Thevalaimunai – Sophie S and Amy – 27/10/16

Today we visited another fairly remote pre-school called Thevalaimunai. When we arrived there were just four children there, two in uniform and two dressed in their own clothes. Slowly more children arrived after lots of encouragement from the teacher, taking the numbers up to 9. We were told that four of them were in hospital with a fever. There were a few tears at the start, with children being a little reluctant to want to join in and preferred to take a step back. However, fortunately and most rewardingly, the children came out of their shells and began to approach us and participate. They particularly enjoyed making a fish hat, playing with the bean bags, bubbles and parachute. The children’s smiles during the session and especially at the end of the session gave us the most incredible feeling of pride, pleasure and happiness. We both felt so touched by observing the difference in these wonderful children from when they arrived at the start of the morning, and eventually how ecstatic they were whilst playing with the parachute, that we decided to donate this to the pre-school. The teachers were extremely grateful for this.

I (Sophie) was touched when, as we arrived at the school, the teachers excitedly showed me the picture they had on their wall. It was a picture we had given them a year ago at the teacher training morning of me in my ballroom dress. 

We said goodbye and handed out lots of gifts to the children including sweets, stickers, tooth brushes and tooth paste. Seeing the children walk home on their own, with at least 1/3^rd of them walking home barefoot, was rather heart-breaking.