Week 30 - Classix Cars and Colombo

This week has begun with torrential rain, for 36 hours, making life in school an absolute nightmare! The children couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t talk loud enough for them to hear, and the majority of our students didn’t even turn up, as they usually come by bicycle. When I say torrential rain, I don’t mean UK, bad rain, I mean Sri Lankan, sideways, thick, soaking rain, including thunder claps louder than a gun and lightening inches away from our school building! I’ve never seen anything so awesome, yet at the same time terrifying.

We recently have come into possession at The Dust Project of 6,000 miniature Classix cars, and so I have also spent a few evenings discovering and trying to work out how we can get these off of our hands and make some money out of them for Grecian, a man in Jaffna to fund his kidney transplant. His family needs to come up with £5,500 for this life saving operation. For many people in the UK, this money would require time to save up for it, but as Grecian is unable to work, and his wife is the sole earner, the money they have is used for food, accommodation and school fees for their three-year-old son Thenujan. They are able to save 50r/s a day, the equivalent of approximately 25p.

Jenny is back in Sri Lanka, and so I managed to have a catch up with her this week, she invited me for lunch at her house, which was enjoyable. At times she is a scary lady, but I think I have managed to overcome my fear of ‘pastors’ – overall we can have a great laugh together!

School this week since the torrential rain has been a bit of a challenge, with encountering hyperactive children, children who refuse to do their work, and children who cheat their way through their PACE Books. With its many challenges, I feel as though I have learned many lessons – children are unpredictable, but they need a loving teacher to show them where they have gone wrong or to guide them in the correct direction, not a strict or scary teacher; if anything this just pushes them further away, into worse behaviour.

After a long week at school, my weekend was spent at Jenny’s house, with Reena and Roshani, who sometimes need a big sister to hang out with – I’m always happy to volunteer my services! Whilst I live with Reena normally, she has been temporarily rehomed at Jenny’s house, whilst her parents go on holiday for a few days. The three of us ate lunch together, chilled, did some colouring and played cards. A major highlight of the weekend, I think for ALL children was the fact we were taken to Lingham’s Ice Cream Parlour on Sunday after church! A couple from Switzerland who had come to see Jaffna, and the work Karen and Jenny do, requested to take the children’s home girls to ice cream and invited me, Reena and Roshani. We were so excited!

Due to the lack of transport, I was asked to drive one of the vans to the Ice Cream Shop – my first experience of driving in Sri Lanka. All booted, suited, and strapped in, I left the house to head to Ice Cream. Jenny was in the front of the car with me, and as I was driving, a temple cow wandered into the road, from nowhere. A law in Sri Lanka, is anyone who hits, injures or kills a Temple Cow can be imprisoned, so I swerved to avoid the animal, and at the same time cussed very loudly. Next to a pastor. It was an awful experience, which luckily turned into a moment of laughter and hilarity!

​Monday was a usual day at school; enjoyable, busy and interesting, full of phone calls and making of plans. It seems the decision was made by Jenny and Karen, I was required to go to Colombo to get my driving licence endorsed, for me to drive in Jaffna in the near future (legally). I caught the night mail train down on Monday, with Roshan, leaving Jaffna at 7pm, and arriving in Colombo at 5am. A long journey, with very little sleep gained. We were met at Colombo Fort station by Karen, and headed to the house in Colombo to sleep, relax and enjoy the Tuesday Poya Day!