During my stay I met some interesting people. Marijn was one of them. She was another volunteer from the Netherlands who was also in Mahavilachchiya the same period as me. We stayed at the same house. We made a lot of trips. We also taught together.

I stayed at a hospitable family. I was really touched by their generosity. They were very compassionate and warm-hearted. They were also great cooks which is very good when you live in a village that has just the essential things. Sometimes the food was too spicy but fortunately it was still eatable. The funny thing is that generally I don’t eat much salt and spices but strangely I enjoyed it.

I’m also happy that my host family was a traditional Sri Lankan one with principles and morals. That fact helped me to get closer to the cultural understanding I was seeking. What captured my attention was the fact that people believe in stars and sometimes they let them determine their life. Another funny thing is that some people told me that I look like a Sri Lankan girl. Some others told me that I look like Cleopatra because of my short hair.

Every morning I woke up by the singing of the birds, it was amazing and exotic. We had breakfast by the sound of their traditional Sinhalese music.

It was so cheerful so it was a really good start of the day. After breakfast we went to Horizon Lanka where small kids were having a class. In their breaks we were playing. I will never forget them calling us teacher. It was such a sweet and innocent sound.

A lot of times I was considering about the similarities between Greece and Sri Lanka and I found many. In villages we also greet everyone and we also have a lot of sun (I didn’t expect it to be so sunny in Sri Lanka because it was the rainy season and that’s why the first days I had sunburns.) Greece has also mountains and beaches. And of course another similarity is that people in Sri Lanka love taking pictures. I love taking pictures and capturing every moment. )

As for people, at first they stared at me but the funny thing is that they smiled immediately after I smiled. It was such an honest smile and every time it was the same. I loved it. The people didn’t speak English; they just knew a few english words so they were very proud of themselves when they had the chance to use them. Such words were ‘where going?’, ‘Where from?’ or just a ‘hi’.

Based on my little experience as a teacher I can say that it’s very difficult to teach a language when you don’t speak the native language of the students. Indeed it’s challenging but simultaneously there is uncertainty about the result. Also their alphabet has nothing to do with the Latin alphabet so children had many difficulties in English. However heir thirst for knowledge overcame all the difficulties. I loved it when the students called me Thalia teacher. There was also a bird whose singing was the word teacher. For a long time Marijn and I thought that it was in our imagination. It was so funny when we discussed about that and we figured out that it actually sings the word teacher.

The students were really cute and beautiful. Girls picked flowers for us and boys, fruits. Too bad the fruits were not ripe enough that season. After some time of teaching they always wanted to play so they said teacher play.

Although there were a lot of computers most of them were broken so me and Marijn focused on teaching English.

Horizon Lanka is a place with great potentials, the building is very beautiful and colorful and the most important thing is that there are students willing to learn. I’m glad that while I was there some important steps were made for its developing. More and more people were coming to check Horizon Lanka and donators were found to repair the damaged computers. I’m so glad that I took part in such a great venture.
It’s been almost one week since I left Sri Lanka and I already miss it. I hope that one day I will visit Sri Lanka again and see the evolution.

Miss Thalia Fotaki, an AIESEC intern from Greece worked at Horizon Lanka, Mahavilachchiya from November 2009 to December 2009.)

The theme that selected for the day was World Culture. A topic that is interesting, educational and relevant to all ages. The students were welcomed with a song and dance, thereby lightening the atmosphere. We then conducted two sessions focusing on the seven continents and the culture specific to each area. This was primarily visual presentations using images and Basic English words to paint a picture of world culture. In order to maintain the ‘English’ element of the teachings, an interactive grammatical session on tenses was done. Here the student were invited to construct sentences using the present, simple past, present progressive and future tense.

The afternoon session comprised four challenges. These challenges were based on what was previously taught and were designed to test the students’ ability to speak, listen, read and write the English language. Points were allocated for each task. All teams performed well in this area with the lowest score being 76/120. This is clear evidence of their level of understanding. At the end of the day, a winning team was selected and a prize given to reward their efforts.

Based on the feedback received from both staff and students, it can be concluded that the day was a success. With regards to our objects of the days as measured delivery of the sessions, student interaction and performance during the challenges, these were all accomplished. It must be noted however, had there not been time constraints, the results could have been even better.