Thursday 9 March
For those interested, the organisation I’m involved with here is Project Galle 06 (PG06), which is the successor to Project Galle 05 (PG05). Interesting details can be found on its web-site www.projectgalle2006.org
The trustees of PG06 have now approved my proposal - which was ably supported by Nick - for the playground enhancement and I have two contractors pricing the work.
In the interim I am turning my attention to framing. The way forward is troubling me somewhat and, though the people here prefer that I do this as a livelihood project, I have my doubts. I’m not sure that somebody could start up a picture framing business in competition with a few others and for it to be viable. As you can imagine, there is not much in the way of framing of fine arts going on around here. Better I think to train up a number of people and in so doing, expand their skill base.
The original family portrait project is complete the photos having been inserted into standard photograph frames. However, PG06 has now received funding for a similar project that of collecting damaged, dog-eared and faded existing photographs from the residents of the IDP camps, enhancing them on the computer, laminating and framing them. It is this project with which I want to become involved. I’m therefore setting up the equipment, supplementing my toolbox and buying framing moulding. I shall then make a sample frame of what could be made locally by selected residents in the camps if I was allowed to set up a workshop and train them. We’re talking approximately one thousand photographs being collected, enhanced and framed so there has to be scope for such a scheme. We shall see.
Lesley, Clare and Victor arrive on Sunday. I have booked them into the Villa Hotel – a bijou upmarket hotel on the beach in Unawatuna. I booked it on Sunday last but am still negotiating the price! I have organised for Clare to utilise her TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) skills to aid the two-expat teachers at the temple in Unawatuna who are not TEFL qualified. Victor I think is lined up to help the computer man at the temple in writing the software for an electronic curriculum.
Madam is destined for a well-deserved holiday on the beach, drinking lemon gin and eating fresh fish. This will be interrupted the following weekend when a “trip” across country to Ampara, to visit Jayweera, is planned. Jaya is getting so excited – keeps ‘phoning me to see if Madam has arrived yet.
Time for my free lunch – free to all PG06 volunteers. Mainly rice and curry with an attempt at some western dishes (which are not for me). I usually have rice and vegetable curry – plenty dal which I think I’m becoming addicted to. Breakfast is a couple of egg rotis, with chilli, picked up en route to work at a little wayside canteen, or “hotel” in the vernacular.
There’s a big cricket match in Galle this weekend with two local teams participating. The atmosphere is very much that of a Spurs v Arsenal derby with all sorts of vehicles cruising around town packed with frenzied fans waving banners and chanting their allegiances. I shall have to visit the cricket ground on Saturday and soak up some atmosphere.
There’s some sort of local election approaching and I was tickled last week-end when I saw one of the local candidates touring his constituency with a posse of about 50 of his supporters swarming around him all wearing green baseball caps to identify themselves.
Later on that day, the skies opened and Colin found himself on the wrong side of town with no transport and no shelter. A couple of local residents took pity on this forlorn, sodden, hapless Englishman and insisted on dragging me into their house sitting me down with a towel and feeding me tea and wafers. When the storm showed no sign of abating, the two daughters were sent out with umbrellas to find a tuk-tuk for me.
For those interested, the organisation I’m involved with here is Project Galle 06 (PG06), which is the successor to Project Galle 05 (PG05). Interesting details can be found on its web-site www.projectgalle2006.org
The trustees of PG06 have now approved my proposal - which was ably supported by Nick - for the playground enhancement and I have two contractors pricing the work.
In the interim I am turning my attention to framing. The way forward is troubling me somewhat and, though the people here prefer that I do this as a livelihood project, I have my doubts. I’m not sure that somebody could start up a picture framing business in competition with a few others and for it to be viable. As you can imagine, there is not much in the way of framing of fine arts going on around here. Better I think to train up a number of people and in so doing, expand their skill base.
The original family portrait project is complete the photos having been inserted into standard photograph frames. However, PG06 has now received funding for a similar project that of collecting damaged, dog-eared and faded existing photographs from the residents of the IDP camps, enhancing them on the computer, laminating and framing them. It is this project with which I want to become involved. I’m therefore setting up the equipment, supplementing my toolbox and buying framing moulding. I shall then make a sample frame of what could be made locally by selected residents in the camps if I was allowed to set up a workshop and train them. We’re talking approximately one thousand photographs being collected, enhanced and framed so there has to be scope for such a scheme. We shall see.
Lesley, Clare and Victor arrive on Sunday. I have booked them into the Villa Hotel – a bijou upmarket hotel on the beach in Unawatuna. I booked it on Sunday last but am still negotiating the price! I have organised for Clare to utilise her TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) skills to aid the two-expat teachers at the temple in Unawatuna who are not TEFL qualified. Victor I think is lined up to help the computer man at the temple in writing the software for an electronic curriculum.
Madam is destined for a well-deserved holiday on the beach, drinking lemon gin and eating fresh fish. This will be interrupted the following weekend when a “trip” across country to Ampara, to visit Jayweera, is planned. Jaya is getting so excited – keeps ‘phoning me to see if Madam has arrived yet.
Time for my free lunch – free to all PG06 volunteers. Mainly rice and curry with an attempt at some western dishes (which are not for me). I usually have rice and vegetable curry – plenty dal which I think I’m becoming addicted to. Breakfast is a couple of egg rotis, with chilli, picked up en route to work at a little wayside canteen, or “hotel” in the vernacular.
There’s a big cricket match in Galle this weekend with two local teams participating. The atmosphere is very much that of a Spurs v Arsenal derby with all sorts of vehicles cruising around town packed with frenzied fans waving banners and chanting their allegiances. I shall have to visit the cricket ground on Saturday and soak up some atmosphere.
There’s some sort of local election approaching and I was tickled last week-end when I saw one of the local candidates touring his constituency with a posse of about 50 of his supporters swarming around him all wearing green baseball caps to identify themselves.
Later on that day, the skies opened and Colin found himself on the wrong side of town with no transport and no shelter. A couple of local residents took pity on this forlorn, sodden, hapless Englishman and insisted on dragging me into their house sitting me down with a towel and feeding me tea and wafers. When the storm showed no sign of abating, the two daughters were sent out with umbrellas to find a tuk-tuk for me.
posted by Colin HARMAN at 1:30 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home