Week Without Walls

Last week through February 8-12 our whole grade went on a trip to Hambantota, down in the south. During our trip we went to Udawalawe National Park and took a look at the new harbour being built with the help of the Chinese government. But 80-90% of our time was dedicated to painting one of the pre-schools nearby that was affected by the tsunami. Each of us was split into two groups, the Shaas (my group) and the hunas. And each different group went to a different school.

DAY 1-Tuesday, February 16,2010

We took off at 7:30 am and headed straight to the school, which took about 40 minutes to get to. Once we arrived we were greeted by each of the children who each gave us a bunch of different flowers. We then had time to interact with them for half an hour. They were all about 4 years old. Unfourtunatley, none of them spoke english, which made communication difficult, and they all seemed uncomfortable around us. I went with a certain group of people and we tried to teach some of the kids how to play "duck, duck, goose". To make it easier for them to understand we renamed it "eluwa, eluwa, kotiya" which means "goat, goat, tiger" in Sinhala. Unfourtunatley, they didn't really understand the entire concept of the game. As I took more time to observe the environment I realized how their conditions were not the best quality. Parts of the equipment was made with simple materials, such as bicycle wheels and broken coconut shells. Many swing seats were missing. Then once they had left we started to work and I helped work on the outdoor swing sets. We first sandpapered most of the material, to make it more smooth, and then we began painting. In terms of my progress, I painted most of the slide ladder and helped make some parts of the other equipment look brighter.

DAY 2-Wednsday, February 10, 2010

We had a similar routine today as to yesterday. Although we didn't really play any games with the kids, we just played with them by using the normal swing sets. I am happy to say that my interaction with the kids has certainly improved a lot compared to the day before. I helped push some of them on the spinning swing set and se-saw. I still worked on the outdoor equipment but this time I also helped work on some of the tables from the classroom and part of the front fence. Although as helpful as it was to be doing this, I couldn't escape getting covered in the paint, which was generally extremely hard to get off!

DAY 3- Thursday, February 11, 2010

This day was our last day of work. We didn't interact with the kids this time, due to the fact that we went to see the new harbour being built. Once we got to the school we went straight to work. We had a limited amount of time since everyone was going to be arriving at 2pm. I worked on the fence and put an extra coating to some of the swing sets and tables. The mural that some people painted on the front walls had been completley finished and we had to remove all t

he furniture from the inside of the building since the whole floor was going to be painted. Then later at 2 all the kids, their parents, and the head teacher had showed up. Our group was to perform a few things for them, a skit and two songs, and they had performed a few dances and sang two songs. First, we sang Old McDonald. Whilst we were singing someone was holding pictures that we had drawn of three different animals with their Sinhala name at the top. Then we performed a skit which was based on a local children's story called "Cotton Baby" which

was about a little girl who wouldn't eat and only learns her lesson after being carried into the clouds and being sent back to the ground by the rain. I played the role of her Grandmother. Then we sang a very well-known traditional song called "Sarangani", which is about a fisherman's encounter with a beautiful, young girl. Then after all the performances we each gave out a single packet of gifts for them. We were able to set out these packets seperatley based on gender. I was only able to give one gift as everyone took most of the gifts before me. Then we were all invited to the head master's house next door and we had some traditional Sri Lankan food along with tea. The Headmaster didn't live in such good conditions, but despite that she was still able to be kind, warm-hearted, and full of integrity.

Generally, I feel satisfied by what we had done and we had learned a lot of things environmentally, culturally, and socially along our journey. We hope that we have now created more of a brighter-looking environment for children who do not live in the best conditions.