11 July It has been a while, so I need to catch up on what has been happening! Life is now becoming routine, with a few funnies added in just to keep you on your toes! Went to the cricket last weekend. It was a test match between Sri Lanka and Pakistan. It was good to go and see and hear all the trumpets and noise makers in the stands! All other countries seem to do it so well. No one really drinks at these games even though there was a mobile bar! Tests are not the most interesting of games [View Full Entry]

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Its all happening here! The presidents wife was in town attending a wedding and she bought along her entourage of police, security and army men and women. They were posted on the road everywhere from Unawatuna to Galle and just as I was heading to the pool the whole lot came passed me, slowed down, had a good stare, so I waved to the presidents wife in her big black sleek car and she on her way again......then, as I was at the pool, the Sri Lankan and Pakistani cricket team rolled in for an International Match this weekend. They are [View Full Entry]

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28 June Much better weather today. I went for walk to the pagoda/temple this morning and sat at watched the water blowing into the blow hole, which is where Sunset Point is as well, a very nice spot to watch the sun setting, could be very romantic if I wasn't on my own! Will have to bring Bertha, Trin and Sal up when they arrive! Met a local man along the way who listens to ABC radio and knows an incredible amount about Australia. He was naming politicians left and right, along with long past ones, like Bob Hawke, Gareth Evans. [View Full Entry]

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As I sit on balcony at different times of the day there is any number of people walking past selling all sorts of things. We have the Maalu (fish) man selling his catch from the mornings run, we have the man selling Kiri which is milk and curd from his buffalo that roams in front of my home, on the weekends we have the ice cream man on his bicycle, his version of green sleeves is a pump type horn incessantly blown down the street (god knows how he keeps the ice cream frozen..), there is also the man selling lottery [View Full Entry]

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25 June No more Sri Lankan army wake up calls, just the monkeys as usual! For the past few days I have been at the pool with the Sri Lankan coaches and Dharmadasa! The coaches are really nice guys and so interested to learn new things, we are getting pretty good at broken English and Sinhala. They are amazed that my teaching is quite relaxed and fun for both teacher and students. The way they have been taught is very rigid and repetitious, so I think they are relieved to add some spontaneity to their classes. Today Sumit excelled and ran [View Full Entry]

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21 June Headed back down to the pool on Friday afternoon to see more classes and the way the coaches are teaching. The young guys that are the coaches here are really keen to learn new techniques and between the language barrier we are slowly sorting things out. I just need to be more insistent that Dharmadasa helps translates, otherwise I will need to pay for a translator! I have women’s classes on Monday and one of the project officers for Adopt Sri Lanka, the charity I am volunteering with, has a young girl eager to learn to swim so she [View Full Entry]

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19.6.09 All good here, just working out my timetable and how things work, as in where to buy stuff. It has been quite fun! I generally go to the pool in the afternoon, on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the next couple of weeks I am teaching kids from the international school and they speak english so that is much easier for me to teach. With the other classes I am trying assist the coaches to teach, however they don't speak much english, but in saying that one of the coaches yesterday speaks a little english and between that and sign language, [View Full Entry]

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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. [View Full Entry]

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Journey into Sri Lanka 13 June After an odd start at the Sunflower Hotel, Negombo which is no longer the Sunflower, but the Paradise (they changed the name but didn’t tell anyone, even the taxi drivers….) Anyway, turned up there at midnight to a very dark and odd looking place, upon further inspection I realized the place looked like a building site, they were doing renovations, another thing they forgot to mention. So I head into what would be a reception desk to 5 guys hanging around all trying to help me, one with a folder looking official, but having no [View Full Entry]

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