17th December - Day 16

Up very early this morning as we had to be at the meeting place for 7.30am. We had breakfast in our homestay families... although Cat and Becky's breakfast wasnt ready till 7.55am.

We met at an environmental centre just after 8am and then got into cars to the beach. We were split into 6 teams, four teams collecting plastics, one collecting rubber/leather and the last collecting glass. Everyone was given sacks to fill and sent off to start collecting. It was extremely hot on the beach, especially after how cold it had been at Adam's Peak. The girls all worked really hard collecting everything - there were lots of lightbulbs, flip flops, plastic bottles and even the odd bottle labelled 'poison'. We filled sack after sack and delivered them to a truck that was emptying the bags so we could refill them.

We collected for an hour before stopping to reapply suncream and find some shade - everyone else joined us and we all had yoghurt-in-a-bag, which we found quite entertaining! Then the press arrived and we had to go back outside with our gloves and sacks for a photo shoot, initially collecting rubbish and then posing with the Sri Lankan Girl Guides banners. Maybe we will end up in the newspaper!

The girls asked us to teach them some songs, so all 30 Guides, their Leaders and anyone else who had been helping (the government's environmental team) joined in learning some songs. The Guides also taught us some more songs!

From here we headed to Vicky and Jo's homestay house for lunch and internet - time to catch up with writing the blog! Dinner was at Sirini's house - we had time to plan for extra training sessions next week and then enjoyed a lovely meal. Jo went to the toilet and spotted a huge spider - a source of entertainment for the next 30 mins!

We went back to our homestays and to bed!

16th December - Day 15

So, after our 2hour journey that lasted 4 hours we arrived at Sri Pada, or Adam's Peak. Half asleep we climbed out of the bus and looked at the string of lights heading up into the sky... it was a long way up. The driver found us somewhere to stay that we could check into at any time of the night, so we headed towards the start of the climb.

We walked for about an hour before deciding that the 'lanterns' that we had been told light the path werent going to materialise, but that they were all strip lights. We turned back as we were all shattered having been up since early yesterday morning. 356 steps later we were back at the bus, around 3am, and carried all our stuff to the room. We had two massive double beds between 6 of us, only they were damp.

Sleep time - very cold night

The phone went at 7am - Sunni (our driver from the elephant day) wanted to make sure our driver showed us the tea plantations on our drive down south.

The door went at 9.30am - someone asking if she could join us in our bus to Matara... we weren't sure what to say, that wasn't what we were expecting having just woken up.

Cold showers all round and we headed down to breakfast - eggs, toast, butter, jam, fruit juice and fruit! Sarah, our new bus-mate, joined us and we chatted for a bit.

Our bus driver was keen to leave, so by 11am he was encouraging us to hurry up and get in the bus! The bus journey was 4 hours... so it lasted 6 hours! We slept, took photos of the views out of the window and sang a few songs. Our journey took us on the new expressway - like a motorway. When joining the road our driver was given instructions on how to use it! It was the smoothest journey so far!

We arrived in Matara and were met by our three homestay families. They took us back to their homes and gave us all dinner, before we all collapsed back into bed after a tiring day of travel.

15th December - Day 14

Third Kandy training day

 

Rainbow training this morning went well - we had a huge number of participants, 35, today.

We played balloon games with the Leaders and girls (balloons thanks to Up Up and Away), practiced some songs, looked at the Rainbow story and Roundabout mat.

Lunch was a banana leaf meal - rice and curry, with Jack fruit in it - which we were very confused about because it looks and has the texture of meat.

The afternoon was our final visit to the Children's home, getting out of the tuk tuk Van fell in a ditch! We played games with them, talked about hobbies, practiced more counting and then made modelling balloon dogs. We gave them the books donated by friend of Vicky's.

From here we went back to Kumari's to pack ready for another evening of travelling. Kumari cooked us a salad for dinner - cold potatos, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, beans and chicken, followed by curd and syrup.

We then took a long bus journey to Sri Pada or Adam's peak, arriving at 1am.

14th December - Day 13

Caught Red-handed

Day 2 of Kandy training!



Session Feedback



 Similarly to yesterday we ran the Rainbows session in the morning. Today we had about 24 participants: 6 Senior Guides, 5 Leaders and 13 Guides. We played lots of games and had fun making biscuits, several of the girls and leaders got into the Rainbow spirit and ended up covered in pink icing. Jo and Vicky washed up afterwards and decided to cover both Becky and Cat with the icing - we are still finding it in our hair!! The participants all made up their own games to play using only one random object.

