Wellaragama Vidyalaya Junior School

Mihintale, North Central Province

August 2009: I’m in Mihintale on my way to Wellaragama School. Yesterday Raja and I spent the evening with the Principal, his wife and their children. We discussed my trip, my family and many other things and then it was time to make arrangements to make another visit to school the following day.

We arrived early and were greeted by very excited children and teachers. By now, each visit with me means gifts of all sorts for each child and some new equipment for the playground. Of course cricket is the favourite and I always bring cricket bats with me.

The car was unloaded and the platform under the tree was laid with mats and all items were placed there.

This time I had brought lollypops from Australia with me. Once sucking starts the tongue goes blue. The kids loved them and I had the idea to get the Principal to suck one and turn his tongue blue. After a little light encouragement he obliged. The children laughed and laughed at the sight of their principal with a blue tongue. The teachers had a good giggle as well.

My relationship with this school has developed to a very comfortable stage. A lot of the children now call be by my first name, others want to take me aside to show me their work and the teachers are talking with me about their families and are curious about me and my family. I feel I am on the way to achieving what I set out to do with all the schools and that is to build a relationship with everyone and work towards making life a little easier for the children and hopefully their families.

After a little time looking around the school, I went back to the platform where the children had been assembled in gender and grade order.

First I made a presentation of the general playground equipment to the school prefects. Then I gave the principal all the items for general teacher use. Raja was taking lots of photos as he usually does.

Now it was time to give the children their gift packs of school stationery, school bags and toys that I had bought with me. As usual everyone was really happy.

I donated a number of skipping ropes. In a country where coconut fibre is made into rope I assumed most children would know how to skip. Discovering they didn't know a revelation. They had seen the concept but had never tried it. A few girls gave it a go without much success. They held the rope too high and didn’t have the fluidity of movement required for continuous skipping. One of the teachers was brave enough to skip with me to demonstrate how it’s done.

One little boy decided he’d show me his skills with a hula hoop. The hoop was made from a piece of plastic hosing and connected with a piece of timber at the joining point. It worked well and he was excited about how well and how long he could keep the hoop around his waist.

Once all this was done, I was asked to join the teachers in the staffroom for a cup of tea. They had prepared cake as well, so that a nice gesture. The children kept coming over to the window to look in, but were shooed away by the tachers who wanted to have just a few minutes of chat with me without the children yelling and interrupting.

Raja had indicated that we did need to leave the school for our trip to Kandy some 3.5 hours drive away. Before I left, the older girls at the school and their art teacher wanted to show me the paintings which they were in the midst of doing. We walked to the side of the school and it became apparent that they were painting the school building. The background is bright blue with lots of flowers, trees, children playing painted in bright colours. Apparently this was the idea of the children and the Principal and teachers decided to go ahead and start the project. It’s an ongoing project and possible when I return in 2010 they will have completed the painting of the school building.

It was time to leave, so the farewells are made to all and we promise to return to see everyone again in 2010.

September 2008: This school is small and in a very isolated area about ten kilometress from Mihintale in the North Central Province.

There are 46 children enrolled at this school and again it's along another dusty bumpy road. There are six teachers and the principal. One of the teachers has good English and teaches the children English twice a week.

When we arrive at the school, the children are excited as they say "It's the cricket bat lady". They clearly remember me from my visit in January.

The plan for the first day at the school is to take the measurements of the feet of children who have no school shoes, or wearing ones that are worn out. All the children think this is a great laugh. They are standing with a foot firmly planted on a piece of paper and I'm on the floor with a pencil measuring their foot. As we take the last measurement, we tell the children to return to the school the following school day (Monday) as we will be giving gifts to everyone.

Raja and I find the shoe factory at Anuradhapura and negotiate to purchase 39 pairs of school shoes and rubber slippers. After two hours we have the shoes and some of the rubber slippers. We will collect the shoes on Monday morning before going to the school. We then need to locate a shop where we can purchase the remaining rubber slippers and school socks for each child. Once all this is done, we proceed to the school.

The children are waiting at the gate for us. They are jumping with such joy. The older boys help to carry the things into the school. Again we have an education pack for each child, 300 English reading books for a library, and the shoes, rubber slippers and socks.

We ask the children to gather in their class levels and proceed to present the packages to each child. Some of the little children find it hard to hold onto the packages. They are laughing and overwhelmed at the same time. Some eat the chocolate we give and others will take it home to their mother.

Once all children had their gifts, they assembled in the dusty playground of the school for a photo. Time to say goodbye and the teachers asked if on my next visit I would have lunch with them. Of course I agreed as I feel I now have a good relationship with not just the principal at this school, but the teachers as well. They all bid us farewell and I am sad to leave but feel joy at how happy the children are with their gifts. I hope these gifts have taken some of the burden from the school of providing for the children.