I'm back folks!

I'll tell you all about it when Ive had the chance to get back to normal a bit - I'm a bit shell-shocked at the moment!

I am so glad that I did this trip - it's one of the most rewarding things I have ever done and I'm already planning on going back again next year.

Some of you will have heard that Sri Lanka decalred a state of emergency on Friday when the foreign minister was shot in Colombo.....I was near there when it happened, but didn't hear anything at all about it until I called home and Mr M told me about it!

The time I spent at the orphanage had really touched me - I'd love to be back there now.

I do, however, have to admit to being a bit of a pratt..........I took a naff photo on the first Friday and rather than delete it pressed the wrong thing and deleted all the photos I'd taken during the first week. I'm going to get copies of photos the rest of the team took, but I'm still miffed with myself about that as I had some fantastic photos that I'll never be able to recreate.

I'll post all about it when I've acclimatised a bit

Minks

Hey Minks! looking forward to hearing all about your adventures! :thumbsup:

Welcome back Minks :D

Looking forward to hearing all about your venture and seeing the photo's :thumbsup:

Welcome back Minks, put the kettle on, have a biscuit and tell us all about your adventures :cool2:

Welcome back, Minks, can't wait to hear all about it. I'm sure it was a rewarding and fantastic experience.

Great to have you back Minks. And what a brilliant thing you did. Well done!

Good go see you back Minks!


Glad you had a good and rewarding time.

Did you go out to volunteer in a Sri Lankan orphanage?

Welcome back Minks - glad everything went well.:)

Are you a bit Stinky Minky??:laugh:

Never thee mind it is great to have you back safe and sound. Can't wait to hear all about it when you have got yourself turned around and had a cuppa or two!!


:D (http://www.survivor-online.co.uk/forums/misc.php?do=getsmilies&wysiwyg=1&forumid=0#)

Great to have you back Minkers :) Really looking forward to hearing all about your trip and time at the orphanage.

Well done you Minks for going over there and doing what you did.
Very worthwhile and I am looking forward to hearing all about it.

Oh i got your letter today thanks - you only beat it by one day lol.:laugh:

Welcome back Minkymoo! :bye:

Thanks for the welcome back everyone!!

We left London on the Saturday night and didn't arrive at our accomodation until Monday afternoon....what a trip.

We all met up at Heathrow and I was so nervous I was asking myself why on earth I was doing the trip at all! There were 9 of us travelling together and another guy due to meet us a couple of days later.
We flew to Colombo (landing briefly in the Madives on the was, so I can say I've been there too now!). We were met my the 'in country managers' who are based in Sri Lanka for the duration of the project. It was great to see them again as we'd met at the orientation. They loaded us onto a bus and took us for lunch and have us a bit of a briefing about what to expect. A lot was made about the wildlife that we might find in our rooms so there were a lot of nervous faces around. We spent the Sunday night in a hotel then early Monday morning we flew up to Jaffna, I think it was a military base we landed and and we spent ages there waiting for our baggage to arrive before we eventually got bussed away from the airport and taken to the transport that was to take us to our accomodation.....

The accomodation was basic......I shared with 3 other women - there were 4 beds in the room with mozzie nets over then.....some shelves build into the wall behind my bed and 2 fans....that was it for the main room. In the bathroom we had a western toilet (which was an unexpected bonus), sink and shower.....and a big gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling through which the wildlife could happily join us if it so wished. We soon found out the shower didn't work so for the first couple of days we had to wash under a tap....but as we were only permitted 2 minute showers even once it was fixed it wasn't too much of a problem.
We soon found out that when the floor got wet tiny worms would come up between the tiles....so I quicky invested in a pair of flip-flops (only about 50p for the pair!!). The bathroom also attracted frogs and geckos and it soon became my job to clear the bathroom of critters before the other women used it. The first time I used the facilities a frog appreared from the middle of the loo roll and sat onto watching me with his beady eyes!!

There was a 9pm curfew to be inside out accomodation compound and the electicity went out between 00:30 and 04:30......meaning that the fans stopped working then too! That first night was so hot I could hardly breathe....luckily we got a generator sorted out so most nights we did have the fans working - i think only 3 or 4 nights of the 9 nights we spent there were without fans. We were also warned to keep a torch on all night to put off any adventuroud wildlife.

That first night, through a mixture of excitement and heat I only got a couple of hours sleep and was up at 5am waiting for someone else to wake up and wander down to the market with me.

The Tuesday was out first visit to the orphanage where we would be working. When we arrived the older girls are in a band and they were all dressed up and waiting to march us in.....we followed the band in and the younger girls were waiting to give us garlands of fresh flowers and throw petals at us....it was a bit embarassing actually!! We were taken to their prayer room which was used as a dining room while we were there and we each and to stand up and introduce ourselves, then the girls sang for us. Then we were free to play with and get to know the girls. They took us on a tour of the oprhanage and were very wary of me at first....they hadn't come across freckles before and thought I was ill! Once I assured then it wasn't catching they were fine! We played some skipping games and clapping games with them and to be honest the first day there was a bit overwhelming.

