So I’m in the Internet café, just finished my blog about how pants I am at blogging, and how sorry I am. Wrote a ridiculously long blog about everything that’s happened, just got to the end, finished, and then……. Of course the computer switches itself off. Course it does. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
The general gist was we have finished the project now and are on our travels. It was all a bit disorganized but we still felt we achieved quite a lot and my photography project went really well. Will do my best to get some of the girls pictures up on here when I get home.
Have just arrived in Colombo after a few days in our favorite place in Sri Lanka – Ella. A beautiful sleepy little village in the hills with a bunch of guesthouses and restaurants, a waterfall, and a small hill which we like to climb (more like pootle) up.
Stayed at the Little Folly, a guesthouse we adored last year, owned by Mr Gunisiri and his lovely family. Mr Gunisiri is a legend. Along with renaming Charlotte Violet for the majority of our trip, he did everything he could do and more to help us, finally arranging us seats in the observation carriage of the train to Colombo we caught today. This is amazing because it’s something we’ve always wanted to do but never been able to as you have to book tickets ten days in advance. The carriage has panoramic views of the hill country from the back of the train, absolutely stunning!
Tomorrow we go back to Dharma Chakkra, the Boys home we lived in all last year. We are both silly excited about the whole thing. It’s one of the main reasons we’ve come back. So on that note we best go prepare ourselves.
I wish I could tell you all that was lost in my first blog, I’m sure you would have been amazed and enthralled. Thanks a bunch Lotus Communication. Thanks a bunch!
xxxx

stolen blog

Charlottes new name is claire ..... just so you don't think this is stolen. So, here I am again - battling against killer mosquitoes, bed bugs, the incredible heat and the amazing ever falling gecko poo. Im living the 3 times a day rice and curry dream! And I'm loving it! Coming back here has been very surreal for me. I instantly felt as though I had never left. This is an absolutly amazing country and I feel so at home here. Claire and I are remembering all the little things that we love about Sri Lanka. All the things that we had forgotten about. And just like last time we seem to be laughing a hell of a lot more than normal. Only this time there are no monks around to scare with our hysterical laughter.The family that we're living with are absolutly amazing. The mother is so lovely and I've really warmed to her. We've been helping her with her English and she's been helping us to improve our Sinhala. I've learnt loads more Sinhala already. My new fave Sinhala words/phrases are 'blue whale', 'this is my beard' and 'don't be silly'. Of course the old favourites still remain, including 'dont tell lies' and 'shame on you!'. Our new little brother and sister are lovely too. Nangi (our new little sister called Kavya) is always full of beans and she's extremely cheeky and mischievous. I have absolutly no idea where she gets her energy from. Claire and I are beginning to wish we'd never taught her to play 'I spy'. She suddenly goes all shy when we go out in public with her though. She gets embarrased at the amount of attention we attract, so I try my best to make her even more uncomfortable by speaking in Sinhala to her til she tries to pretend she doesnt know me. Bless her. We white folk are so strange! Our new Mali (little brother called Dineth) is not as mental as Nangi. I've renamed him 'opposite boy' which the whole family finds hilarious and he's renamed me 'laughing girl' (because Im laughing laughing every day laughing???). One of the best things about living here is the family's crazy guard dog who has the most unexpected name ever: Shane. I still find this really funny and I take great pleasure in insulting Claire at meal times telling her she eats like Shane. He followed us all the way to school today chasing all the busses, motorbikes and 3 wheelers so I could hardly bear to watch. There are 2 dogs living in the school grounds who attempt to eat alive any dog that tresspasses on their territory. Shane was well in for it and sooo asking for trouble. The last we saw of him he was being visciously attacked, so it will be interesting to find out what has happened to him when we go home!The house that we're staying in is pretty nice. Its such a gorgeous house and I really would love to live in a place like this for a lot longer than one month! Although I do have to share a very cosy bed with Claire which of course we both secretly love, even though I talk non-stop in my sleep and disappoint Claire by not going to bed in my underskirt. I really do worry about our friendship sometimes. Teaching is going great! Its absolutly fantastic to be teaching again. I love it so much. Been a bit up and down with our class numbers (its the school holidays here too so our classes aren't compulsory for the girls) but the girls are such a pleasure to teach, especially once we got them to relax and laugh a little. Had some really funny lessons since we've got them to loosen up a bit and throw their English grammar football out the window (a genius idea on my part). They're so talkative now that this whole thing about there being ghost monkeys haunting the school grounds has grown and grown and spiraled out of proportion. Now at the start of every lesson the girls have been playing tricks on us (i have to say they really are quite cunning) which results in them hiding from us and then suddenly jumping out from behind trees screaming 'ghost monkeys!'. There have been some excellent and very interesting variations on this trick - the girls are absolute masters in plotting pranks. I've got a class this week who are a mixture of year 10, 11 and 12 and I adore them! They're so lovely and now I've got them talking they're even better. We've been doing a lot of work on our most memorable moments, our earliest memories, things that we believed were true as children etc. etc. So I think its fitting to share a memorable moment. This is something that I love about this country...when Claire and I go round to people's houses for lunch or dinner we're fed enough to feed an army (no exaggeration). After welcoming tea, biscuits, cakes, bananas and special sweets you're then expected to eat at least 2 GIANT helpings of rice and curry. No matter how much you shovel onto your plate, it will never be enough. New curries are being piled on your plate as you're eating dispite efforts of telling the host 'no! no thank you! It's enough!', to which the reply is 'no problem! you take! you take!'. You feel as though you are about to explode so you put down your plate which is a signal for all the surrounding people who have been watching you eat to jump up and close in on you demanding to know 'why!?' you dont want to eat anymore!? You've just eaten enough food for 5 people but surely you need more! Why would you ever want to stop eating?! In the blink of an eye dessert is being brought out and there's always more than one option and you're usually expected to have some of everything. It's easier to just accept and eat. Turn anything down and you're asking for trouble. You may as well just stand up and declare that you hate the food and would rather eat your own vomit. So for the easy life you eat it and you eat it aaaall (so that you actually do feel like you may vomit!). Its normally a good idea to starve yourself and go round as a guest with a very empty belly. Going round to someone's house for lunch/dinner is most certainly an experience. Possibly enough to leave you traumatised. However, in our own special way, Claire and I love it! The fact that we absolutly adore Sri Lankan food makes it a little easier.And on that note I shall be going. Thanks for reading this far! Love you all and shall see you soon! x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xP.s. sorry Charlotte but your just so damn funny !!!!