Happy Easter to everyone back home

Happy Easter to you all!

The latest milestone that was passed this week ………3 months last Tuesday! Jacinta hates that I am "ticking off days" as she puts it but I find it helpful so, we agree to disagree on that one. It is amazing to think we arrived here on the 26^th of December last year. Easter here for us was very quiet with a public holiday on Friday and church on Sunday. After the service we went to Green Grass Hotel for lunch and a swim. No Easter eggs for the girls this year as the Easter bunny does not get to Sri Lanka due to visa difficulties. We have heard there may be an Easter Squirrel but frankly I have my doubts.

On the topic of squirrels, Sarah is continuing her efforts at squirrel training in the hope of bringing a trained one back to Australia with us (sorry Sarah..not going to happen). Her recent efforts have involved leaving out some bananas that are waaaaaaaaaay past their best-by date, on the disused shipping container next door. She then watches movement over the next couple of days. We have not seen the squirrels indulging yet but they did disappear over the 2 days.

Presenting the PD session.. those legs arghhhhh, oh the horror!!!!!

We had a busy week. On Tuesday we presented a professional development day on behaviour management. Jacinta spent weeks in preparation and research, I had the easy job as front man and presenter. We have ruffled a few feathers and challenged a lot of beliefs and cultural norms but we are very pleased to say that the cane is now no longer an option for punishment at the school. Either is hitting the kids on the head with a book, or making them kneel for the lesson if they didn’t bring their homework.  If nothing else we feel this is a big achievement and helps justify our time here, to us, at least. We spent a lot of time introducing a large variety of alternate strategies and there is still a lot of work to do. It was great to see how willing most of the staff were to embrace new ideas and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. We think the majority of staff were ready for this move and just needed a little push. What was also interesting is that on the PD day staff were told they could wear casual dress. I think something was lost in the translation as their idea of casual was waaaaay different to ours. The ladies mostly arrived in the wedding saris. There was such a rich display of fabrics and colours and patterns and bling. It was amazing.

On Tuesday evening we went to Udivil Girls College, a girls boarding school about 5 km from Manipay. It is steeped in tradition, being the oldest boarding school in Asia.

Udivil Girls College

They had an Easter themed concert with traditional Tamil dances throughout. The costumes were incredible and the girls danced beautifully. We have to say however that possibly the highlight of the evening was when the huge floral centrepiece caught fire. Possibly unplanned, certainly memorable. On Thursday the AIS had its own Easter concert. Some special items were presented. We have some really talented students here.

AIS choir at Easter concert

We are finding the going a little hard at the moment. The weather is starting to be a problem, with temps of 35 degrees C max dropping to 28 at night and 80% humidity. What we find most draining is that the locals tell us as kindly as possible that it will get far worse and stay so for approximately 3 more months. Even coming from a sub-tropical area as Queensland that has its fair share of hot weather, we are questioning our ability to cope over the long haul. Only time will see. Jacinta has coped with the heat by wearing a sarong when at home, the girls don’t wear that much at all.

Jacinta has been missing home over the last couple of days. Over the Easter period she has been thinking of how we normally would spend our time. Easter egg hunts, rabbit foot prints all over the floor and so on…she is missing her family and home and feels deeply for the Sarah and Emma who are missing their Grandparents and beloved cousins Ella, Hazel and Kate. We are planning a holiday and this may help with the “blues” a little.

School is on the wind down to exams for end of semester. They do 2 hours exam sessions from year 2 classes. (That’s 7 year olds! Got to get something done about that one.)   We finish on 9^th of April (the students even turn up on Saturday this week for their exams) for 4 weeks but in the first week I will be working with senior students and tutorials preparing them for the Cambridge A level exams due in early May. In the second week, the school will be hosting 400 to 500 young people for a youth camp and I will be presenting a session (should be interesting as they speak little English and I don’t speak Tamil or Sinhala). If you have any ideas sent them over.  In the last two weeks we hope to tour central and Southern Sri Lanka and spoil ourselves as tourists for a while.

Take care everyone and please keep in touch, we really love it when people post comments on the blog or send emails. Your time in keeping in touch is greatly appreciated.

A,J S and E

Nearing the end of term 1

Hi everyone.

Jacinta doing weekly shop

Life is tough in the busy world of Manipay retail

So, what have we been doing this week? It was not full of lots of individual events but it felt busy all the same.

 

Last Sunday we had a real treat when we went to an evening service at St Peter’s Methodist Church in Jaffna. IT WAS IN ENGLISH!!!!! It was wonderful to understand the majority of what was said and when they handed out the hymn books, on the front cover in big silvers letters was the title “The Australian Hymn Book”. It is hard to describe the emotions and feelings at the time but they did have a big impact. On the back cover of the book was a stamp from the previous owners of the hymn book “Springvale Uniting Church” So, if any of you know where Springvale is, can you send them a big thank you for us and say their gifts are being well used. We will make this a regular event, with the English service being held every third Sunday.

