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Sri Lanka Journal |
Arabella's Diary
Sunday 13 March 2005Then we head off to the Pitiwalla Camp about 12 kilometres east. This is the last camp in the Hikkaduwa area before the next district of Galle starts. The tents here are probably the most ramshackle we have seen save for some individual ones squatting around the coastline - most of them look as though they would fall over if there was the slightest puff of wind. But the site itself is OK, and they are next to a school so they can use those open space facilities when school is not in session. Yet another show, and yet another games session. And, yet again, they both go extremely well! I must tot up soon and see how many child-sessions we have run. It really has been very successful, and, of course, it will be even more successful when we have a 4-man team in the Autumn. Then we drive to see the formal opening of Kushil's "Model House". It is a splendid house - larger and better than the house it is replacing, yet only costing approximately £1,500 (Check?) Kushil is hoping to build more than 125 of these houses and, hopefully, quite a number of them will be completed before the monsoon starts. Back to Sun Beach Hotel - we had been hoping to go with MC to see the house that Neil Butler's foundation is hoping to buy to be the Creation Centre, and then go up with her and the translator to the Redypura Camp, but she is not very well (she has been working incredibly hard co-ordinating all sorts of NGO's), so we postpone our meeting for this afternoon. Instead we are here at the internet office catching up, and then Kumara will come and collect us and we will try to get at least one more camp show and parachute games session in later this afternoon. Time to start packing tonight and sorting all our stuff out. We are going to leave the badge machine and the 1,000 badge components here for people to use in local camps and at the Creation Centre, once it is set up. We are giving some of the facepaints and some of the balloons to Kerys and Anka for their ongoing work. Everything else (except one parachute and modelling balloons that the Clown will take eastwards with him) will stay here and hopefully be used. Hopefully MC will be better tomorrow, so that we can show her how everything works. (She is definitely going to visit the Redyipura Camp next week and try to assess and address some of their problems.) We are leaving the second parachute also with MC, though temporarily it will go to Geoffrey Dobbs and Adopt Sri Lanka, in the hope that his tailoresses can make about 50 of them, which would be far cheaper than buying them in England (and also of course we wouldn't have the transportation problems). Then, when we return in the autumn we will be able to leave a parachute with each camp - that would be fantastic! OK - I'm probably not going to get a chance to write any more while I am out here, as tonight and tomorrow are going to be taken up with sorting of equipment, repacking, setting the Clown up with contacts for the east, debriefs, etc. The Clown will be doing his final show here in the south about 5.00 p.m. tomorrow Monday, for the children who will be waiting for the parade to arrive near Kushil's headquarters. Then we leap into the van and drive up to Colombo, sleep, do press interviews on Tuesday morning, and then I get on the plane to Gatwick, and the Clown will hopefully get on a night bus to Trincomalee where his journey of exploration will continue. If he does even half as well in the east as we have done in the south (where we have been greatly helped by Mohan Samarasinhe and Neil Butler and MC) then a great deal will have been achieved, that will help make Children's World International's Autumn Tour be as efficient and beneficial as possible.
added later:
SUNDAY AFTERNOON 13 MARCH 05: In the late afternoon Kumara took us to a camp at the Buddhist Kahawah Temple. Very small green tents for the displaced families to camp in, and not a lot of space at all, but a very nice atmosphere. There was a wonderful monk with very bad teeth, who rushed and got me a newspaper cutting from under his mattress, which explained how he had saved about 25 lives during the Tsunami. He and about 25 devotees had been doing a Sil practice at the temple, and he was heading down the road to catch a tuk-tuk, when suddenly people ran past him shouting that the sea was coming. He rushed back to the temple and the devotees, and tried to make them climb the stupa to escape the water, but they were very devout and refused to do so, thinking it would be sacriligious. So he grabbed their robes off them and tied them to trees so that they would not be swept away. He was, quite rightly, very proud of himself! At least 70 children and 70 adults watched the Clown do a great show, and then he ran parachute games with the children (not cat and mouse as the ground was very dusty, but a hugely successful parachute football game), watched by cheering parents. I will edit this diary, say my thank you's, draw some conclusions and sign off finally, once I am back in England (and over my jet lag) next week, and the Clown will continue this diary of Children's World International's 'Mini-Mission to Sri Lanka" as soon as he can find internet access in the east. If there is anybody there (and one does wonder, sometimes!), thank you for reading this diary. We hope you are interested in what we have discovered, and what we are planning - and we hope that you will feel able to support our Autumn Tour. We need to raise about 11,000 pounds over the next 5 months, which is not a monumental amount really, in the large scheme of things, so do please tell all your friends about this exciting and innovative project and elicit their support. Thank you. You can contact me any time with queries at bellachurchill@hotmail.com or ArabellaChurchill@childrenworldcharity.org or ring me on 01458 832925 A big thank you to all those whose donations made this"mini-mission" possible! Good karma is winging itself your way! 
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CWI Tsunami Tour