Week Without Walls (Creativity & Service)

From Monday to Friday(8th - 12th of Feb. 2010), our grade went on the WWW trip to Hambantota. We were to help the two local schools which were badly damaged by the tsunami occurred in Sri Lanka a few years ago. Our initial goal was to paint their school and organize a concert for them to amuse their parents and enjoy the time with the children there. We divided ourselves into two groups and each helped one school each.
I was in the Second group, so called 'the Huna.' (I'm not sure about the spell, but it means Geckos in Singhala)

8th of February
We gathered up at the back gate near gym at 7:30 AM and left school to Hambanttota. We stopped by the (...) hotel to have lunch where it was around 12 o'clock. Then, we headed straight to the Elephant Safari in Hambanttota. As so, by the time we arrived at the Peacock Beach Hotel where we have stayed for last 5 days, it was 6:00 PM. It was, indeed, a long and tiring journey.
However, we needed to plan for the next day; we discussed about what to do, how to do, and who's doing what.
By the end of the planning session, we decided to spend some time with the children there playing Duck Duck Goose then start painting. Also, we talked about the concert we would have on Thursday with the children. We decided to do puppet together and two dancing; one was by Kashish Sharma, Ashish Sampath, and Saba Rewald dancing Bollywood dance and the other was breakdance and beatbox by Filippo Stoppni and me.

9th of February
As we got there, students welcomed us very warmly with Sri Lankan greeting and flowers in their hands. They introduced themselves and we did the same. Then, as we planned, we played Duck Duck Goose with them. They seemed to be scared a bit or shy that they wasn't so supportive. Still, it was good to play with them to open their minds.
After the game, we started painting. Grace Smith, Ashish Sampath, Rajindh Fernando and I were in charge of painting the equipments on the playground. We had to use the turpentine based paints to paint the equipments. We all first started painting seesaw, then we distributed works. Grace and Ms. Craig finished the seesaw while Ashish, Rajindh and I started the swings. We had a limited number of colors that we had to decide what color to use first.
Ashish, Rajindh and I decided to blend blue and yellow to make green and we painted the polls of the swing with one side blue to yellow and the other side yellow to blue giving gradation effect. It actually looked really cool, not just because it was my idea ;)
Then, we all painted the slide. While I was painting it, I had some paints on my hair and went to clean it off with the turpentine. I first used a little, it seemed to be working. Then I was worried about there might be some left on my head that I used the soap.

It was the beginning of the misery of the day.

Soap and Turpentine were mixed up and must have chemically reacted. It made out bubbles again and again. Water didn't work that I had to pour turpentine on my hair. It burned my head so badly. It was horrible.
After lunch, Alice and I started painting the background on the wall for the mural. After that, I helped the others to finish painting the equipments and the wall.

That night, we had about two hours to evaluate what we have done that day and practice for the performance. It was the first day of working that I felt like it went really fast and haven't done it much; I didn't really know how it went that day.

10th of February
We played Duck Duck Goose again and TRIED to play musical chair, but didn't work out so well.
So we continued painting. As it was the second day, everything went very well without a problem. While the others were painting the floor inside the school, Alice, Rajindh and I worked on the mural with the design that Alice came up with. Then, we finished most of it pretty early that Rajindh and I worked on the second mural which was not planned to be done. We thought it might look good with many hand prints with different colors as a background and a black tree over it. I suggested to do it in a gradation again, so it goes dark green to light green to white to reddish white and to dark red at the end. He liked my idea as well, so we did it. It looked amazingly cool; again it's not because I did it, but really it was really good as it wasn't the part of the plan.
After that, we drew over it and put several more coats on it so that its color looked much clear and thick. While we were painting over it, the others were painting the floor outside.
I also fixed the swing that they made themselves with the bicycle wheels, not the one we painted the day before; I found it broken the day before but I had neither nail nor hammer and couldn't fix it.
It started raining in an abrupt that the others couldn't finish painting the floor outside. We left the school at 2:30 PM.

As we got back to hotel, we again had the evaluation session. I felt that we've done more works than the day before as we got used to it and I thought we, now, have done something.
Time flew and it was Wednesday when I realized and Thursday was the performing day. Filippo and I first thought of doing the dance together that we did before in 10th grade PE class with Grace, but we forgot most of it and playing the music there was the problem so we changed the plan. Instead, Filippo would dance alone to my beatbox. That sounds reasonable to me as well that we practiced what song we would do.

11th of February
As always, we started the day with playing with the children. Then, afterward we finished what we were doing the day before: painting the outside floor, the door and cleaning the windows.
Then, we all started cleaning the school for the concert and decorated it with the balloons. I made flower with the balloons and hung them on the wall with Grace.

Performance

At 2:30 PM, we started performing. It went really really well! The children opened the the concert with the traditional dance. They seemed to have been practicing for long. Kashish, Ashish and Saba danced to a Bolleywood song, but then the speaker suddenly didn't work so the music wasn't so loud. Still, it was amazingly done for that they only practiced for one day. I want to say our performance was also not bad. I made no mistake, neither did Filippo, except we didn't really go till the last bit unlike what we planned.
It was over after we worked for three days. It was a short period of time, but these three days were the most unforgettable days in my life.

We had the evaluation session that night as usual. Mr. De Silva gave us a thought of the day like he always did the other days.

Failing to plan is the same as planning to fail.

Yes. Without our all teacher, Mr. De Silva, Mr. Bala, Ms. Fernando, and Ms. Craig, who have planned all for us, we must not be able to succeed like this.