Oh, by the way, we purchased a new box for the girls to play in..it came with a bonus fridge too!!

A big event here for us, was the decision to remove the cane as an option for teachers to use as punishment.  We tried to be proactive with this when we arrived, introducing alternate management strategies and we were happy to see its use significantly reduced. Unfortunately it has been slipping back into common use. The cane was regularly used for failure to complete homework, talking, not have books in class, being in the wrong spot at the wrong time and so on. It is sad in that there is such cultural sensitivity around the concept of discipline and behaviour.  Behaviour that we would consider totally unacceptable by a teacher, is seen as necessary to maintain discipline here. We have had to examine our own motives and try to understand the local perspective while at the same time giving alternate behaviour management techniques.  On Tuesday we are having a whole day professional development and we hope this will give staff more confidence in dealing with what they see are poor behaviours.  Your prayers would be appreciated to help us get our message across and open up their hearts to change.

On Saturday, we went to the Navaly YMCA drop-in centre again and taught songs and games to the children. We will make this a monthly event. When we realise that every child older than 4 years was born during a war, it puts things in a new light. These children have seen such horrors in their short lives, it is a credit to all those involved who are caring for them and providing such a rich range of experiences and opportunities. A phrase I repeat so often while I’ve been here “they do so much with so little resources”.  We walked with the group through a rice paddy.  It was amazingly beautiful with flocks of birds, cows and wide open spaces.  There was a small Hindu temple in the middle and a small hill the children happily climbed.  In a fork in the path we taught the game ‘duck, duck, goose’ which is sure to quickly became a favourite.

"It's fun to stay at the YMCA!!!!!!"

Out to the rice paddies..we were assured there were no land mines!

The first time since we have been here that we were in "wide open spaces"

On that theme, I would like to put a seed of an idea in your minds. Have you thought of doing what we are doing? The term “Missionary” sits uncomfortably with me as I see the image in my own mind of hands waving in the air signing Halleluiah. But I have come to feel that a missionary is someone who tries to work in an area that needs aid and uses the skills they have to help others. So from that sense I guess I can live with the term “teacher missionary”. Have you or any one you know thought of volunteer teaching in Sri Lanka? If you are contemplating your long service or are a “retired” teacher, why not give a thought to joining us here in Jaffna or spending some time here next year? It has been a rewarding experience and truly amazing. The people here are so appreciative of what we are doing and see our willingness to leave our own home to help them as something special. They look after us so well. It has not always been smooth sailing BUT the good times, the special events that occur along the way, the appreciation and love we have been shown outweigh all these “less fun” times.

Some of the gentle and wondeful people we meet here every day

If you are interested or if you just want to find out more about our adventure here please drop us an email and we would be happy to have a chat.

A Visa solution ...of sorts

A significant week for us! Our Visas have been extended and the revised exit date is now 25^th June 2013!  We will review this as we go further along but we are very happy we can extend our time here in Manipay. The big plus of staying at the least till late June, is that we will be able to work with Alex, the schools’ Senior Principal. Alex, whose daytime job is in a University in New York State, will be coming to Manipay for more than 3 months with his wife and daughter. Alex is very dynamic and has a great vision for the school that is a good match for Pastor Sam. Also coming along in mid-May with Alex and his wife and daughter, will be the King family, Ellen, John and their son John Amos. We are very much looking forward them joining us here and working with the staff at A.I.S.



We are soon coming up to 3 months here in Manipay (in just over a week) and we are starting to feel the strain a little. The weather is starting to get quite warm and humid and we all tend to finish the days very exhausted. We have been expecting to hit a bit of a wall at 3 months ( experienced missionaries who have been away from home for extended periods many times advised us this is a bit of a “hump” time but when over it, things seem to be much smoother sailing.) We have given in to being the soft Westerners and had an air conditioner installed into the girls bedroom and had the one in our serviced so that now it pumps out cold air, not hot! We feel that we need to be comfortable at night and a good sleep is essential if we are to keep on top of things. Also we are trying to increase resources here so those people who follow us are quite comfortable when they arrive.

The new A.I.S. ladies gym squad?



Sarah "taking a tumble"

Sarah has been having a great time with her new gym teacher. It seems that until recently the boys could learn gymnastic routines and the girls could wave pompoms. After a few enquires by Jacinta, one of the female trainee teachers has offered to work with Sarah on gymnastic and netball skills two afternoons a week. There has already been some interest from other girls so this may be the beginning of a female gymnastic squad for A.I.S.

