The transport to the preschool today was a little different. My [Ruth's] Tamil translator Chitra, my Tamil helper Pama, and myself travelled for about 50 mins in a Tuk Tuk, with all the resources for the playschool stuffed in, around and behind us. We journey through the busy morning traffic of Batticloia, with motorbikes carrying children to school and emerged in the rural community of .......... 32 smiling and excited children greeted us with fresh flower garlands, then we proceeded our daily regime of introductions ,circle time, activities of making owl hat's and puppets. The school was small with no running water or electricity. The two teachers were marvellous, as one very excited little boy led the Hindu prayers and continued to lead the children in morning exercises.
Once the children left and walked home in the dusty quiet village, the teachers and us all set for lunch which was the most delicious tasting dahl and rice. I reflected on the simplicity of life there. The teaching resources are limited, yet the excitement of the children and the teachers tenecity to enable the children to learn never diminishes.
I considered the value of fellow sojourners on this earth, and how my little bit of Tamil language made the teachers laugh at my mispronunciations !! Yet we communicated in a different way, through smiles,touching, actions and yet again the gulf was no more.
This afternoon started with a major sort out of the Resources Room, ready for the Teacher Training Day tomorrow. Then off with the Calthorpe School Team for the Variety Show at Amirthakali Secondary School, which is Calthorpe’s special link school. Garlanded and surrounded by curious students, we were ushered across a sandy courtyard, on the walls of which were all sorts of biologically informative and/or morally advisory murals, and into a large Assembly Hall. The opening ceremony involved Hindu and Christian prayers and speeches in English and Tamil, followed by the the lighting of many wicks, on what looked like a very tall brass candelabra, by individuals representing the different groups of people present.
There were two absolutely exquisite traditional Hindu dances by girls, the peacock costumes being especially striking. An extremely creative and amusing mime performed by boys wearing black, with mask-like white painted faces, warned us of the dangers of giving too much attention to our mobile phones. A visiting school band gave a spirited Samba performance, prepared and led by the Music Teacher from Calthorpe School. There were dramas in English and Tamil (two on the grisly themes of “Hansel and Gretel” and “Sweeney Todd”) and some very enthusiastic singing. Team Two sang Ruth’s song “Let’s go Dilanee” to the by now VERY familiar tune of “Hokey Cokey”, which Philip concluded with an energetic drum solo on his Sri Lankan drums. The final piece was Gaush leading us all in the hilarious “Make a Melody in my heart”.
(Today's blog was written by Ruth and Kathy)
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