Hello again dear readers and season's greetings from Sri Lanka! This blog is coming to you from a slightly different location this time but I'll explain that later to 'make the reader curious and build up a mysterious atmosphere.' My English teacher would've been well proud of me for that one.

Now I've got some good news for you all, thanks to a few contacts in the department of education we've been officially recognised as full teachers so we've been allowed to restart the school clubs. Due to the end of term tests however, the turnouts haven't been great so we're holding a few off until the new year when we'll reinstate our old timetable and also add in a new frisbee and badminton club. Of course this has resulted in the situation that we had a month ago, lines of boys checking that their club will be on that afternoon just in the off chance that it's been cancelled and no one's told them. For some reason they always look so relieved when we confirm that they'll be running.

During the end of term test period the whole school seems to come to a halt, whether the class has a test that day or not. At UMV the kids spend the whole day playing cricket or socialising in the playground and at Tittigalle they just leave as soon as they can. We were privileged enough to get to see the grade 5 paper before the Tittigalle students sat it, the same paper that all the students in the southern province would be presented with. The English teacher, Miss Manell, must have spotted Herbie's raised eyebrows because she asked him if there were any errors in the paper. Herbie hesitated as he considered how many of them it would be fitting to point out and settled on only one, a question about a short poem. It was phrased as "What about is it?" Herbie explained, "It should be 'What is it about?'" and Miss Manell thanked him and made sure the correction was made before the students read it. Haha, if only. Really she replied "Oh, well… err… I think that in Sri Lanka we are teaching the proper English grammar that they use in England, not like in your country." I'll just go home then shall I? I've been taking extra special care in this blog just to prove them wrong, not that they're reading it but there's a principle at stake here!

Now I know that after the last blog's ending you've all been in a dither with anticipation because you've been dying to find out 'Who said Moo?' The answer to that question, as we discovered in our grade one class thanks to the storybook of the same name, would be the cow. The story followed a rooster who journeyed around the farm trying to find out who had made that strange noise, meeting lots of lovely farm animals along the way and learning their noises. Whether or not the children understood or just looked at the pictures is open to debate but they really came alive when we pointed to a drawing and asked "What colour? What colour?" One girl could hardly stop herself from jumping out of her seat to scream "YELLOW!" whenever she got the opportunity. I just thought I'd share that with you to give an idea as to how we get the basics across to absolute beginners.

So now on to the weather. You might have been wondering why I've titled this blog so and the reason is that recently we had a rather windy day. I do acknowledge that back in home you've had your own mini hurricane which probably doubled the wind-speeds recorded here but Scotland's much more used to that than Sri Lanka. Agnes, our host, even told us that these were the highest winds that she'd ever experienced. So we'd been making some teaching resources with Jo and Alan and had idly commented that this was a 'rather windy day' by our standards. It was only as we walked home that we saw the first signs of damage along the main road. A couple of trees had come down and were partially blocking the road, having taken the main power lines with them. We discussed this in great depth as we continued home and thought we'd seen the worst until we turned into our own front path and let loose a volley of 'woah's , 'blimey's and similar exclaimations. Just feet from our house an assortment of trees had come down across the path and landed on our power lines as well as one leaning against the house. Quite a few more had come down around the back bringing the total loss up to four coconut trees, the papaya tree, the top half of the jack fruit tree, the Karapincha tree and at least five banana trees. Considering that when we arrived Agnes told us how much they relied on being able to collect their own fruits and herbs, not to mention coconuts which go into everything, I'd expected the family to be quite upset but we were instead met by laughter as we approached. They explained to us that there's nothing to gain by moping when you can instead be collecting the fallen spoils and arrange for the trees to be chopped and sold. I'd expected that we'd be without power for at least a week but I was amazed when the lights came back on late that evening. The lines are still down at ground level so we make sure to give them a wide berth whenever we wander past. The met office has come under a lot of criticism for not giving a warning before hand because there were quite a lot of fishing boats that got into trouble in the high winds. What makes it really unacceptable is that we actually knew more than a week in advance because of Herbie checking the surfing forecasts and finding that there would be 19ft waves. I don't know for sure where 'magicseaweed.com' gets it's information from but I'd guess the Sri Lankan met office. So someone seriously messed up.

