WWW: Hambantota (8th-12th Feb)

WWW: Service Project / Creativity.

This time for WWW, our grade went to Hambantota. A long journey, and very tiring as well. But not bad, as we stayed there for 4 days and accomplished a lot. Before going, we were told that we will be doing a service project there by painting a pre-school and at the end of the task, we will organize a concert. It was a memorable and learning experience. We were greeted very warmly according to Sri Lankan customs and would set off to work, knowing that the local people would appreciate for our small contribution. 

Planning:

Planning was an essential part of our task. Each day, for 30 mins, we would plan for the next day. We would first discuss about our progress and then what needs to be done. This way, we would all know what each one of us was responsible for and also save time for the next day as we wouldn't have to argue. The first day, we had planned that me and Ashish will perform our same dance 'Twist' with some new moves for the concert and Filippo and Young Jun will be doing a beat box and dancing routine as well. As we used to plan every evening, we would always be ready for the next day, which was one of the main reasons for us getting our job done quickly. 

Duck, Duck, Duck... GOOSE! / Coloring:

Everyday with the kids, we would play a game with them, and the most enjoyable one was duck duck goose. Which was properly demonstrated by YJ and Filippo. Some of the kids really liked it and some were too shy to participate, so we would try to make them play but not force them. Then, there was this another game that we played with them, i forgot the name of the game, but was something to do with running. It was fun, as most of the kids didnt enjoy it and just sat down.  Though, one of the best activity which we did with the kids was coloring. We presented each kid with a new sketch book and crayon colors. Some of the which were interested in it, were actually drawing properly. Some were just randomly scribbling, yet they would enjoy it and sometimes even encourage us to scribble with them. We all were assigned one kid, my one didnt enjoy painting, so he packed up and sat next to his mother. I tried a lot, but he didnt want to color. So i just sat besides YJ who was was actively interested in the activity along with his kid. We came up with the idea of smudging and the three of us were really enjoying it, and so was the kid.

Painting: ( Teamwork... and turpentine)

I started with painting one of the big walls inside along with Filippo, Anishka and Tara. We would have to sand paper the walls and then once we were satisfied that the wall was clean enough to paint on, we would start painting. Like wise, the other people in our group would do the same. After our first day for the service project, i started to help Devansh and Ashish with the walls outside, and we actually got a lot done. By thursday, our group had finished painting the walls. We also had some people painting the playground equipements as well as some people like Alice, YJ and Raj work on the mural. Our group ended up doing two murals and both of them were looking spectacular. Me, Christina, Grace and Ayla had to re-paint one of the murals done by a group which had visited a month ago.  We actually painted pretty well, considering the fact that we aren't professionals, we had successfully completed our task without complaining and teamwork. It all worked out properly due to our two group leaders: Raj and Christina who motivated us to work well. Everything went smooth, but then at the end of the day, washing our hands would be a major problem as for non- water based paints, turpentine was to be used to clean our hands. 

One of the other murals. I like :)

Concert: (Creativity)

For the concert; me, Ashish and Saba performed a bollywood dance which we only practised for some 1-2 hours a day before. The remarkable thing was that Saba who hadn't done the dance with us before had managed to learn all the steps and perform with us. Unfortunately, the speaker died out, and there was hardly any music, even us the performers couldn't make out if the music was even on or off BUT we did a good job :P So did YJ and Filippo, their performance was really refreshing. Though the joint class effort which was a puppet show brightened up the situation for everyone. It was well performed and the little kids really seemed to like it. The best thing about the concert was that even the local people took part in it. They actually did more than us and were really into the spirit. The mothers had dressed up their little children properly and even for the performances, they had proper costumes. At the end of it, we presented the little kids with their presents and all of them had smiles on their faces when they say bags :) 

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Evaluation:

This project was actually fun. We enjoyed a lot. We re-painted the entire school, played with the kids and presented the kids with bag and some stationary. More than that, our team actually worked together. No one was complaining about anything at all and worked equally hard. Though i mentioned a suggestion at last meeting which i would share on my blog as well. I thought that it was a little point less to re-paint a school which was painted a month ago by a group who came before us. I mean, yes the people will appreciate what we did for them, and we probably for the first time in our lives did something which is not for our sake but for someone else, yet how did it help them or the aim of a service project which is to help someone. The school wasnt in a bad situation when we first come, it just needed a little dusting. The walls weren't bad. compared to some of the schools i have seen in Sri Lanka. I think we wasted a lot of time in painting and gave less time to the kids and to other important necessities which should have been given more priority, such as:

- Pain the black board which was in a bad shape, and clean it properly which we did'nt do as well as fix the book shelves which were about the break.

- Fix the outside play ground equipments which would have made the kids happy. YJ fixed one of them, but there were still many which needed to be fixed and the ladies in the school might not be able to do by themselves.

- Play more games with them, especially their local sri lankan games which would have made the kids more comfortable. 

- Present with some teaching equipments that would help the teachers as well as the students.

I dont think that the kids will be happy because we re-painted their school, they might not even care about painting, but if the next time we go or someone else goes to the same location, then providing more time to the kids and the points written above would leave more of an impact. The locals would have even appreciated if we would have just given them money, but giving them something which would really help their condition is something which we should have aimed for.