Luverly FRESH Carrots!!!, get your carrots here!!!

During the week, Emma had a great time in her class. The 5+ group did a farmers market as part of lessons on fruit and vegetables. The kids had a ball and the staff got to do some of their weekly shop at the same time.



That one please!!!

On Saturday we went into Jaffna for a swim and lunch and then to the Jaffna Markets for a wander around and to pick up some vegies we couldn’t get from Emma’s class market. It is a real experience walking through the bigger market areas. It is fairly pleasant to shop this way. We have found that unlike other Asian countries we have been to, the stall holders do not call out or try to get you to come to their stall, they just wait and if you show interest in their goods, they are very helpful and we make a quick purchase.

Daneesh getting a game started at YMCA

A blury Sarah in a "frog" race. The kids had a ball

Jacinta and I teaching the kids "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes". They loved it

The people who take such good care of us, L to R - Vijay, Daneesh, Mr Colin with his wife and daughter

Later that day we went to a drop in centre organised by the YMCA in a village call ed Navallay, not far from Manipay. This helps out particularly boys who have difficult home situations or have had hard experiences in their lives. We were invited to go by Vijay (not his real name but it is what everyone calls him as I don’t think there are enough letters on the keyboard to do his real name justice.) Vijay is the Administrative Officer at the school and is an amazingly competent man. His is a very caring soul ( I have seen him trying to help any number of distraught 4 year olds at school). He is a very gentle soul and takes very good care of us. Mrs Vijay regularly cooks little Sri Lankan treats for us and Vijay brings them to school. If there are any day to day issues that we need solved, Vijay is also one of those who task it is to “look after us”. He does his job exceedingly well! We visited Vijay’s home before the YMCA event and we all went to Mr Colvin’s home after the fun and games. Mr Colvin is also one of those given the task of looking after us during our stay here. He is also very good at doing this and if any issues arise solutions are found and dealt with very quickly.

Take care everyone, we hope you had a wonderful Saint Particks Day and did not have too much green beer.

 

From the Garty’s

And the party continues..

Only a short blog this week. The big highlight of this week was the official “hard opening” of the Angel International School Jaffna primary branch. If was a huge event and could only be staged the way Sri Lankan’s can do these things. Bands playing, dancing girls, dancing boys, songs, poems, the LOT!!!. All thrown together at the last moment.

too cute

the big dance number

The absolute magic moment of the event for Jacinta and myself was our eldest daughter Sarah featuring in a dance routine with two other girls.  Sarah was portraying a golden peacock. She was absolutely gorgeous and we were so proud of her as she was way out of her comfort zone and has never performed like this before.

Sarah was great...no bias at all!!!

Our beautiful Sarah

We were lucky to spend more time with the executive director of Humedica, Wolfgang Gross and deputy director, Bernd Herger. We are meeting amazing people with such interesting life stories.  I went to lunch with Wolfgang and Bernd, as well as Wolfgang’s wife and Pastor Sam and his wife. They have incredible stories about their work with Humedica and it is amazing what this organisation does on a humanitarian basis world-wide.

 

Earlier in the week I ended up doing a bit of “naval gazing” when I was out by myself in Manipay late one afternoon. It was early evening and the smells and sights and sounds of Manipay were all around and I stopped by the side of the road and just looked around and took it all in. I was hard to imagine how we all got here! We are in a fairly remote part of the world in a country we know so little about, doing things we never thought was a possibility and having some amazing experiences. We are so far out of our comfort zone it is not funny. We are making a difference doing something very worthwhile and know it is having a positive effect on us and the girls. It helps us appreciate our lives in Australia and take what blessing we have far less for granted.

Wolfgang Gross, he is the one in the tie!

Jacinta at the opening

Visas are still being problematic with our official exit date of 25^th of March getting closer. Pastor Sam believes we have no concerns about getting our current visas extended but we are putting plans in place. If we can’t get an extension to our current visas by Friday of this week, we will book flights to Thailand and spend a weeks’ R and R in Bangkok (which to be honest I am really looking forward to). When there we will apply for new visas via the net (which can’t be done in Sri Lanka) and then re-entry the country then get the new visas extended. It is all up in the air at the moment but we are ok with how it works out either way.

Take care everyone and we hope cyclone Sandra doesn’t get too interesting for Queensland. You guys must have had enough of the rain by now!

Andrew, Jacinta, Sarah and Emma

Oh, I fogot, we went to the shop we were told sold peanut butter, it does!!!!!!!!!! If only we found some vegemite! I heard stories about people overseas craving vegemite and did not believe it. I have to tell you it is true. Jacinta bought a jar with us and with careful rationing it lasted just over two months. Boy I miss it now however.