For lunch we walked down to a local cafe and had some nice fried rice and vegetables.

We then went back to the Children's home, but were delayed in running our session as the girls had some other visitors who they had tea with and then sang songs for. We managed a short session, playing more language based games.

We went from here to Tihani's house in her car - two in the boot and 4 on the seats!. She had been with us the previous day at the children's home and had invited us home for tea. We had lots of snacks that her Mum had made us and had more juice with salt in!

We then went to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, where it is said that one of Buddha's teeth is kept. A local Guide and her mother took us around the temple and explained everything to us. There were lots of people queueing to look at the casket in which the tooth is kept. There were also lots of people there who had donated food in order to get a longer and closer look at it.

13th December - Day 12

Tuesday 13th December
Today was our first day of training in Kandy.

What does a leader look like?

The Rainbow training was first, we had 7 participants initially and the numbers varied up to a maximum of 15. These were mainly Leaders but also some Senior Guides. The feedback was good. The session here was longer than that in Colombo giving us longer to practice some of the activities.

Lunch was at the Cultural centre where the dancing had been last night. We had fruit juice, with salt in... eeewwwwww!!!! To eat we had sandwiches and omelettes but the cheese in sandwiches was a bit processed (fake!)

Parachute games at the Children's home

Our second session of the day was at the Jayawickrama Children's home. We played balloon and parachute games and sang songs, played counting games and chatted about our names and ages. There were 19 children aged 8-18, some who spoke good English and some who spoke none at all. They were very excited to see us and really enjoyed everything we did.



Alive Alert Awake with Little Friends



From here we went to visit the 3rd Kandy Little Friend's Pack Holiday at the Hillwood College School. After climbing lots and lots of steps we sang lots of songs with the girls, and they sang some for us. They invited us to share dinner with them - the girls found it very funny that we were trying to eat with our hands like them!

12th December - Day 11

Elephant day!!!!

Up early! Exciting day ahead!

We set off in a bus towards the Pinnewale Elephant Orphanage, with Sunni our driver. We arrived around 9am and ran to the ticket office to try and get elephant feeding tickets. We managed to get the last 5 milk bottle tickets and a fruit ticket. Sunni then dragged us across the site to an under-cover area where two elephants were being walked in. We handed over our milk tickets and were allowed to help the keeper feed a bottle of milk to the elephant - it was gone within seconds!

We then headed over to another area where there was a tall stand build into a tree, Cat was handed large amounts of fruit to hand feed to a rather large elephant. We were then allowed to stroke the elephant.

Our next stop was to see a blind elephant, and then to look at the herd on a field. Here there were several very young elephants (a couple of weeks old) and a few of us managed to stroke one, he even held onto Vicky's finger with his trunk.

We visited a 'poo paper factory' where they showed us how they turned elephant poo into paper... and then they tried to sell us some for extortionate prices!

The elephants then went on a bit of a run past the store towards the river, it was bath time! We followed them down to the bank and watched them all bathe. We were beckoned down to the edge of the water where some of the team were allowed to splash water onto an elephant using a coconut shell (apparently this was highly against the rules... and stopped instantly when the boss arrived).

We then went to a place where we could ride elephants. Jo, Vicky and Becky went for the challenge and after being paraded around the grassy area and posing for photos we were taken into the river. Jo went first, she had a thorough soaking from her elephant Monica, Becky had a small shower but was still very soggy and Vicky's elephant refused to give her a shower and she came out dry! (she was quite pleased about this)

Next stop was a tea factory - we had a tour and looked at the process and machines needed to make tea, and then they also treated us to free tea.

We then visited the Kandy Botanical Gardens and enjoyed looking at the beautiful orchids they had. We also got caught in a rain storm and sang lots of songs with some random children that came to sit with us.

 

We visited Kandy University and Kush gave us a tour of her department.

11th December - Day 10

Day off!

We had a long lie-in (10am), then went to visit Kush by tuktuk. She took us into town and we did some food shopping - lots of fruit. We also bought some resources for our Rainbow trainings later this week.

 

We wandered around Kandy, looking at the strange ducks and lizards living in the lake.

We went to watch some Kandian dancing in the evening - very colourful and very full of tourists!

8th-10th December 2011 - Days 7-9

Thursday 8th December - Day 7

Today we got the train to Kandy from Colombo, we waved goodbye to Yamuna, who had looked after us so well during our time with her, and set off for the second part of the trip.

