The project visit

After the ride and the celebratory beach party, which included dancing and playing records in quite an epic rain storm and a few bottles of the local rum, Arrack, we headed back to Negombo to visit the project that we'd raised money for.

The project is one of ICT's original ones, they've worked with them since the early 1980's. The project is a re-intergration centre that houses up to 200 children up to 16 years of age. The children may have lost parents in the civil war, the tsunami or been abandoned by parents fleeing poverty or government.

The happy but painfully shy children presented us with a show of local dancing and singing, with costumes they'd made in the dressmaking centre which forms part of the project.

The centre's buildings have been part funded by ICT and a Dutch charity, the well built builidings are set in the jungle, without another building/road in sight.

Down towards the large reservoir is a cleared sports area, with space for running and volleyball and especially for the national pastime of Cricket. We took the young locals on in the afternoon. We held our own and did well with a few comedy bowls that got the crowd laughing and cheering. The locals have some smashing batsmen that quite regularly hit 6's when our bowlers could get a decent ball to them.

After a few teary goodbyes we left our newfound friends to get on with tricky business of leading their young lives into adulthood, hopefully with a better start than they had previously been dealt.