“One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things” – Henry Miller 

I have been at this school for 5 years now. I have been to every single Week Without Walls field trips. I am proud to say that this Housing and Habitat WWW is the best school trip I have gone on.

This would be the second time now that I have gone on the Housing and Habitat school WWW. last year due to circumstances the trip was not very enjoyable. also last year the work ethic of our group suffered, we were not able to work to the best of our abilities which end up bring the quality of the entire trip down.

However, this year was different. This year I knew exactly what to when I go on this trip. So I was prepared. Before we went I met up with the group we were going with in order to plan for the trip. Mr. Rossberg first introduced to everyone that we will be attempting to teach preschool kids. After we were introduced, we were put into groups and were given documents to start the lesson plan. The group I was assigned to work with was Emily, Harry, and Joshua. Together we came up with our lesson plan. we decided that the activities will be doing will be a mix of both Creativity (arts and crafts) and Activity (ball games and running games). However, I knew that the kids that we work with have been proven to a short attention span, we also had to take into consideration the language barrier since I am the only Sinhala speaker in the group. This leads us to create activities which involved a lot of coloring and painting, as it would require less speaking than conducting outdoor activities. after weeks of planning, we finally embarked on our journey to Hambantota.

As we arrived at the Janoda Foundation we witnessed the kids of the preschool we working with. it gave us an insight into what is to come. Moving on, after we had settled in and put our bags away we were taken on a tour around Hambantota. we were taken to historical sites built by the Dutch during their colonization period of Sri Lanka. We also were taken next to the Bundala National Park, which led us to see a variety of different animals and reptiles. After this tour, we drove back to the Janoda Foundation after we had showered and had dinner we had to go and plan for the Tuesday. Since my group had already gathered all our equipment and had come with our lesson plan printed we were ok. so we just chilled for the remainder of the night and went to bed.

The morning arrived and the time teach had come upon us. we were ready. We started off by listening to the daily prayers which the teachers of the school conducted. We discovered that the teachers prayed prays from a variety of different prayers, this included religions such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism, this interested us as the teachers were teaching the topic of religious acceptance at such a young age. Moving on from that we played a couple of group games with children and then we broke off into the smaller groups. My group had around 9 to 8 kids to look after and teach, so as we planned we got on to our activities. We prepared coloring pages and clay which kept thoroughly engaged throughout the class time. The Activities we provided were so engaging that it lasted the whole two hours on both days which did not happen last year due to the unpreparedness of the whole group. Afterward, we all went back into the housing complex, ate lunch and prepared for the 4 hours of hard labor. Mr. Rossberg split us into two groups, The barbed wire group, and the planting group. Myself, Rizqi, Takuro, Matthew, Jack, and Harry were put into the barbed wire group whereas the rest of us; Josh, Liana, Emily, Savi, and Harrin were put into the Planting group. The work that we had to do was hard, I would say that it was the definition of labor, but we powered through for the 2 days. After the two days of teaching and working, we had to say our goodbyes to kids and Janoda Foundation. After we said our byes we packed everything up and we were on our way, but first Mr. Gamage took us to see all the other schools which have been funded by OSC and also to visit the local potter. After that, we dropped Mr. Gamage off and left for the Shangri La.

Once we reached the hotel we were told to put our bags away and come down for lunch. After an excellent lunch, we were told to get ready for the beach clean up. To be honest, it wasn’t the best news we heard, but we had to soldier on and do this task as it is beneficial for the environment. We all got on to the bus with one of the beaches cleans up executives at the Shangri La and headed towards the beach. We arrived and found that there was a vast variety of trash to collect to our demise, but we collected it with our heads held high. There were a lot of jokes cracked, trash thrown at people which made the whole experience even more fun. I also made friends with a really cute dog which added to the overall fun of this unforgettable trip. Four hours went by and we told to pack up our stuff and head back to the hotel.

After we arrived back Mr. Rossberg told us just to go an enjoy ourselves as we have earned out stay at this hotel. he also told to be at dinner by 7pm or else which was funny. we that in mind Josh, Rizqi and I went to the pool and was followed by the Emily and Liana. After about an hour we all got out and head for dinner. After dinner, we headed toward the game room area, and played games such as table tennis and pool. Afterward, we headed back to our rooms to which Emily and Liana followed into. we decided to watch a movie. The movies finished and both them left in a sleep-deprived state. Left in the room were Rizqi, Josh and I. I felt that the night was too young and I didn’t want to end my last week without walls in a boring state, so I asked Josh “Shall we take a walk” to which he replied “yes.” I tried to wake Rizqi but he was too tired. Josh and I left the room and walked around Shangri La reminiscing about the good times we have had on prior Week Without Walls and how much fun we have had together all those times. That night was amazing, the stars shun brighter than ever and the howl of the sea sang in our ears but I knew all good things had to come to an end. As it got later Josh and I knew that we had to go back, all tho we didn’t want us to.  AS the night drew to a close I knew that my last Week Without Walls journey had been absolutely amazing bringing only happiness joy to everyone. So i fell asleep knowing that my last week without wall had come to a close and that this was the best one yet.