Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Mid-Way through this work-malarky

Well, we are about mid-way through now and keeping ourselves busy....

I (G) am swimming every morning at 7am with some teenagers - we are all entered into two annual swimming events - a 2km sea-swim on 3rd Fed and a 2 mile race on 9th Feb. The races are in the small town of Ambalangoda, just north of here. These boys are doing pretty well considering they couldn't swim a year ago, and the sea can get pretty rough.

I'm also coaching kids between the ages of 5 - 18 in the pool 4 times a week - they are brilliant fun and I have been rewarding the swimmer that put the most effort in with a pair of goggles. They really need swimsuits as well - Speedo donated loads but still some of them still have to wear their undies... however, I don't want to push the boundaries as hand-outs are discouraged.

We are both teaching in English classes most afternoons - it mainly involves getting them talking in English and playing word-type games with them - we have been leaving the important grammar stuff to the actual teachers. People here are able to read and write English but not speak or understand it, which is massively limiting when all decent jobs require fluency in English (sadly even the English teachers can't speak English especially well). The classes are also massive with up to 50 kids.

We've started helping in a different pre-school in a temple a few mornings a week. Playing football with monks at breaktimes is kind of surreal to say the least... It is hugely rewarding though - the school isn't connected to the foundation so they haven't had volunteers before - all of the kids call us "white auntie" and "white uncle".




We took them swimming in the pool here last week - these kids had never been in a swimming pool before and loved it. The pool rules about swimming costumes and hats went out of the window as about 40 of them stripped off and jumped in in their undies. There was lots of splashing, not much swimming and only 2 near death experiences, not bad!



We have gotten out and about at weekends. Last weekend we spent a day doing a cooking course. We learnt how to cook 8 Sri Lankan dishes (future dinner parties will prove whether this day was worth it or not...). It was much fun - we started with a trip to the market in the morning to buy the ingredients. She then showed us how to cook lots of curries and other dishes I can't pronounce. The best part was at the end of the day when we got the chance to eat the fruits of our labour which, even though I say so myself, was bloody lovely (and bloody hot). Mmmmmmmmmm


We've only been on a few nights out - we are just a few km from a touristy town but the contrast between living in the village one minute and then being amongst the tourist tastic bars the next minute is a bit bizarre. And our livers are loving the detox! Drinking is also really frowned upon in the village (they aren't good at drinking socially - people seme to be either tea-total or alcoholics) so we have barely touched a drop... we are gonna be lightweights when we get home!

No comments: