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Published: June 18th 2009
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Tangalle
View from the gueshouse 17 June
Well, the women’s classes and I will be one soon. Christina has had her visa extension rejected so I am it as her eyes and ears until she can work things out with the immigration department. It is a real shame as it would have been great to teach with her, now I have to keep her staff in line and they don’t speak English…..
Prior to heading Tangalle later today, I had the morning off, as I was breakfasting on my balcony a tuk tuk driver I had met on my first day popped in for a chat. He is a lovely young guy that is well traveled, has a lovely wife and kids and likes to improve his English and knowledge and he wanted to know if it would be OK to be my friend! Some people surprise you!
Anyway, I went to Tangalle which is about 2hrs south of Galle for a an English teachers workshop that Adopt Sri Lanka organize and run, it was great to meet other people in the project and see what else is happening in Sri Lanka by charity organizations to assist the Sri Lankan people.
Bec and
I headed down with Mary, Mary is a teacher at the international school in Galle and she assists Adopt Sri Lanka by running English teacher workshops for the local schools, so she came along to facilitate the workshop, which was a great success! I was very handy with the laminator!! Lucky I am so versatile!)
We stayed in a lovely guesthouse that is only open to select few, had an amazing meal the Bec, Mary and Jo (Jo runs the project in the Tangalle area) with Verena cooking - or at least instructing the staff on how to cook. Verena owns the guest house and is Sri Lankan with an English education. Her guesthouse was quite badly damaged in the Tsunami, however they have restored it, but not reopened to the public, for a variety of reasons.
Slept in a lovely bed with a comfy pillow (something SL is not good at! My current pillows are like lumpy bits of foam), and NO mozzies! They are usually around in droves. I should have packed more RID.
The workshop was at one of the many local schools with teachers coming from rural areas. It was great to see them in action and animated. In general, Sri Lankans are quite reserved and don’t show a lot of emotion or animation in speaking (and they shake their head side to side for yes, rather than up and down and that can become very confusing!) e.g. is 100 rupees the price? You have no idea.
After the workshop, we jumped into the van with our driver and headed home via the chicken man so Mary could buy her chickens for a gala fete on the weekend (she was quite concerned about the chicken shortage….), home now and very tired. I guess I need to put the school fete in the diary for Saturday!
My first day of swimming is tomorrow with the international school, this wasn’t in the original plan, but as everyone keeps telling me, there is no plan in Sri Lanka! I think it will be good to teach kids that speak English first up and get a taste for it again!
I will also be meeting Mr Dharmadasa, who apparently can be a little difficult. Mr Dharmadasa runs the pool and is supposed to be helping me with the coaches they have here with translation and organization! I think there may be some feathers fly.
Must go now and put the washing on! Ha! Handwashing is the only option here….and check there are no scorpions on the floor (which there was last night and the house boy had to remove!), no pythons which apparently frequent the hillside and no centipedes caught up in my washing!! Sometimes I think the girls here are just trying to freak me out.
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