Week Without Walls 2011 - Hambantota.

Last week was our much awaited Week Without Walls! This year we went to Hambantota and Yala, which are in the south of Sri Lanka. The WWW comprised of 5 days, and this is how we spent each of them :)

Day 1: the trip to Hambantota. After arrival at the hotel, our grade got together to do the essential planning that was needed to make this trip a success. Each of us set up goals that we wanted to achieve on during our visit there, especially when working with the kids at the preschools. Mine were:
* to work with consideration towards everyone in the group.
* to be patient when working with the kids
* to be of actual use in what we were planning to do at the school (i.e. not waste time/ get the work done)
* to work efficiently while improving my time management skills.
* and last but not least,
to have FUN, of course :)
We also practiced songs for the concert that we were planning to put up for the kids at the schools, and the Sinhala speaking people in our class managed to teach everyone a Sinhala song that we could perform for the kids, as they will be able to understand and connect better with a song in their own language. It was a new experience to teach this, especially when I had to sing aloud to get the accents through. This was something I would never have normally done, as singing is not my greatest strength, and it was a way in which I was challenged to do something new. :P

Day 2: was our 1st working day at the schools. One of the great things that I found out on this day was that everyone in our group worked really well together and weren't hesitant to help out with anything that needed to be done. I too, managed to do several things; play with the kids, go shopping with Mr. Lockwood to buy more supplies (I was needed for Sinhala translation), work on a mural and also help with painting the inside walls. Everyone else also did many jobs that they hadn't necessarily elected to do from before. In that sense, the team work and collaboration factor of everyone in our group was great. :)

Painting the rail track/ Announcing in Sinhala/ Playing with the kids . :)

Aparna and I painting the mural. :)

Day 3: the 2nd working day at the schools also went very smoothly. I managed to finish the first mural and at last minute notice, our group decided that we should do another one as well (as there was one empty wall left), and amazingly we managed to finish that on time too! :)

My time management skills were really put to a test here and I'm really glad that I was able to stand up to the challenge. Moreover, my ability to speak in Sinhala came of more use again, as Uthpala and I were called by the teachers of the preschool to introduce the acts that the kids put up in the concert. This was again something of a challenge, because I normally do not enjoy speaking in front of an audience. By the end of this experience, I have pretty much gotten over that fear. :)

The finished products :)

Day 4: was our trip to the Yala national park. This really great and memorable experience, and by far better than last year's Safari, because this time we saw a lot more animals than birds! In fact, we managed to see a leopard, which you need to be really lucky to spot, and also herds of deer, buffalo, a wild boar, a jackal, an elephant and several crocodiles. We also saw a lot of birds but this time a peacock actually came on the road and danced right in front of our jeep! It was a very enjoyable day, and a great learning experience too, as I learned the names of many animals that I didn't know before.

Day 5: back home after an amazing trip! :)

Alzheimer's leaders for 2011.

Me and Hee Soo have been selected as the leaders for our Alzheimer's CAS for this year. We had the first meeting for leaders today and we have already been set a task.
We are to concentrate on organizing a presentation for the PTA, on what we have done in our Service so far, indicating donations made and money raised.
We have already started on our powerpoint, and when we next meet with our group we plan to talk about posters and brochures that can be made to indicate our progress during the last semester.
We hope to get started soon! (as soon as everyone comes back from WWW)

WWW planning!

WWW 2011 is nearly here... in fact, it's just next week!
Of course, before we actually set off, there has been a lot of planning and preparation being done during the past few weeks. This is because we're going to be taking part in a very important aspect of our Service there, wherein we help out with the maintenance of a couple of post-Tsunami pre-schools, and we interact with the children and give them a small gift. I, along with Kasturi and Chrisni, were made the leaders in charge of getting the gift packs for the kids, so last Friday Kasturi and I went to purchase what we decided we might include in them. These items consisted 50 each of pencils, erasers, sharpeners, rulers, pencil cases, water bottles, lunch boxes and school bags for the children, as well as a Saree each for the 4 teachers at the 2 schools we're visiting. Firstly we had to raise money in order to purchase these things, and each member of our Grade donated Rs. 1000/- for this cause. Although it took a whole day to find and buy all the needed items, both me and Kasturi felt really proud after we had successfully bought all these things for 50 small children, managing to keep within our budget with some on-the-spot, smart-shopping decisions!
Today we helped organize the things we'd bought in the bags for each child.
This experience demanded a lot of responsibility on our part, not only in handling the money properly and safely, but also in taking initiative to talk to various shop-keepers and organizing all the required gifts.

I'm really looking forward to next week, when we will actually be off to our Week Without Walls, where I will be in the group for playing with the kids and helping out with the mural that we are going to paint on the walls.