggs. I had read that some of these places are tourist rip offs, and in that case we were suckers. We paid about $9 for J and C to release three baby turtles back into the sea. It was quite emotional seeing them struggle towards the waves and then get swept away into the ocean. If they survive they will apparently return as 8ft giants to the same beach in 30 years to lay their eggs again. That is if the beach will even be there then… If so, maybe J will be back to watch them.

Saturday 27th June

Last full day in the South. Major rainstorms passing through over the past couple of days/nights, dramatic but so noisy with the sound of the waves that you can hardly hear yourself think.
Yesterday was a bit of a mini adventure. We traveled inland a bit to have lunch with some locals who we met on the beach. I had taken a photo of their daughter balanced on a broken palm tree jutting out into the sea and after I showed it to them they would not let up asking me to “lunch or dinner” at their house. Highlights included being introduced to a neighbour who kept a pet monkey, J having his first ever cricket lesson on the patch of dirt outside their house and eating rice and curry with our fingers for the first time (more difficult that you would think). As usual, S was a major attraction, but this time crowds of local extended female family competed over cuddling her or just watching her sleep! Anyone would think they have never seen a baby before - or maybe its that western babies as young as her are not so common here.

These people are poor. No windows in the house, very few possessions, many living in one house. And everyone is so dependent on tourism. The husband worked in one of the villas down the road, also taking people on boat trips on the lake. Clearly if there are no tourists, then virtually no money. And out of season there are very few.