10 MAY 2014

Hi everyone!

I hope you are all well. I feel great! I have just had an amazing week and I am now just trying to process everything.

 When I first arrived, I kept seeing posters for the World Conference on Youth 2014 and I thought it would be a great conference to go to, but didn’t say anything as I’m here to teach and I have a timetable to follow.  However, clearly, the Universe was listening to me and low and behold, the week before the conference Sri Lanka Youth invited us to attend and it was so interesting.  The aim was to consult youth in the next set of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which will be set in 2015 and to review the MDGs that were set in 2000, which were largely not achieved.  For me the thing that was really interesting was the fact that this was a world conference, hosted in Asia and the disparities on topics like gender equality and the inclusion of marginalised groups were so enormous and even the conference was not really catered for people with disabilities, so you know straight away the invisible marginalised just don’t stand a chance in some parts of the world.  However, having said this, the delegates that were there, certainly voiced themselves and it will be interesting to see the final version of the Colombo Action Plan and to see in 15-20 years’ time how the world evolves and attitudes change.

On the May Day bank holiday, our SLV project manager came to our homestay to brief us on the conference and mentioned all of the additional activities, including the opening/closing ceremonies and somehow the conversation evolved into eight of the nine girls in Horana taking part in the Closing Ceremony, which turned out to be the closing act!  It was brilliant!  We were really privileged to be working with some very talented performers, with special needs, half of whom were blind.  Our new friends sang Michael Jackson’s ‘We are the World’ (we sang the chorus) and we all performed a routine.  As I type this, I still have not seen it, but we were so happy with the performance and I can’t believe how quickly it went.  We only started rehearsing last Friday and we have been fitting in rehearsals in between conferences.  It was incredible to watch and help blind people learn the lyrics.  Basically, someone forgot to print off lyrics in Braille, so we had to teach them one line at a time and their memories are incredible!  Not only are they not able to see the lyrics, but they are learning a fairly unknown song in another language and they were learning it quicker than of us!  Totally incredible.  I have tried to find something on YouTube, but it’s currently not working. If anyone finds it, please email me.

The opening ceremony in Hambantota was amazing!  Sri Lanka put on an amazing event and somehow the cameras seemed to follow us around all day and we kept popping up on Sri Lankan TV at the start of the week – our family loved it!  The dancing/performers were great, the food was soooo good, the atmosphere was great.  On the way home, we (lots of coaches carrying some 1500 delegates) stopped at Matara beach.  My friends and I were not that bothered about getting off as we had been up since 3am to put on saris and be at Hambatota for 9am, but we got off the coach, has some cake, took some photos and suddenly there was the best impromptu beach party!  So in the words of Danny Wallace, always say ‘yes’.

So, I ended my last email staring to talk about the teaching, and given that’s why I am here, I thought I’d expand a bit more…I am basically teaching English to children and youth (18-25), working with special needs people and ‘teaching’ swimming.  Most the kids are better swimmers than me, so I am the shallow end working with the absolute beginners. Before I came out here, I had requested to do sports mentoring as I'd never done this before, however, we need to be qualified for football, netball and volleyball. Ironically, we don't need any quals for swimming!

I have classes in the morning and in the afternoon.  They are in different locations – some up to an hour’s bus journey away, so I am defo getting used to local transport and understanding my local geography.  I only have one lesson in my hometown of Horana, which is the special needs class I mentioned last time.  This class is part of local school – in fact it’s Danidu’s school, so the kids looked after well. 

The other special needs lesson I do, is a  development centre.  This is probably my favourite lesson. It’s an all women’s home, with the youngest being around 3 and the eldest in her 50’s (ish), and there are two boys and one man. I like this because the residents are so happy to see us and dictate the lesson with requests for singing, dancing and games (they love – and I mean love ‘What’s the Time Mr Wolf’) and love the activities we provide, which are mainly arts and crafts.  The thing that is really difficult about the centre is the conditions in which the women are living – they are simply not nice and that’s all I’ll say.  I don’t know too much about the home, but I did find a report online saying that some of the residents are there following the tsunami of 2005, others could be orphans or abandoned.  

The Youth Teaching is really varied – from exceptionally excellent English to barely stringing together a sentence. There could be up to 25 students in a class and they are there voluntarily and are all part of Sri Lanka Youth, which is basically a government-led org to help the youth be the best they possibly can, especially, post-war. 

I hadn’t really though this through as I have taught English before in France and felt equipped.  However, I completely forget about the language barrier – in France, if my students did not understand, I’d explain it in French and we simply can’t do this here, so lesson planning is a real challenge, but we’re getting there.

A couple of weekends ago we climbed Adam’s Peak, which basically is pilgrimage up a sacred mountain. We set off at around 1:30am and arrived at the summit at 5:30am, just in time for sunrise. Despite not having caffeine for months, I did at 2am and thoroughly enjoyed it, as well as needed it! 

It was apparently a quiet time, but there were still hundreds of people. It was a fairly difficult walk, with some 5500 steps, all with varying heights and widths. But I went at my own pace and got lost in my thoughts. I also can't really moan as there were nannies walking bear-foot in their saris, mamas and papas carrying bubas, also bear-foot and they were doing just fine.

The last 1000 steps were slow due to bottle neck at the top. There were so many people at the top, it was actually quite hard to take it all in, but I was pleased to have arrived in time for sunrise, which was amazing and a beautiful organic egg yolk orange.

One of my housemates is half-Sri Lankan and invited a couple of us to meet her family. The fam were super nice and really interesting. They all speak English and are very western and it was so interesting to see such a contrast to the rural life that we are living. The food was also sooooo good.

 I’m really enjoying spending with time with the family. The kids love teaching us to dance. They are very talented, and I'll be blunt - we aren't, especially me!  My coordination is appalling, but they find funny.  But, the important thing is we provide enormous entertainment to entire family.

So I need head off – we’re heading to another conference after party tonight.  When I was packing my ruck sac just over a month ago, I defo did not expect this…everyday is defo an adventure!

Thank you for you emails too!  I will reply ASAP.

Lots of love

Vidia xxx