Hello hello hello!!! Well I am writing this in a town about an hour away from our placement called Hikkaduwa. It's fab. Loads of people just come here to surf constantly so it is full of surfer hotties and great bars. We all drank rather too much Arrack (a vodka/rum type spirit made from cocunuts) last night and ended up in this brilliant outdoor reggae/electro club called Vibrations, it started off with this reggae kind of vibe with live drums and stuff then gradually turned into a proper bangin party, it was awesome. I'm here with Laura and 3 other volunteers; Lara, Claudia and Jo. All the volunteers get on really well and at home in Kosgoda (I suppose staying there for 3 months i can call it home??) we are like a big volunteer family. There's about 12 of us and we all work together, most of us are either pre or post uni but there's and older couple called Ron and Kate who are like the parents and as they have been here a bit longer they seem to know everything about everything! In the day we get up about 6.15 (I know, sounds painful, but its so hot you want to catch the cool bit of the morning, plus we get to bed about 8.30 in the week!) then go and have breakfast, which is great. Really nice bread, MARMITE, fruit, tea..... We're staying at this man Dudley's house who runs the school and the Turtle sanctuary. He's awesome. He's so funny and is always making annoying jokes and lying and wont answer any questions with a proper answer (reminds me of someone actually, Dad....!), and drives around on his motorbike or his van with the music full blast. His wife Pasantha is very tolerant! He's also got two small kids who are kind of mental, and a puppy called Brown who is only a couple of weeks old and very very very sweet and flee-ified. Anyway, after breakfast we head down to the building site for 7.30 and get started. VERY hard work, very physical and sweaty and hot, but its good fun coz we're all working together. Dudley's helper man Marabandu sits around watching us and occasionally gets up and helps which is nice of him. We're building a house that was obviously torn down by the Tsunami. I'm really starting to see the reality and the horror of it all now, it was all very well getting up on boxing day and saying oh my god how awful when you saw it on the news but when you actually see the stains of the water on the walls, about double my height, and it stayed like that for FOUR HOURS, you really realise what these people went through. I can't believe how anyone survived. On the drive down to Hikkaduwa in a tuk tuk, literal towns were completely wiped out, there were just a load of walls, that really brought a lump to my throat. It kind of made me wonder why we aren't helping out there while Kosgoda is kind of back on its feet but there we go.