A Day At The Pre-School

Today in the morning, we have been at the pre-school again. For the first time I met these cute little beings. Just eight of fifteen attended this day…I could hear how hard it is for everybody. Some children have no parents or grow up in fear; they need a lot of love and attention. Others are there without paying because they are so poor and cannot pay the school fees of 250 Rupees, not to mention (healthy) food or supplies. Again other children are outside there that cannot come because they don’t have any cloth or need to help at home. For the teacher, Madumala, it is an implicitness that she helps wherever she can, however, she cannot take more children as she is struggling herself as well. She is picking coco nuts from trees and is selling them on a market so that she has a little bit more to spend on material for her students.

It was a very intense visit… Spontaneously I thought to get some sponsors for the kids. But this needs to be worked out exactly as you need to assure the contact between sponsors and children as well as teacher and a person on site who is managing all correspondence.

Excursion To The Bank

Karin and Willi have a lot of paperwork and running around now. They asked me to join them to the bank. Both speak neither English nor Sinhala, so they need help for some transactions.

We left at 9:30 am to one of the biggest bank in Weligama. Dinesh has kindly brought us there by Tuk-Tuk. The traffic is incredible! Regularly, I feel that weird feeling in my stomach. But I’m sure they know what they do. I need to get used to it and trust. …They must have some sort of tactic… : )

Arrived at the bank, we met of a crowd of people. Guess because yesterday was full moon day (Sinhala =  “Pavarana” day) where all Buddhist people attending a ceremony in their temples. Shops, banks and others were closed.

I’m very astonished about how they can work like this. For me it seems extremely chaotic. Mountains of paper, serving several clients at once and always a bunch of people around the desk. Hmmm…

All the time you have the feeling they don’t know what you want but at the end you mostly get everything you came for.

On the way back we wanted to buy some groceries and stopped firstly at a big supermarket. I needed a bucket for my dirty cloths. Afterwards, we stopped at an Ayurvedic pharmacy where I bought some spicery and balm against mosquito bites.

A Nice Day Is Over

I cannot say I’m very sportive at the moment. I’m very tired the whole day and I could sleep appropriately. I’m not sure if this isn’t the heat!? After exactly one week, the jetlag however should be gone. Now I need to do something…

Said done! Yesterday we had a bit rain and the air is a bit more pleasant today so that I’m motivated enough to do something. Karin and I decided to make a bike tour to the neighboring rice fields. They are very beautiful. I felt like in Germany because of the green colors and the paths through the fields. The water buffalos would make our deer’s and so on… I remembered me running in Germany. I wish I have brought my running shoes!

These fields are a wonderful and a quiet place. On the way we met a little boy, he joint us the whole way. We were talking with hands and feets, he gave us some water lilies and we rode back. It was very nice!

In the afternoon Karin and I had an invitation to the pre-school.

Punctually at 3:30 pm we arrived there. Madumala, the pre-school teacher offered us seats in the open school building were she teaches children from 4 to 5 years. Nuwandi, her daughter, who speaks few words English, was there as well. She just passed her O-Level. Two more years and she will be finish school. Afterwards she wants to study to be a doctor. Her older sister, Samindi, is a pre-school teacher like her mother. However, she lost her job because she is poor. That school she worked for decided to take on another teacher, so she stays at home as well. Sometimes she helps out her mother in school but there is no income, money is tight…

Karin handed over a colorful mobile, made from students of her former school, the Waldorf School in Bexbach, Germany. Furthermore, I translated an article of a Waldorf magazine, written from Karin and Willi beginning of the year, from German into English for them. Janaka (a cousin of Dinesh) translated into Sinhala. Article In German Then we discussed the construction of the new pre-school building. After two hours we needed to go back because at 6 pm it is already dark.

…And my head starts to rattle again…