We are awake long before the ice-cream van-like sound of the little cart announces the sale of milk packets. We sleep only fitfully as the air is so thick and heavy it feels more like a physical thing and the ceiling fan merely moves the air rather than cools it. Our lumpy mattresses, filled with coconut fibre, rest on creaky wooden slats and don�t help us rest. After a breakfast of bread and jam, we head off down the track beside the stagnant, effluent and rubbish-filled, stinking canal towards Shanti. We pass locals emerging from their single room, hut-like homes, cleaning their teeth and washing themselves and their clothes along the canal side. A commotion further along the path reveals a fat, 5 ft long monitor lizard being stoned by the owners of the chicken that it has just snatched.
It takes about 20 min. to walk to Shanti base and, at 8.30, the sun is already intense, Deborah walks with her umbrella up like the locals to try and get some shade, Several people say �Hello� or �Good morning� to us in English and we reply in Sinhala, �Ayubowan�.
At Shanti base, we meet up with several volunteers and there is a rush to collect various resources for lessons, make last minute changes, etc.
Depending on our particular project for that day, we either take a three-wheeler trishaw or walk there. Either way, traffic, potholed roads, heaps of rubbish, wandering cows and, of course, the never ending heat make the journey eventful.
All the pre-school clubs (3-5 year old) are attended by very poor children from the shanties along the canal. Despite their poverty, they are dressed in well presented uniforms and often wear flip-flops. Their English is very limited but we do play games, usually with a theme, and introduce some words and sounds. There is nowhere to play games outside, so any physical activities are very restricted. At 10.30, we leave when they have a break (a nutritional �soup� or rice provided by Shanti). The children are excitable but always pleased to see us and generally try to please. They enjoy colouring and creating things. When we leave, they crowd around the door and shout �goodbye teacher� and wave � so cute.
Back a Shanti, we write up what we�ve done on the computer and usually prepare things for the afternoon. John takes an English lesson on 3 mornings a week and Deborah has been giving job interview practice to adults, helping them prepare in English.
So much happens at Shanti and we often get stuck into unloading deliveries of packets of nutritional supplements, bags of rice and lentils, that we help make up into food parcels for tsunami camps. We may unload fishing nets or bicycles that are later collected by queues of people from the camps.
Lunch usually consists of a �lunch packet� of rice and some spiced vegetables in a cardboard box or newspaper which is always cold by the time that we eat it. In fact, we never have hot food!
We have regular volunteer meetings to discuss timetables, problems, ideas, etc.
Often there are stories to tell that can make uneasy listening. The nutritional packets for the children, that are distributed at the camps, need to have their corners cut off to prevent their fathers from selling them. Uniforms given by the government are often sold by parents. We hope that the bicycles we gave out to help people travel to work do indeed fulfil that purpose.
Occasionally there is time to walk to Galle Road, the main road running from the business district in the north of Colombo for many miles beyond the suburbs in the direction of Galle to the south. We live and work about 10km from the business district. The road is clogged with traffic, honking, swerving, speeding (when possible) and crossing on foot is a heart-stopping experience. There are pavements but they are often broken with huge gaps and the inevitable piles of rubbish, but along Galle Road we can access the internet and usually find what we need to buy.
One afternoon we helped volunteers from another project, an orphanage, to take 30 children to the local zoo (surprisingly well maintained). As with children everywhere, they were very excited but, poignantly, some of them had never ventured outside the orphanage before that day. It was difficult not to lose some of them in the crowds. The squeals of delight and the amazement in their faces when they saw some of the animals were wonderful. At the end of the afternoon, there was an elephant show where elephants trooped into an arena trunk to tail and performed a series of feats of elephantine agility. When it was all finished, some children rushed into the arena and re-created what the elephants had been doing � a great moment! The following day, we heard the awful news that a child at the zoo, separated from its parents and taken to the security office, was claimed by a couple and taken away. This couple were not the child�s parents. This happens all too often and we heard that children are sold to couples or into child prostitution in Thailand.
The after-school clubs we go to several times a week are for older children. There is a wide range of abilities and our creativity is stretched to the limit in trying to make their time fun as well as educational. They are often boisterous, have �light fingers� and see how far they can push us. However, they are great fun and we always have a laugh together.
We get back to Shanti base at about 5pm. A king coconut bought for its juice at a roadside stall is wonderfully refreshing. The man who chops off the top of the coconuts is blind and still has 10 fingers!
Sometimes we all then pile into vans and head off south down Galle Road towards the tsunami camps. We are often mobbed by the children as soon as the army officer in charge lifts up the barrier. We play cricket and other ball games and skipping with ropes. Sometimes we can find a space to do some art. We have been involved with giving out parcels of toiletries etc., with the army, to families. Lots of children have lice, scabies and infected mosquito bites. When the children start to get really boisterous, we head back to Shanti and then stagger back home. The numerous, thin, scabby, flea-ridden dogs are beginning to gather by this time, a bit scary, prior to their regular howling sessions in the middle of the night.
The evening usually consists of washing our clothes in the outside sink and showering ourselves in cold water (not quite as refreshing as it might sound). Then follows our evening meal, usually of rice, dahl and vegetables. Ours is not really a neighbourhood in which to safely go out at night, so we generally prepare activities and lessons for the following day, read a book and generally are in bed by 9 or 10pm, worn out but usually satisfied that we�ve worked hard and have �connected� with the community with which we�ve worked.