9th March

PADDY TAKES UP THE DIARY WRITING AGAIN

Today has been one crazy day! We spent most of it swinging between being very happy because of the obvious enjoyment the children were getting from the shows and activities, to being annoyed and upset by the over-the-top schedule of 3 x 2-hour programmes (plus travel) in one day.

A demanding schedule

We were offered the opportunity to cancel one of the sessions, but as the children had been promised we were coming and were looking forward to our being there, we felt our hands were tied, and we didn't want to let the children down.

We set off at 8am, did one session from 9-11 am, another from 12.30-2.30 pm and a third at 3.30 pm, getting back to our hotel room at 6pm, where we lay prostrate on the beds with the aircon on full for quite a while to recover.

It's not that these are tremendously long hours - we are used to working similar hours with Children's World in England, especially at our annual Children's Festivals - it is just that the heat and humidity are so intense here that everything is much more tiring. Because there are just 2 of us on this Tour, we are both pretty active all the time during sessions one way or the other. We really are exhausted!

Better schedule planned

Luckily IOM in Ampara (our next port-of-call) have managed to set up the perfect schedule for us on the days we will be with them - a 2-hour session earlyish each morning, and a 2-hour session latish each afternoon.

Two Transitional Shelters and a school

Despite all the heat and exhaustion problems, the sessions themselves were excellent. We ran a session for 550 children at IOM Onthachimadam Transitional Shelter, followed by a session for 600 girls at St. Cecilia’s Convent School in Batti Town, followed by a shorter session for about 150 children and adults at the IOM Kattankudy Transitional Shelter Camp.

We would really have liked to do a full last session at Kattankudy (as that is what the audience there were expecting), but we were shattered and had to cut it a bit short. We had to ask Nimalarajah, our translator, to explain that we were really tired. The audience understood, and didn’t seem to mind too much - but Charlie and I DID mind, a lot, as we really hate letting people down - but there really was no choce - we were totally knackered and we can't afford to get ill, as we still have quite a lot more Touring days to complete.

Looking forward to Ampara and the more sensible timetable! Not many pictures today, I'm afraid, as I was too busy to take many - I will try to get copies of some of the pix that IOM took.

We are being picked up at 7.30am tomorrow morning - let's hope it's a slightly easier day!