Progress on the building

Great progress with the building of the new centre – I think. Met the architect, Chinthaka, yesterday morning, and we got the paperwork organised in order to make the submission to the planning department. Tomorrow we are taking it to the council offices, and Chinthaka is sure that it should take no longer than 4 weeks to get approval. He also introduced me to the “baas” - the site manager who will organise the build. And tomorrow, we will go straight from the council offices to the site, where we will lay the foundation stone. This foundation stone business seems to carry some weight around here – I have no idea about these things – but Sister, Mrs V, Chinthaka and everyone else seems excited about it. I’ve said “ we’ll keep it simple, wont we?” to everyone concerned, but I am a little dubious. I know there will be “kiri bath” – the celebratory milk rice that Sri Lankans eat at New Year, birthdays, graduation events etc. And it is just wonderful that we are formally marking the beginning of the building process.

At Sri Punyakami school they enthusiastically showed me all the science equipment that Asha has recently provided (thanks to Eston Park School). In case you’re wondering, the odd shapes in the picture are bright plastic body parts – and they‘ve also got a large circuit board, which the children clearly enjoy – but as it needs electricity (of course), the class have to crowd into the head-teacher’s office for that lesson, as there’s no power in the science room!
Chris and Alison are doing conversation classes at the school for the next few days. We agreed with the Head yesterday that they would do 3 classes a day, but by this morning, they were being entreated to work with another two – there’s no doubting how keen the school is are to improve pupils’ spoken English.

And this afternoon I took the bus to the Sioll Centre, where we have been funding a nursery and after school clubs in another poor community. Beulah, who leads this project, has started to work with a local midwife, running baby weigh-ins for the families that use the centre, and also for other young mothers in the area. She has great plans to develop this into a nutrition project and use these sessions as a way of offering parental education sessions.

Off to buy bananas now for the Foundation Stone ceremony tomorrow - an essential accompaniment to the Kiri Bath.