First School trip to Sri Lanka - October 2013

We left school at 11am after saying goodbye to all our friends and family.   The flight to Colombo went without a hitch, and as we came into land we were amazed by the trademark rainforests of Sri Lanka. The moment we landed, we were hit by the heat and humidity of the far eastern country. Our tour guides greeted us with happiness, presenting each of us with a flower garment, lighting up our day.

Our two hour journey was full of action, witnessing the differences in health and safety between Britain and Sri Lanka. Red lights were green, seat belts for some ceased to exist and crowds of ecstatic children waving at us. We were lucky enough to watch elephants having their daily bath in the local river, taking pictures of them as they came up close to greet us.   

The following days were spent doing the tourist things such as the Temple of The Tooth Buddhist temple in Kandy which is famous for holding the tooth of the Buddah and Rajja - the famous elephant. We saw traditional drumming and offerings with flowers which we all felt very honoured to be a part of. We then travelled to a tea plantation which was very interesting yet hot!   We also went to a lovely spice garden for lunch and had a buffet lunch where there was red rice and jackfruit curry.  We then made our way round the gardens and sampled some of the spices growing. We also got to try some King Coconuts.

Day three was spent  playing two matches of cricket, one against the Sri Lankans and the other mixed. We lost to the better team... not to our surprise. After the matches we danced and gave gifts to the school such as new cricket bats as theirs were bent, footballs, tennis balls and food.   We were told about a surprise on the way to the hotel. When we got off the minibus we were greeted by the 'Snake Man', he was working on an anti-venom for the Sri Lankan citizens by putting his life in danger every day. He sells the anti- venom for free. We were all given the chance to hold and stroke the snakes. There were many species of snakes we could hold like, cat snake, cobra, albino cobra.

The rest of the week we spent in Batticaloa on the east coast of Sri-Lanka which was the area worst affected by the tsunami and where our link school, Puliyadimunai is based.   Two days were spent teaching English to the school children which was challenging in the heat and humidity, there is no ai-conditioning in the classrooms and no proper toilet facilities but we all coped really well despite the difficult circumstances.  On the Thursday, the school hosted their first ever sports day where 9 other schools came and competed.  The money we raised as a group (£5,000) was used to pay for the sports day and it was a great day for all students.  Everyone took part and all the equipment used on the day had been hand made.  There was dancing and singing going on and everyone was really happy to be there.  After an emotional last night in Batticalo we spent a long day travelling back to Colombo where we stayed in a very posh hotel for the last two nights.  Many of us felt overwhelmed at seeing such luxury after having spent time working with the children who have very little.  Some of the children had no shoes on their feet and we were saddened that many of them have bad teeth due to having no toothpaste or toothbrushes – the little things that we all take for granted in the UK.   It really was a life changing experience for all of us and we all bonded so well as a team.  Many of us plan to return to Sri-Lanka in 2014 and to continue to fundraise for Ocean Stars.