The publishing of my last report was planned for Tuesday last week. Unfortunately some things stopped these plans (I will report about them now), so now I already will blog a next report, that it isn´t necessary to write a novel to become up to date.
After all ceremonies and celebrations of the last days I stayed at my place whole Sunday (still had/have enough works like preparing for next lessons, for our summer camp of the catholic youth, …, so it wasn´t a big problem for me).
Like normally I was picked up at Monday morning at my place and was brought to the center. While the day nothing special happened. In the afternoon then the guys told me, that we´ll go on a little trip this afternoon.
I already knew that the daughter of the English teacher had some fever. Cause the trigger couldn’t be found she was brought to the hospital at Galla. So Reverent Vipassi choose to go to Galla with Gayan, Kasun, Tesheema, Kanthis, me and our driver Buddhi (I just realised that I nearly never spoke about him L), to meet her and the family, which of course also stayed there, at the hospital.
Already while my first stay I had the chance to see the psychiatric department of a hospital at Matara, but the hospital at Galla was something totally different. You can imagine the hospital as some very long parallel floors, which were connected by some crosswise build bigger buildings. Inside of these buildings there were the different departments of the hospital. At the outsides the buildings were restricted with small, approximately 1 – 1,2 meter high walls, so you could see the people of the next building. The middle was restricted with partitions or glass walls. There were standing the beds of the patients.
I just got a view to the children department, but simple or specially that´s the reason, why I was speechless for a moment. In an area like the room of my place were standing ten metal beds for children. Accordingly many children with their families were gathered in this small area. It was a feeling like standing in an underground in the morning. And we in the middle, following the Reverent, who was walking, as monk, straight through the crowd, to the bed of the daughter. You already could see, that it was better. While the time of our stay the English teacher explained the trigger of the fever to me but I can´t remember anymore. Doesn´t matter, the most important thing was, that she was fine.
After our visit at the hospital we still had a short break at the house of, think the brother of the English teacher. For the first time my weight was little bit helpful, because when our driver tried to turn the van, it stuck in a small channel for the rain. Because of that the tires of the back didn´t find grip on the wet grass, so some more weight at the back was useful (nevertheless at the end we had to push the van out of the channel).
Usually I got a message by the boys in the morning to know when they would pick me up. But this day I didn´t get something. At Saturday Reverent Vipassi already had told me, that many of the students will come to Center by bus. So I asked Tesheema akka about the name of the bus station at the temple (it´s simple “Nawimana Pansala”). After some minutes she called me little bit afraid and asked about where I was, because I wasn´t in the bus. As I told her about that I´m still at my place she came down little bit ;). So they sent a TukTuk to me.
Like I already said was it planned to publish my second report at Tuesday. Unfortunately I had to write more than I thought cause of the ceremonies, so I couldn´t finish it at Tuesday.
Except of the bicycle I meanwhile used all possible ways to get to the Temple. After the car, motorbike and TukTuk I got the experience of the bus. Tesheema akka, which anyway went to town at the morning this Wednesday, told me to come to the bus station at 9:00 am. Unfortunately she meant another station, like the station the boys already showed to me. So I had to wait nearly fifteen minutes until the bus came to my station. Although of the morning the sun already was shining very powerful, so I was happy when I saw the bus.
My plan to finish the Blog now was cancelled again by a power cut. At the temple and the suburbs It´s normally that the electricity gone lost sometimes for some minutes or some time. This time the power cut held on from the morning to the evening, so again I had no chance to upload. One profit I had. Cause the computer wasn´t working Tesheema akka had some time to show some new Sinhala words to me J (Unfortunately I haven´t found time since there to continuo with learning L).
Thursday was little bit chaotic. First it was planned to go to Colombo with the Reverent. Because of that the secretaries had the order to close the office for this day. Some when I received a message from the boys, that the trip was cancelled and I should come to the Center like normally. Problem of it was, that Reverent Vipassi weren’t at the temple, so the secretaries couldn´t got the key for the door of the office. So I had another day at my place.
At Friday morning I came to Center by bus again, this time with Kanthis. Now I had time to upload my report.
Also at Saturday I came to Center by bus. Like I already knew many students of the Center using the bus at Saturday. When I entered to bus I saw lot of surprised and also grinning students, as they realised, that there white German teacher uses the normal bus for getting to the Center. It was a nice experience.
I realised something more. When I was waiting for the bus at the bus station some TukTuk driver stopped because they liked to drive me. Most of them left little bit angry when they realised, that I wasn´t interested about driving with the TukTuk. When I entered the bus I nearly had some trouble that the people didn´t treat me like something special. More than one person offered their seat to me (I didn’t used it). This difference between “getting a good business” of the drivers and the “courteous treating by the other people made me little bit sad.
My trying to explain the right pronounciation of „Karlsruhe“ (most part written by my own :))
The timetable I got said German lesson for each class should ne one hour. While I was in class Tesheema akka told me, that that´s the timetable from Reverent Vipassi and if it´s ok for me to held class for 2 hours per class. Honestly I think 2 hours for each class are too long so we fixed the time of lessons to one and a half hour from next week.
After the finish of the lessons my day was closed by a short trip to the beach with the boys for playing cricket the first time since I´m here again. Also if I wasn´t playing great my playing was much better than my playing of carom.
Now my report became longer then I thought again. Here just happens too much. Hope that isn´t a problem for somebody.
Yours Felix