Better late than never

So, what has been happening since last time? LOTS!!!!  We reach another milestone tomorrow with the clocking up of 200 days in Sri Lanka. We try to think over all that has gone by; some events feature so prominently it is hard to imagine they happened on our very first days here late last year. Other events I find hard to recall even though they may have occurred only two weeks ago. It must be old age setting in…….

So to fill you in on the highlights

Last week saw the completion of the inaugural “Garty Family Basketball Tournament”. An event so large with grandeur and drama, so astounding in fact that it deserves a blog of it’s’ very own. You will just have to wait till next instalment!!

Happy birthday to our wonderful Director

The real biggie this last month was the birthday of our beloved Pastor Sam on the 13^th of June. The staff, students and congregation from his Assembly of God Church in Jaffna went all out to celebrate, and I mean all out!!! School was essentially cancelled in Manipay and a huge assembly was held where students and staff presented musical numbers, speeches and a huge cake. This assembly lasted for over two and a half hours. From there we went to our school in Jaffna, where a shorter but no less emotional outpouring of love for this wonderful man occurred. In the evening there was a special service at Pastors Sam’s church with, you guessed it, even more cake. We will take many things back home with us when we return in December this year, but none will be more important than the privilege to have spent some time quality experiences with this most wonderful yet humble of men. His wife is also a remarkable lady (as you can imagine she would need to be) who is a dynamic woman in her own right.

the choir at Pastors Sam B day

song and dance

the great man himself

at the Jaffna school



Pastors Sam A.o.G paritioners



John, Jo and Naomi at their home

On the 16^th of last month we went for lunch to the home of John and Jo, the parents of Naomi, the only other white girl in the school and Sarah’s best friend here. Naomi has had a number of “sleep overs” at our place and it is a wonderful time for Sarah, Emma and Naomi. We have not heard more giggling from the girls at any other time in our stay here in Jaffna (except perhaps during monkey watching in Kandy). Jo and John live very rough by our standards here in our school accommodation but quite well by general population. John is a very competent “jack of all trades” and they both assist at a home for girls in regional Jaffna. They do amazing things and their devotion to the people here really puts us to shame.




again, anything done here was big

outside St Anthony's

the Jaffna / Manipay road was blocked for ages

Also on several days around the middle of June were the celebrations of “St Anthony’s Feast day”. St Anthony’s is the large Catholic church at the end of our school lane. When churches or temples here celebrate, they do so with a CAPITAL C! It went on for days and to share the love around, really large PA speakers were strung up all around the neighbourhood broadcasting day and night all of the events inside. IT WAS LOUD! Also being in Tamil did not help but I could recognise some of the prayers as certain Catholic set pieces by the rhythm of the speaking if not the words themselves. Our normally quiet Jaffna / Manipay main road was turned into a shanty town with all sorts of shops and street vendors setting up their wares over the week-long celebration. It is common place that commerce and religion go hand in hand here.

 

One of the class activities we presided over was in Emma’s 5+ class. They were doing a unit on building types and we were asked (as is common practice for us here at school) to come up and have a look at the result. Not much of the work is really done by the children and we have to say there are some very talented Jaffna parents around who made very complex and detailed structures for their children. Poor Emma only has us unfortunately. There is also the communication gap, either from Emma’s teacher to Emma, or from Emma to us but we usually find out too late that we should have helped her construct an ornate and working model of some dwelling or other for HER homework.



Bet you can't pick Emma!

As an aside, the powers that be here in their folly have seen fit to make me Vice Principal of the School. I question their reasons at time and also their sanity, but given that I am getting paid nothing as it is, they were quite happy to triple my salary when I requested it to be only doubled. So in the long run, I do not know who the silly one is?

We are entering the final two weeks of the school year this week. A strange system to us where the new academic year here starts in August. Exams are the order of the day and new timetables are being put together. Jacinta, the ultimate organiser is doing the hard yards on this. She is really good with puzzles and to be honest the current timetable is an absolute mess. On the 26^th of this month we travel down to Kandy for 6 days of R and R and monkey watching from one of our favourite places in Sri Lanka. Jacinta is really looking forward to having someone else worry about what to cook for a while.  I will be a big help to her during this time. I am really good at ordering cocktails from the pool bar in the evenings.  We will relax at the pool and wander through the city and then come home early August to get ready here for the new term.

 

Take care everyone and stay in touch.