The train to Kandy took about 5 hours and the views on the way were spectacular - they ranged from city to countryside, towns to slums and everything in between! We were surprised to see

people walking on the tracks and that the doors on the train were permanently open, so people were happily hanging out of them.

We arrived at Kandy station and were greeted by local Senior Guides who we were to stay with overnight. We all went separate ways before meeting up again the next day.

Friday 9th December - Day 8

5 of us met up at the local school, the school in which the girls met for Senior Guide meetings and watched the last school assembly of the year, before the school broke up for Christmas. We got on the school bus and picked up the last team member enroute. We had all had very different experiences in our homestays but had all enjoyed them. The bus journey was very long and extremely bumpy!!!

We arrived in Anuradhapura and after putting our bags in our rooms we had a guided tour of the Sacred city with a coach full of Senior Guides from across Sri Lanka. We visited many temples and other sacred sites for the Buddhist religion.

After a spicy dinner - hot, very hot! - we practiced some songs in Sinhalese and then taught the girls some in Enlgish!

Saturday 10th December - Day 9

We got up at 5am this morning for an early breakfast and opening ceremony for the Senior Guide project we were about to take part in. We made a flagpole out of a branch and used electrical tape to attach the UK flag - the Sri Lankan Guides followed our example and borrowed our electrical tape rather than practicing their lashings, this didnt go down to well with their Leaders! Above us mangos started flying, the monkeys were obviously after target practice as they took one bite before throwing them at us! Breakfast - milk rice, curry and spicy dahl as well as bananas.

The ceremony started after breakfast, 2 hours late - this involved us standing in our team in a long line behind our flag, in the sun. The Leaders carried a chair out, covered in a white sheet and the monk arrived and sat in it. The monk spoke, then the army man spoke, then we sang the song we had practiced the previous night... then everyone left. We had been stood in the sun for what seemed like ages.

We went to Jetavanarana Pagoda and walked round to a section which was covered in scaffolding and planks to make steps. We put our flag with the others in the sand nearby and watched worriedly as the Guides climbed happily up the wobbly steps out of view from the floor.

We insisted on staying near the bottom and joined the chain of brick passing, as time went on we gradually all ended up on the planks, with Nicola being a good 40ft off the floor! :S We passed over 1225 bricks in 4 hours plus plates of cake and glasses of salty lemon juice (yuk!)

After all the bricks for today had been passed we then climbed the 70m pagoda (clinging tightly to the scaffolding as the planks wobbled and bent under our weight). The views were great but we were slightly concerned about the whole health and safety issue of us wandering around a building site at 70m with nothing to protect us.

Lunch time - more spicy food - rice, potatoes, chicken (that only Cat could eat) and more bananas. We were then told it was home time - only our timetable said we were staying until tomorrow... We packed hurriedly as we were leaving in 15 mins and then sat around and waited about an hour for the bus - we love Sri Lankan time keeping. A bus arrived, not ours though, and we were ushered onto it by army personnel - this was not going to be heading home. With no idea where we were going we loaded all our bags on the bus and took our seats near the fans.

20 mins drive later we arrived at an army barracks and were lined up infront of a tank and an armoured recovery vehicle. The Colonel briefed us on why we were there and we were given information about the vehicles before being invited to climb all over the tanks. After we were given drinks whilst a tank gave a demo - filling the air with smoke, fumes and dust. We investigated their toilets - hidden behind a tree...in the middle of the room. We returned to the demo to be invited to ride the tank, sat on top, which we all jumped at (again ignoring the lack of health and safety as we held on to each other and gun mounts to stop us falling off!) After a speedy lap through the mud we were back on safe ground and offered yet more food, which we put on the bus.

We were then invited to a tea party by the Colonel - tea from the back of a pickup truck and more food... we are going to need rolling home by the end of the trip, everyone is so generous!

The long bus trip home was made more interesting by endless hours of singing both by us and by the Senior Guides - we even learnt some songs in Sinhalese. It was the lunar eclipse as well, so lots of hanging out of windows taking photos!

The end of the bus journey arrived eventually and we were taken, in the bus, to Kumari's house. She showed us to the apartment where we would be staying for the next week. It was large and we had two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom to share between us. We all put our stuff down and watched the bus attempt to turn in the driveway, and watched it reverse into a tree in the process. We set up some amazing contraptions using washing lines and electrical wire to hang our mosquito nets (think chairs on beds to reach).

Bedtime