Update

Sorry for the lack of recent blogging, been having serious internet problems so here's what we did in the last week.

Before starting at the school on Tuesday morning we were given a brief tour around some of the other projects the nuns from the Koralawella convent were working on. We saw the school for the disabled that we'd been told about the night before and it was truly amazing. A dance lesson was taking place as we arrived and we were treated to a impromptu performance and then shown around the reasonably sized centre. Unlike so many of the places we have seen working in difficult circumstances, the 'Happy Days' centre was brightly painted, with artwork on the walls and even a huge rainbow on a wall. The children were all happily working away, and were eager to show us what they were producing; in each of the three rooms there was a different activity, as we walked through each of the three rooms we saw teachers helping produce paper tissues flowers, aprons and bracelets. We were lastly shown the multi-sensory room, an incredible room filled with all sorts of resources and a wall of photographs showing all the different children the room was benefitting. We were both suprised to see someone older than us on the wall but discovered that the centre aims to support these children until the age of thirty five, trying to help them become self-sufficient. Not only did what we learnt about Happy Days sound amazing, but the place itself was so cheerful and positive that we both left pretty cheered ourselves.

Our time at the school itself was lovely. Having volunteers working there was new for them so we had the benefit of being a novelty as well as being loaded with colouring pencils. The next few days ran smoother than we could have hoped for (with the exception of the day of the power cut: midday sun + no fan = not fun.) as the children were incredibly eager and seemed to really enjoy everything we threw at them. They seemed genuinely sad when we left and their heightened confidence in spoken English actually took us by suprise. And as always, it was a fantastic experience for us, not only do we both now know the Hungry Caterpillar's diet off by heart but also got to have a go at starting something new. It was amazing to be able to bring something completely new to a project (AshaTrust already supports this school with a breakfast club and rice packets but we haven't worked here before), to get a chance to establish our own links and to maybe have laid some foundations from which anything could happen!

Working at the centre was much more managable after we decided to hold our own and take a group at a time. Under Sister's watchful eye the children were wonderfully well behaved and so we powered through story books and activities and managed to produce some lovely work.
On the Thursday, the end of our sessions coincided with the arrival of 'The Doctors', more friends of Asha who have been travelling the country for the last month and now have arrived in Columbo to see if there is anything they can do. It's exciting to see people getting involved who might be able to help Asha expand into new areas and clearly Sister agreed as the following days session was replaced by a 'instant show'. She got the children on board by explaining "instant coffee, instant tea, instant show... Mavan, do a dance!"

It's been a great chance to get right into the heart of things- having to organise, plan and adapt independently has shown us just how much hard work it can be, but also just how exciting and rewarding.

We're currently hiding from an incredible rainstorm in Kandy and are in danger of a power cut at any moment so we're off to brave the rain and looking forward to the next lot of work in about a week which will hopefully be up on the blog as we go!

Katherine and Shyla