I'm going to have to leave it there for now....but I'll carry on when I come online on Monday....

It sounds wonderful Minks .... froggy loo paper indeed :wink_kiss

LOL at the wildlife Minks and your freckles! :laugh: Enjoying the story so far, can't wait to hear the rest.

It's very humbling that the children who have been through so much, made such a lovely effort to welcome you! :)

What a wonderful experience Minks, I can't wait for the next installment.

Welcome back home Minks. Wow, I love your write up - as you say, it sounds like a fantastic experience. I'm feeling guilty and a bit jealous that I've never done anything like that! I'm looking forward to reading the next installment.

wow minks - sounds amazing. Great to write it down while it's still fresh. Sure couldn't you print it out and keep it to remind yourself of your experiences there.......:thumbsup:

Fantastic....what an adventure!

Minky, sounds fabulous.

and what a welcome for you from the girls.
As for the freckles, they would probably think I'm totally infectious:laugh:

Once again, well done you.
If I was single with no kids and heard about this, I'd love to do it.

Looking forward to the next installment.:thumbsup:

Minks it sounds amazing, what a fabulous experience. I'm really looking forward to hearing more about it :)

Here's about my time at the orphanage:

Most days we were up at 6ish, then had devotions before breakfast.
Breakfast was usually pancakes with curried potatoes, curried chicken, curried fish (are you sensing a theme here?) and dahl (is that how you spell it? The lentils dish?)

On the working days we got to the worksite around 8ish. The work we did was mostly painting....we painted the prayor room, the dormitory, the office and the head teachers room. Some of the more arty among us (not me!) did some designs on top of the plain paint.
Because of the heat the work was exhausting.....we could take breaks when we wanted and just go and chill out or play with the girls.
I became particularly fond of one girl....at first she wouldn't talk to us.....on the first day working there she touched some bars I was painting and got paint on her hand so I got a wet-wipe and cleaned her hand for her. After that whenever I took a break she's make sure she was sitting next to me. On the second work day some of the older girls asked me to play a board game with them and this little one pushed her way to the front and sat next to me leaned up against me the whole time, she couldn't have sat any closer if she'd tried!. On the third day I finally got her to tell me har name! She used to wait for me to take a break and make sure she was the one who got to hold my hand. Everyday when we arrived she'd come and find me and say name name then point to herself to see if I remembered her name (which, luckily I did). When we had to say goodbye the them she had the most enourmous tears running down her face that I wondered if we were doing the right thing going there.....we're supposed to be helping them, not upsetting them.
I promised that I'd send some of the photos I'd taken to her and some of the other girls and before I left I printed off a photo of me between her and her friend and left it with a guy who was staying another two weeks for him to give to her.
I've been in touch with the charity since I got back about the possibility of sponsoring her education and arranging some medical treatment that she needs - I'll let you know when I hear anything about that.

Another girl who touched my heart was a 6 year old whose father had only died a couple of weeks before and her mother wasn't coping so she was put in the orphange...she was such a lovely, sad little thing....my heart went out to her.

There was an older girl who served lunch who is stunningly pretty, but as with all the girls there very innocent (despite the horrors that some of them have seen). She had a bracelet that she insisted I take that I'm still wearing.

Another of the older girls.....I spent quiet time with, playing board games and going through my phrase book sobbed, really sobbed when we said goodbye.
Leaving was so much harder than I'd expected.....I knew I'd get upset because I'm terrible at goodbyes, but I didn't expect them to be so attached to us.

It's amazing how quickly I felt comfortable there - I loved the time we spent at the orphanange. I am still kicking myself about the photos I deleted......the first two days we were there I took loads of photos and I lost the lot! But I'll treasure the ones that I do still have.

I'll post again soon about the rest of my trip......

Our interpretor is a pastor and on the first Friday he invited us to a sports day for 3-5 year olds at his church/day school. We arrived early armed with our pots of paint and painted the day school inside and out and once again the arty ones in the group drew pictures on one wall depicting a caterpiller growing into a butterfly - it was very good.

After lunch some of the kids formed themselves into a band and they marched us to a canopy where we would be sitting, the priest then introduced each of us. It was quite a big deal as the local police had turned up for it too. The night before some of us had sat up late making rosettes for all the kids taking part in the games, as well as a small bag of gifts for each child. After the games we were asked to give out their prizes as well as the gifts and rosettes. The parents then all wanted their children to have their photos taken with us. it was lovely to spend some time with the families. It was a really nice day.

