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.