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Louise Siedentopp

I am Louise Siedentopp Volunteer in Sri Lanka from 4 th June 2006 to 4 th August 2006. I arrived on the 4 Th June and I got picked up at the Airport and there was at correct time to pick me up and later I arrived at my host family. They are very open, nice, wonderful and warm family. From the day I arrived they treated me very well with various varieties of food and the food is very delicious and I really like the Sri Lankan food, especially what Michael's wife cooks. I am now very much used for that food and I still like to if I can eat that food everyday, and also I was given a good Sri Lankan Desert everyday after meals and also with tea she used to give something to eat like cake, biscuits and every time we are full. So its very hard to say how good the family is. I and Sarah also one day cooked ourselves our own cooking and served the host family.

The language an culture program also was very good and I was thought Sinhala for a week and I likes it would be at least for two weeks because there is lot to learn, but now I am used for some words and I have learn even from the place I teach English. During the weekend and after my work is finished we ( My partner volunteer ) goes to the town, which is very near walking distance and its great to walk because we can observe many things which belongs to Sri Lankan culture, specially how the ladies are dressed and how nice they are.

Michael' wife use to take us to the vegetable and fruit market and it's so nice to see that here you get everything fresh. Even on weekends Michael and family, we all together goes for a picnic, Went to visit the Zoo and recently we went to the Jungle beach which looks very nice and it's so nice to go through a small jungle and we really enjoyed the jungle beach. We two and Michael' family went to cinema and we saw a Sri Lankan movie name (Anjalika) first time in my life and we really enjoyed that film which was very good to see and some times Michael' daughters helped us to translate the film and we too also understood little.

During my teaching to young Buddhist monks in the temple I teach with another volunteer name (Sarah Schwartz) and it's very good to be taught by two volunteers there. I teach for about 15 young Buddhist monks and I really like so much and I am very happy and very proud to start this project. Since this project is new the pupils are on very different levels. it is very. Very exciting and challenging and very great to see them improving there English knowledge. Actually it's a great pleasure to me by teaching young Buddhist monks English and also they teach us some Sinhala too and I too gets a knowledge of Sinhala from them.

From the 10 Th July to 13 Th July we went on a trip as scheduled in our Language an cultural program lasting four days. we went to Sigiriya, kandy, Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, Dabulla golden cave temple.Sigiriya we climbed that unbelievable place ( Rock )where one of the ancient Sri Lankan kings were living and its very hard to believe how they have built Tanks, Palace and other things on that huge rock and everything has been done manually without any machines used and also lot of tourists were climbing that rock was great fun.

At Kandy we visited the Dalada tooth relic temple and also we had the chance to see a live Cultural Dance which we all were attracted and it's so beautiful. We were able to see the elephant orphanage and we got a chance to feed the elephants also and we spent lot of time looking them taking bath. Michael (RCDP Coordinator) took us to see a Spice garden on our way back and also on our way back Michael treated us very well with good accommodation and food and also with Sri Lankan fruits. So at last I would say that I am very happy with program and specially of getting a chance to teach English for young Buddhist monks and I would like to request to go ahead with this program and I would like to request some happy volunteers to join this program which is valuable and so good.

Finally, project work is another grate fun.