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24 November

Page history last edited by PBworks 19 years ago

Thursday 24 November

Rest Day

 

Wake early to finish diary. Our first day off! Bit cloudy still, but it looks as thoiugh the sun might come through - and indeed after breakfast it does - hurrah! John, Paddy and Charlie have another boisterous wave-jumping session in the sea, but the rest of us content ourselves with the pool. Pack, pack, pack, and down to reception at 12 noon to check out and pay. Bit overbudget during our Ambalamgoda 3 days, but this should even out soon, as we have some cheaper hotels coming up. The budget a llows for us to spend £100-125 per person per week on accommodation and food - transport is being provided by Impakt at present luckily. I think we will manage - fingers crossed! Clean out of cash, so I have to borrow 20,000 rupees off Jane to sort us out.

 

Stolen money

 

Then it appears that the English volunteers, Flora, Alice and Susie, have had 3,000 rupees stolen from their room. (Only about £18, but still a big problem for them.) So I have a huge struggle getting 3.000 rupees taken off their bill, but we succeed, only having to make small and reasonably polite threats of bad publicity, and with no shouting, thank goodness. Say our goodbyes amicably and leave. About 5 minutes down the road, when I am thinking about how I must go to a bank later today or tomorrow morning to get cash for the next few days and to pay back Jane, I suddenly think, "Oh, lordie, where are the travellers cheques?" I realise that I have left them in a drawer in my room, so we turn around and rush back - and thankfully find all the travellers cheques, my air tickets onwards to Bangkok and then back to England and all sorts of other bits and pieces. Deeply shaming for me! I won't be doing that again in a hurry!

 

Tsunami aftermath

 

Half hour drive south to Hikkaduwa, passing Seeniyagama and Perelaya, where the train was hit by the tsunami and so many died. They have righted the train and set it there as a memorial. The damage is very visible here, more so than nearer Colombo - lots of ruins and no great signs of permanent rebuilding.

 

They really need to get their tourism back on track, as tourist money is incredibly important to the econmy - but things don't look very ready for the 'high season' which is fast approaching. There's a lot of rubbish everywhere. (Actually there was also a lot of rubbish on the beach at the wonderful Mount Lavinia Hotel - I kept noticing it out of my window, and then one morning I was delighted to see that most of it had gone - great, I thought, getting ready for the tourists - but then I saw what was actually happening - it wasn't being removed - a man was digging shallow graves in the sand on the beach and burying the rubbish. Some child will come along to dig a sandcastle and up will come all the rubbish - not ideal!)

 

A new hotel, and farewells

 

We arrive at our Hikkaduwa hotel, and, thankfully, there are enough rooms for us all this time. The rooms are basic but fine, and either have a balcony on the first floor or, on the ground floor, a door opening onto the pool and garden area, which lead to the beach. There is even a table-tennis table, which should give us a bit of exercise.

 

We all lunch together and say goodbye to the English Impakt volunteers Flora and the twins Alice and Susie. Lal, the 3rd van driver is also leaving, though we hope he may rejoin us soon, as he was very useful during sessions at the camp and we are now down to the basic 5-person Children's World International team, plus John and Natalie and Shane our lovely translater, plus Jane and Lee - but Jane and Lee leave us after the Hikkaduwa leg of the Tour to return to England. There should hopefully be some Impakt volunteers joining us this Saturday and Sunday, but then it is just us 7 and Shane, which is not ideal.

 

Disappointment and frustration

 

The maddening thing is that by the time we actually get all our equipment (assuming that Customs will eventually let it go!) we won't have enough personnel to man it all. Fortunately Aruni's figures for children in the camps were way over the top - she was telling us that there were 250-350 in most, whereas actually there have never been more than 150 at any session, and often less. This is sad from the point of view of child-sessions that we were hoping to achieve, but actually quite a relief as we have next to no equipment, and now virtually no extra 'team'. Hey ho!

 

We are disappointed by the whole equipment and personnel situations, and frustrated that things that were promised have fallen through - the saving grace is that the children really love even the reduced programme we are offering them - they are very needy, and the sessions, however basic, are truly worthwhile. This keeps our spirits up.

 

Children in Need

 

We have almost given up thoughts of the bus or equipment being liberated in time to be of much use (we have now finished the first third of the Tour) and are making efforts to find the parachute (and maybe badge equipment and beanbag making equipment) that I left in Sri Lanka in March, and also trying to make arrangements for one or two parachutes to be flown out to us from England.

 

A bit of a swim and a sunbathe after lunch, and then I attack the BBC Children in Need application - we are applying for funding to help cover the costs of our Puppetry and Integration Workshop Weeks with Sonmerset and Avon special schools and neighbouring mainstream schools next summer, and the application needs to be in by 30 November.

 

News from England

 

My lovely secretary rings to catch me up with English office news - all is well on the home front and Kate, Rachel and Haf are working on getting the Tudor Workshops ready, and there will be regular emailing between us and them over the next couple of weeks. Paddy and Charlie are also working on devising the Maths Day on 'Shapes' that they will be presenting at Avalon Special School when they return.

 

The heavens open

 

At about 5.00 the heavens open and the rain pours down. Paddy, Charlie and I have a meeting on my covered terrace, while drinking tea and watching the rain bounce off the pool. Paddy and I had intended to go to the internet office half a mile away, but it is so horrendously wet that we decide to postpone that till tomorrow morning. Jo had set out to the hardward store with Roo on a bicycle before the rain started, to find material to make hoola hoops out of - she returns triumphant but soaked to the skin.

 

A fairly disgusting dinner, enlivened by a Sri Lankan musical trio who played everything from 'I left a little girl in Kingston Town', through 'My Sweet Lord' to 'I can't get no satisfaction!'

 

I head to my room early, only to find that the ceiling fan is no longer working and that the room is appallingly hot. Two very nice men come and mend it, but it was a very hot half hour.

 

Shane will go out and do a recce at the Friday and Saturday camps tomorrow morning to check that there is some form of shelter in case it rains, and I will pursue Chaminda and Geoffrey Dobbs to see if there is any chance of finding our parachute, and Paddy and I will do the internet office before we leave for the camp at about 2.00 p.m. 6 more days touring coming up from tomorrow in Hikkaduwa, Seeniyagama, Galle, Matara, Dickwella and Tangalle - then a day off at Tissa, and the final 6 days sessions will be at Kirinda, Hambantota, Tangalle, Kalutara, and Moratuwa with Ratmalana being our last session on 7 December, and we all fly out, most to England, but me and Jo and Roo on to Thailand on 8 December.

 

All on the bus, alas

 

Apart from not having the equipment that is on the bus with us now, which is deeply annoying in itself, we have the problem that the masks on the bus are CW's own and need to go back to England with Paddy and Charlie so that they can be used in our Spring Term Video Tour on the theme of Behaviour for children with moderate learning difficulties and emotional and behavioural difficulties. And there are 3 CW parachutes and a CW badge machine and 3,000 badge components that Jo and I were intending to take on to Thailand on 8 December, so I am going to have to make contingency plans of some sort - at the very least getting Haggis and Jake (the performers who are joining me and Jo in Thailand) to bring out new parachutes with them when they fly to Bangkok.

 

Who can tell if this bus and the equipment will ever be liberated? We may land up with a surplus of parachutes in the end, but we can't risk not having one in Thailand! And we really want at least one here if humanly possible. Hopefully perserverance will further!

 

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25 November

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