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They were right at the gate as we entered Tanamalvilla center. I hadn't seen those children before and was wondering who they were. They must be here to play, I thought. On the narrow dirt road, there wasn't a space for us to pass them through. The vehicle we were on came to halt. One of the boys came around and knocked the windwo where Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, Founder of Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, was seated. He slid his window and the boy said something and pointed to a girl nearby. I didn't understand. They seemed little hestitant. Finally, a girl took a book out from a bag laying on the ground. They brought the book and handed it over to Dr. Ariyaratne. We learnt it was a 10th grade English book published by government. One of the chapters read: The Meeting With Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, The President, The Lanka Jathika Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement . The children, I could see, were thrilled to meet the person on the book. It was amazing, I couldn't believe it. They as...

Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I was in Matara district in Southern Sri Lanka. This year, Sarvodaya USA has committed to support Sarvodaya Matara District activities, especially their core budget. It was an opportunity for me and district staff to discuss the priorities and how we could work together. Most of my time was spent in discussing about the program activities for 2007/2008 year. In between, I was also able to visit to villages where Sarvodaya USA is developing Village to Village networks, a program that would connect communities in the US with villages in Sri Lanka. As our first projects, we are working to develop pre-schools in these villages supported by groups in the US. In the villages, I received an warm welcomed, spoke with the villagers and listened to their plans. It's amazing to notice most of the village level Sarvodaya Society members were energetic womens in both the villages.

After three weeks of non stop work, including the weekend, I found myself with a weekend off. That is half a day of Saturday and a full Sunday. I was looking forward to getting away from Moratuwa and convinced Samantha and Sandaruwan to go with me to Unwatuna. I had heard that beach at Unwatuna was beautiful. So, we took off on Saturday afternoon. It was about two and half hours on a bus. We checked into a nice resort for Rs. 1500 (about $15) a night for a duplex room. There weren't many westerners around and we got local rate (at that point I wasn't known to be a foreigner). Rest of evening and Sunday was really relaxing, we swam, walked on the beach, and I read a book - biography of Gandhi, Binoba Bhave and Jayaprakash Narayan.

Yesterday evening I cooked for the first time here. For us who live at Sarvodaya hostels it is always canteen food, which can be too boring at times, especially sine we eat rice, dal, and curry (which is always tooooo hot for my taste) three times a day. So, I had been thinking of cooking for a while. Actually, almost a week back I had gone shopping had discovered that buying food can be as expensive here, the prices were comparable to US prices. Offcourse, I bought from a super market, which I am sure is off the reach of an average Sri Lankan. I had Samantha and Thiyaga as my dinner guests. I find cooking for myself too boring. We had dinner of Rice, Soyameat (I dont' like that meat thing, it's a wrong word), fried potatoes and lady's finger, and dal. Honestly, the food wasn't the best but edible...rice was little over cooked and I didn't have all the spieces I needed. Anyway, it was a welcome change from Canteen food. But, I am not sure how often I will cook, most...