Two down, nine to go

Our adventure here in Sri Lanka is continuing with another milestone now gone. On Tuesday of last week we passed the 2 month mark. It has gone so quickly that it is hard to imagine where the time has gone. I am glad we have lots of photos because it is becoming a bit of blur already and they will be an amazing record to look at in time to come.

This week has been a bit of a mixed bag with some highs some lows and some stuff I frankly still don’t believe.

Concerning animal encounters… Poor Emma is terrified of the frogs that seem to like her shoes. I’m sure you heard her screams in Australia whenever one hops out of them on a very regular basis. Her shoes now live in a bucket under her bed and we still check and recheck her shoes each time before she is game to put them on. The other animal encounter involves the shifting of boxes from the store room at school. When one box containing folded cloth was moved, it moved back. The offending item was taken outside and a very large snake uncoiled itself and made a valiant bid for freedom before being beaten comprehensively beaten to death with a rake in the school grounds by one of the Yr 11 boys! You may recall my last story concerning a snake and when I described it's colour to the staff and asked what kind it was they replied “ a good snake” and that was the best I could get? Well when I asked what this one was, the answers was a definite, “not good snake”! I left it at that.

Last Saturday we visited with a staff member at her home, Mrs Veerasingam. Her husband has been ill for 6 weeks or so. It recently became necessary for them both to leave fairly suddenly for London to investigate the cause of his illness. We had a very pleasant hour with them both the day before they left for Colombo then to London. It was interesting to see a different side to Jaffna society. They lived in a very comfortable home in an outer area of Jaffna city. Their house had to be rebuilt after the war as it was in a direct line between the airport held by the military and Jaffna city held by the LTTE Tigers and suffered from fairly major shelling between the two sides.

Mrs P and family

The next day was a Poya day (a public holiday in SriLanka that coincides with every full moon)  and we went to the home of the daughter of another of our staff, Mrs Pathman. Her 2 grandchildren lived there and the 4 girls had a great time playing and we had a beautiful meal and time in conversation about all sorts of topics (but mostly what life was like during the war) with the family. It gave us an amazing insight into what the general population suffered through during the conflict. Given that it lasted 30 years, there was a whole generation that grew up through it all.

This coming Monday is a formal opening of the new primary school in Jaffna. I had the privilege yesterday of meeting with Mr Wolfgang Gross, executive director of Humedica, the German based organisation that have been major supporters of Pastor Sam and the Angel International School and many of the Pastors other ventures. Wolfgang is an amazing man with a huge personal presence. He told me some of his story about how he became involved with aid in Sri Lanka and I hope Jacinta and I get an opportunity to speak with him more. Wolfgang related his first visit to Jaffna and meeting with Pastor Sam in 1991 when the war was at its height and access to Jaffna peninsula was heavily guarded by the military. It is not a story I feel can relate on this open medium, but it was truly terrifying and would make the premise of a really good movie.

Friday night saw our first visitors with the only other white student at A.I.S. and her parents, Jo and John.  They are working in a Jaffna orphanage and it was a pleasant evening talking about their experiences in Jaffna and where to find a really good book shop, and a shop that sells peanut butter! 

Hello Boys and Girls!!!!

And you thought the cows were a problem?

...and as we  bid a fond farewell to Micky and friend...

On Saturday one of the weirdest sites I have so far seen occurred. As part of the opening of the primary school, it was decided to take the large model dinosaur and Micky Mouse held in the Manipay school to the new school in Jaffna.  How to get them there, on the back of a tractor of course! Jaffna is 8 km away, they made it 67 metres to be exact before I desperately flagged down the driver to warn him of one of the many power cables crossing the laneway. He was very definite that I get up and untangle our huge green friend. I made it perfectly clear that there was NO WAY, I was going to climb up a dinosaur, made with a wire frame, to shift a power cable! Help came in the form of a support staff member from the school on a motorbike with a large wooden pole which he used to lift the cable out of the way. The looks on the faces of the locals as the tractor and cargo eased its way out onto the main road to Jaffna was priceless. By the way, the dinosaur and huge mouse did make it to Jaffna and I have no idea how and to be honest don’t want to know. It really could only happen here!

Manipay markets

Later that day Jacinta and I went for a short walk up to the Manipay markets for a fruit and vegies shop while the girls remained at school with teachers preparing for a performance for the official opening of the Jaffna campus. It was a wonderful time with just the two of us wandering through the market and it really was an assault on all the senses. We look forward to it being a weekly activity. The markets are where the locals shop.  There was a crowded area with seafood all over the floor. A carcass of some type of red meat hanging on a hook with bits chopped off it.  We stuck to the vegetables we could recognise that are much fresher and cheaper than the supermarket.

Until next week…

Take care.......

from the Gartys’