High 5?

So, almost 2 weeks in, but it feels like months. I'm starting to forget what home is like. Don't get me wrong, there are stuff I miss from home of course, but at the moment there are far from being as many as there were in the beginning.

I think we're doing a good job with the rebel boys at the orphanage, because yesterday there was only one incident where a kid cried after being hit by another boy, and he was just pretending anyway. 1 crying! In the beginning there were at least five hundred thousand cries/hour. Perhaps not that many, but close? You get my point anyway. They were so calm that we started to wonder if the staff had drugged them or something (NOTE: that was a joke!). We're working hard on positive reinforcements, we've taken pictures of them and learned all their names, and we only high 5/do different hand shakes/thumb wars if they speak English.

"Papluuu! High 5!"
"English please"
"No English!" (with a huge grin on his face)
"Oh reeeally? So, what is this?" (Point at shoulders)
"Ehm.. shoulders!" 
"Very good. And what colour is this?"
"Red!" 

..and so on, and then he gets high fives/thumb wars etc. In the beginning we just gave them out all the time, but it wouldn't be sustainable (and impossible to get anything done as they would high 5 all the time). So far so good then!

Hope it will be as nice as Arugam Bay

This evening we'll all jump in to a minibus and go down to a beach close to Galle in the south west (don't remember the name exactly at the moment, Unkanuwa maybe?), so this weekend is going to be well relaxed, and I think we all need it, because the volunteering does drain you more than you expect.