The next day we were headed to the beach....on the way we stopped and had a tour of a deaf and blind school, then we stopped at another orphange. The orphange used to be based on the beach and when the tsunami hit they lost a lot of their children. Only 32 survived......the recovered 30 bodies, but over 90 were never found. That was a hard visit......the kids sang for us, then we taught them head and shoulders, knees and toes (kness and toes!). We were all pretty subdued for the rest of the day.
The beach we were headed to we were unable to get to as they had been an 'incident', the peace in the north is still pretty fragile. I can't remember if I mentioed, but when we arrived in Jaffna we had to go first through a Sinhalese checkpoint, then through no mans land, then through a Tamil checkpoint.
We headed to another beach, I had a swim in the sea and collected some shells and just had a wander around among what had once been houses, but were now flattened.

On the Sunday we went to a local church - again we had to stand up and each introduce ourselves.....for someone who finds talking in front of groups hard this was something I struggled with every time.
After the service there was a sale....the only things for sale were baskets, live chickens and coconuts....so I bought a few baskets! We also had some things with us that we put in the sale and the proceeds were to go to the boys orphange attached to the church. We had a tour of the boys orphanage, then had breakfast there. Sunday afternoon was the only real freetime we had so we all did a bit of washing and chilled out a bit before hitting the shops as each of us wanted to get something special to wear for our celebration meal on the last night.

The next two days were back at 'our' orphange. It was great to get back there and see everyone again. Whenever we were working the staff all wanted to help us, as well as the girls....it was good to be all working together.
On our last day there we had a bit of a presentation.....one of the other women was a teacher and kids at her school had made a book for the oprhanage....also I'd taken an illustrated Tamil/English book that we presented to them for their library. Then we gave each of the girls a small bag of pens, bracelets, toothbrushes...that kind of thing. And a small gift for each of the staff. Then the girls all sang for is 'This is The Day' before we had to say goodbye.

We started travelling south on the Wednesday...which was a bit too early for me, I'd have rather had longer in the north. We did the usual tourist stuff on the way south.....tea planation, spice gardents, gem place, elephant orphanage. It gave us a chance to adjust a bit before returning home.
On the night before our last we had a celebration meal when the team leader went around saying a bit about each of us, then we were asked to share our thoughts on the trip.

I've still struggling to settle back into homelife and work. I want desparately to go back. At the moment I'm planning to go back in April...which although it seems a long way of does give me the chance to do some fund-raising before I go.

I'm sure there's lots that I've missed.....I kept a diary while I was there, but so far I haven't wanted to read it since I got back. When I do I'll add in any bits I've missed.
It was a great experience, I've made some wonderful friends - I'd all in all I think I gained much more that I've given through doing this trip.

Minks you are a star! I know from my own experience of doing an aid trip it can be hard to leave behind those you have helped but rest assured your work will always be appreciated by those for whom you did it for and you have just played a huge part in rebuilding the lives of those you touched. :thumbsup:

Minks you are a star! I know from my own experience of doing an aid trip it can be hard to leave behind those you have helped but rest assured your work will always be appreciated by those for whom you did it for and you have just played a huge part in rebuilding the lives of those you touched. :thumbsup:

Thanks for that Coastie - I guess I'm feeling a bit guilty that I enjoyed myself so much.....I was expecting the hard work, the early mornings, the unconfortable stories of the people we were dealing with.....but I didn't really expect to really enjoy myself. If course there were parts of the trip that were very upsetting and that will stay with me - but we also laughed an enourmous amount and I really wasn't expecting that.

DOING SOMETHINGA S WORTH WHILE AS WHAT YOU HAVE DONE IS VERY REWARDING AND MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD SO ENJOYING IT ISN'T A SIN.... :thumbsup:

Didn't mean to shout at you there...took a work message between posts and forgot to take the capslock off!

I agree with Coastie, you are a star Minks :thumbsup:

Thanks for sharing your experience with us, for me it brings home how lucky we all are to live in this country. I must admit to sheading a tear or two reading your last post. The little girls sound absolutely adorable.

Minks I have sad/but happy tears. I know not what to say, what you did was amazing, what you did for those girls was wonderful and they will always remember your visit - although they may get lots of visits, they will remember each and everyone in their own way.

I could happily cope with geckos frogs and lizardy, type things - bugs - probably - but those worms coming out of the tiles is like a horror film - yuckYYYY!!!!!

Is there more??

Thanks for typing all that out Minks, reading it really does help to get things into perspective. I'm sure that your visit there will have made a lasting impression on the people you helped, just as it has on yourself. I'm not surprised that you are intending to go back, and as others have said, you really are a star :)

Minks, don't really know what to say, except that thanks for posting that, it really does give you an insight into whats going on.
You have done absolutely fantastic going over there and as others have said, made a lasting impression on all those that you have helped.