Hello!

At my placement now, it is going great so far, hard work but it is so worth it! The children here are lovely, very helpful! So different to the Western children, ie my sisters and myself! We are not exactly helpful at home. Sorry, Mum and Dad! :)

It was about two hours drive from Maharagama to Mahawewa, where the school is. The school's name is Siviraja School for Deaf and Blind children. There are about 60 children, ranging from 4-23 years old.

The co-managers, Sophie and Duffy, were there too, to support us. Lien and I were given flowers, as shown in the picture. It was beautiful. We went into a room, where we met some of the children. We introduced ourselves, when they realised we were Deaf, they were really excited, asking for our sign names. They also asked us if we knew the previous SL volunteers and I only know one of them. That's when I knew we would be okay at the school, as the children were very enthusiastic and helpful. We also went on a tour around the school, we were shown our room, which was much better than I thought it would be. It was nice and quite big. It was time for Sophie and Duffy to go, it was a bit scary because it was like, that's it, we are now 'teachers'. And also sad to say bye to Sophie and Duffy, as they were brilliant, they worked hard for us, ensuring we enjoyed ourselves. So, a big thank you to them!

We had some food, then we spent the afternoon playing with the children, they taught us a new board game which I am REALLY bad at but it was still fun. We also learnt a bit more Sri Lankan sign language. And then it was time for Dhali, I think it's called, I am not sure. I will find out, it's when someone donate food to the school, apparently it happens every three months, and the children love it. And the food was nice! Lien and I were given forks and knives, but we decided to eat with our hands, this really pleased the teachers. They asked if we like Sri Lanka and said thank you when we said yes, which was a bit weird. Because like if someone tells you that England or Ireland is beautiful, we would be like 'yeah'. And that's it, but for the Sri Lankans, they feel so proud.

During the Dhali, the boys went first for their food, the girls must wait until the boys have their food. They also said a prayer, which was spoken in S... It was funny, seeing the Deaf children not listening, sneakily signing to each other. It was just typical of Deaf children, even me, I did that at my school. It was just adorable.

It was then bed time for the children... And for us too, we were exhausted by 9pm! So, it was an early night for us. We are excited about teaching at the school and looking forward to the rest of our time there.