Dear all,

First of all I apologise for the time it's taken me to make this entry. I would make an excuse but I know you'd all just tut and roll your eyes.

Down to the nitty gritty, we arrived in Colombo on Saturday the 3rd and met our representatives Jo and Alan Brown, two retired teachers from Bristol. They educated us in the way of Sri Lankan cuisine, haggling and tuk-tuks; taxi/motorbike hybrids that require only a few hundred rupees and a death wish. It was raining when we arrived which made us feel at home, a little piece of bonnie Scotland that we'd brought with us.

We drove down to Unawatuna on Monday the 5th, a journey of around 80 miles that takes about four hours owing to the previously alluded to not-so-impressive driving skills of the average Sri Lankan. The rules of the road are disregarded in favour of another method: if you see a space, go for it. Also known as the 'don't be a chicken' method. It's not too unusual to see four rows of traffic going in the same direction using both sides of a two way road. That evening we met our hosts, Nimal and Agnes Seneviratne who seem like a nice bunch and quickly brought us refreshments as is the Sri Lankan tradition when welcoming guests. Cutlery just isn't used here so we eat with our hands, why on earth would you eat with something that's been in someone else's mouth? It's not so odd once you've done it a few times but I did feel like a naughty child at first! Herbie and I have moved into our room (shared, awwww) and transformed the bare concrete walls and naked lightbulbs into a fairly pleasant living space with plenty of photos from home. The bare walls in the other rooms are very much appreciated however, they give an awesome echo for the guitar of which we're both keen players. We managed to buy them at a wee shop in Unawatuna where we received a £6 'locals discount' in recognition of our work. They're not quite up to U.K. standards but I'm sure we'll be fine - the strings are terribly rusted but it's ok, we're all up to date with our tetanus jabs.

I suppose the main feature of this blog should be the job so I'll talk about that for a while. One thing I hadn't expected was to have "good morning Meesta Michael!" bellowed at me whenever I take a step onto the main road. The next thing said is always "how are you?" and after much coaxing we've been able to encourage most of them to abstain from giving a boring I'm fine and instead receive a selection from "I'm hot/cold/happy/sad/surprised/tired/hungry/thirsty/angry." I count this as a success on our part. Depending on which school we're working in that day we get up at either 5:45am or 4:45am to be at work for 7:30am. That gives us enough time to organise which of the teaching resources we'll need and be all set for classes starting at 8:00am. We like to give them something a little different from their other lessons so the students at Unawatuna Maha Vidyalaya (UMV) and Tittigalle East are treated to the musical talents of both myself and Mr Herbie. You can actually squeeze a fair amount of English practice out of 'I can sing a rainbow' or 'when I was one I'd just begun.' The classes finish at 1:00pm and we then run home to grab some lunch before the after school clubs begin at 2:30pm. Despite the fact that we've never played these sports we're actually making passable coaches for football and cricket, however after only the second football session I ended up with a swollen foot and had to hop for the rest of the day and manage the next week with a gradually decreasing limp. That, at least, was the schedule up until a fortnight ago when the education department made the 'wonderful' rule that you can't have pupils in the grounds after 1:30pm unless a paid member of staff is watching. What difference does it make whether we're being paid or not? We've managed to convince a grade 5 teacher to stay behind two days a week but we've had to axe most of the clubs and have lots of sad little children asking us if they can have a club and then slouching away miserably (I hope you're reading this and feeling guilty Education Department staff).

Within the community we're getting on well, when we tell people why we're here they seem delighted. Sometimes when we introduce ourselves we're told "Yes I know what you're doing, my son is in your class" accompanied by a classic Sri Lankan grin - an extraordinary and rather permanent feature. The other two volunteers, Erin and Emma, have found wearing their saris guarantees them local prices in the markets and makes older Sri Lankans gasp with delight and cry "Aah, beautiful!" Unfortunately the male sarong isn't considered smart enough for puplic wear so we don't have this effect on the locals. But they do love our attempts at Sinhala no matter how limited our command of the language is. Are they laughing because they're impressed or is it directed at our pronunciation? One of the girls at UMV brings us a daily sheet of maybe ten Sinhala words or phrases in exchange for a weekly session of English conversation with the girls. Agnes has also taught us to read the most common 37 characters so I can now manage the bus destinations and a few simple words. Give it time, I'll be typing this in Sinhala mark my words. We've met a lot of interesting people here, the principles son and the head boy are both looking like they could be good friends and Jo's friend Lakshimi has been very nice. On our second weekend in Unawatuna she took us for a well wash in the rainforest. She showed us a well near her mother's house and gave us all some tea before helping to lift buckets of water for us to wash with. It's amazingly refreshing and we can't wait to do it again!

Our back garden is well stocked with a myriad (I've always wanted to use that word) of plants including guava trees, cinnamon, two veriaties of coconut, curry leaves and banana. Looking out the back of the house you can't see any other buildings and feel like you're surrounded by nothing but forest. We do have a resident snake that lives in a pile of rocks but we've been assured that it's not poisonous. It did give us a wee fright recently when it appeared as we were going up our stairs. Herbie, who has a snake phobia, called out a warning but I didn't flinch. Ok, I froze, but I stood my ground and as soon as it saw us it turned tail. I was put to shame though by the family dog who got up and plodded after it and barked until it disappeared into the undergrowth, making the scores: Snake-0 Me-1 Rex-10. Rex is a funny wee dog, he'll quite happily eat out of your hand but if you go to touch him he'll spin round and snap at you. I didn't know I could withdraw my hand so fast until I made that mistake. Maybe by the end of the year he'll be a bit more relaxed around us but I'm not too hopeful. At least he doesn't freak out when we walk up the front path any more.

Between work, clubs, laundry and private tuition classes for the family next door we've managed to find the time to have a go at being tourists in the nearby town of Hikkaduwa. We sunbathed, swam, ate out and had a pretty good time. We were a little reckless with the sun though, we haven't yet built up enough resistance to go without sun cream. We walk about Unawatuna all the time in shorts and T-shirts and never have any problems so I was rather surprised to find that I'd turned a glowing magenta. Herbie has also learned another lesson which is to not go surfing without checking out the local currents first. He found himself much farther out than he would have liked and kept getting farther away despite his best efforts to paddle back. He ended up shouting to some locals who were able to direct him to a current that would pull him back to shore. Fortunately I had my bad foot at the time and hadn't joined him. I asked him how he felt after his first near death experience and his answer was excellent: "I feel like I have a greater appreciation of life."

Well that sums up the interesting bits up to about Sepember 20th. I'll be back before long to update with you with the most recent happenings including tree houses, corruption and a bird defecating on Emma - ahh, hilarous.

Missing everyone a lot but I've got my photos and the awesome leaving video which I deny having watched about 20 times already. Thanks for that guys. Also missing the cold, Smooth Radio and meals that aren't curry. I'll be in touch again soon, all the best until then.

Michael.