Tittigalle had also suffered some damage including a coconut tree demolishing the staff motorcycle shelter less than two feet from the grade 1 classroom and a mango tree flattening the play area. I know that the kids barely used the play equipment but it's still a sad sight. But they made the most of the opportunity by taking the decision to give every child a coconut. The younger pupils ran about plucking them from the downed trees while the grade 8s, who are 12 or 13, began hacking them open with machetes. Seriously. In the UK people would lose their jobs for letting that go on but the teachers seemed not to be too bothered, although it did cause my British mind a little distress to watch! They also seemed to get the task of chopping up the fallen trees, although as soon as the principle had wandered off they immediately began tearing open the tree top to get at the edible Pol Bada inside. Confident that we wouldn't be reporting them for slacking off, they gave us a few pieces to taste. It was starchy and a little bitter but at the same time strangely delicious.

Now Galle has been having a few interesting events in this last month. Sri Lanka has just opened it's first motorway style highway which connects Galle to the capital Colombo. Everyone's been very excited about it and there's been a big fancy opening ceremony which was attended by the president Raja Pacsa. We drive past it on our way to Galle and usually spy one or two cars making the lonely journey. It does however cut down travel time from 4 hours to 1 for the few who are making use of it. There's also been the Galle Perahera which is a Buddhist parade incorporating dancers, whip crackers and even quite a few elephants. As we waited for it to start Herbie and I popped into a shop for a snack and as we were browsing the shelves a man came in and asked us, "Excuse me, are you two teachers at Unawatuna? My son recognised you." Sure enough, grinning at us from the tuk-tuk outside, was one of the grade 2s. While we chatted for a while the little boy watched, clearly not understanding a word until his father asked our names at which point he must have thought 'I know this one!' because he suddenly shouted "Mr Michael and Mr Herbie!" He then offered us a lift home after the perahera, free of charge.

I'll tell you something that one of the UMV grade fours said, proof that our teaching is indeed going in. I was walking through UMV when he ran up and said to me (well really he sort of screamed it, it was quite frightening.) "Hello Mr Michael, how are you!?" I got as far as "I'm fine thank you, how are…" when the cheeky scallywag cut me off, "Ah ah, no fine!" The number of times we've said that to our classes to coax out a little more, 'I'm hot/happy/surprised etc', I couldn't help but laugh. We haven't needed to tell anyone off properly yet but we have a plan just in case. We realised that being shouted at in a foreign language could possibly be the most terrifying thing possible, especially if you don't have a clue what's being said. So our plan goes something like this, "You, stand up! So you think that's acceptable to you?! Have you ever seen Star Wars?! Couple of guys going round with fancy swords to save the republic, have you?! Well there's a DVD shop in Galle, you buy that and I will expect you to have watched all six by next week. Understand!? Sit down!" Can't wait.

So, I mentioned that this isn't being written in Unawatuna this time. Instead we're in Newara Eliya in the central highlands for some of the Christmas period. We've been on the road since 11th December after we said our final goodbyes to Jo and Alan who are returning to England after two years in Sri Lanka. They're very much looking forward to 'retiring for the second time' which I can easily believe after the extremely busy week leading up to their departure. On top of packing and arranging for many of their belongings to be shipped back they've had to endure - sorry, enjoy - long leaving ceremonies at each of their schools. Both included Sri Lankan dancing, singing and (true to Sri Lankan style) lots and lots of speeches. Strangely, most of these were in Sinhala so they washed over the guests of honour. When the time came for Jo and Alan to give theirs, Alan arranged for a fellow teacher at Welhengoda to translate his speech but Jo went even further and delivered hers in Sinhala, to the utter amazement of her pupils. The four of us later treated them to a meal out then presented them with a couple of goodbye gifts. Of course it won't really be long until we too are thinking about coming home. Our return flights have been confirmed for 18th August 2012 (just so you can begin arranging the welcome home banners and book the clown) and we know that at least one of next year's volunteers has already been selected. It's a strange feeling that these events have brought on, firstly with Jo and Alan gone it's more like we're out here by ourselves and when their replacement arrives in January we'll be the experienced ones for a change. Also we've become even more determined to make the most of our remaining time, painfully aware of how fast it's disappearing.

I'm going to finish off by telling you about Agnes's comparison of me with Herbie and last years volunteers, all of whom are over 6ft tall. "Finn, Tris and Herbie are all tall and thin but you, you are short and fat." This, coupled with a new ginger beard, has enticed Herbie to start calling me Gimli. I'm looking forward to all the positive comments telling me that they're both sadly misguided.

Until next time, when you'll get to hear about our Christmas goings on. Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all,

Michael.

P.s. The photo uploader has chosen to stop working but you can see the leatest snaps using this link:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3011462610888.154443.1392193807&type=1&l=4fae01d679