Well hey howdy hey, it’s been a while since I’ve sat down and written anything! Many of you have been asking what I’ve been up to so let me enlighten you.

For about four weeks now we have been busy doing our first work/volunteer placement via the app Workaway. They’re all slightly different but are based on the premise that you work for 4/5 hours a day, five days a week for your food and board. We have been based in a tiny village called Unakuruwa, just to the west of the town of Tangalle on the southern coast of Sri Lanka.

The village people and local life

The little beach side village community is so chilled, everyone smiles and waves and they love to have a chat, even the small children always asking us ‘school pen?’. We have got to know a few of the local characters – there’s Saman who lives opposite with his wife, two children, sisters and mother and he owns the restaurant down on our local beach. I say restaurant in the loosest of terms – it’s an old boat with a kitchen inside and a load of random beach chairs and hammocks on the sand; a great place to watch the waves crashing in. There’s Roshan, who also lives opposite on the other side, who drives a tuk tuk and is our regular driver taking us to the beach or into town on errands or to the market. There is Rio, who lives next door, a keen college kid with amazing English. There’s Taranga, who struggles to keep himself out of trouble, Sanka and Amith, who both have the longest curliest surfer dude hair, and a whole host of others who’s names I don’t know. But they’re all lovely. Some of the older gentlemen are a little rough around the edges, shuffling about in their sarongs with their red/black teeth, from chewing tobacco, sticking out at peculiar angles.

The wildlife

We are so lucky to have a great view over the Indian Ocean and surrounding jungle from our room, and the hotel restaurant, so we are constantly seeing new birds and animals. The list is getting rather long of new species we have identified! We have a resident troop of grey haired langurs who pop by every few days to tear up the tree tops, there are some peacocks who strut their stuff about the garden, monitor lizards, geckos, iguanas, small palm squirrels, giant grizzled squirrels, the occasional mongoose, more birds than I’ve ever seen (babblers, barbets, swallows, hornbills, sun birds, bright blue kingfishers, woodpeckers, birds of paradise), butterflies and bats, and the odd flying fox too! And we can’t forget the resident pack of dogs that roam the streets, and quite often come into the grounds of the hotel. Unfortunately we can’t make friends with them all and have to scare them off the property, but there is one little pups on the beach which I’ve taken a shine to. A mum and young puppy hang around the security hut on the beach (which belongs to the posh hotel at the other end) and every time we go down they come bounding over for a play and a head scratch. So cute.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

So what are we actually doing?

Our work is pretty varied and can range from cleaning the kitchen to writing a website (some things never change!). The hotel is actually just five small rooms, you can check it out if you like, so is more just a mini complex of nice suites. We have been lucky enough to stay in one of the suites as it’s still low season so there haven’t been many bookings. But we’ve had a few guests stay and it’s one of our roles to greet them, tell them about the area, give them welcome drinks and make sure they are happy. We’ve also had gardening to do, making new garden lamps, running errands in town, making new cushions and lots of online work to promote the owner’s new business venture of paddle board tours. So I’ve been back to creating digital content and have written their website – my laptop has come in handy! We’ve had a lovely lady join the team a few weeks ago and she is managing the business so we went exploring the local lagoon on the boards with her, and that was really cool. We saw herons, local fisherman, lizards and even a halo around the sun! Was pretty magical.

The first few weeks were actually really rainy as the wet season didn’t want to go away! Apparently it was really bad all over the country and lots of local flooding too. So, those days are rather quiet as you can’t really do a lot outside (we’ve read a lot of books) but the weather has finally picked up and we are getting lovely dry days, and even some sunshine kicking about every now and again.

And what else?

Like I say, in the rain there isn’t a great deal to do but we as we have an awesome balcony you can watch the lightning storms go by. At night you can see the twinkling lights of all the container ships out to sea; there is a really busy shipping line crossing the south of Sri Lanka. It’s really pretty. We don’t get too many chances to see the stars as its mostly cloudy but we have had some cracking sunsets.

We have two beaches within walking distance, one of which is great for chilling but the waves are too ferocious for swimming – even if they hit you at the ankles you get wet all the way up over your knees! The other morning we went down and had a read and the guys from the hotel had someone working for them clearing some of the palm trees of the loose leaves – was fascinating watching him climb up and down the trunks! And then we even got given a coconut to drink! Thank you very much. Everyone is so generous here.

We occasionally borrow the manager’s scooter and go exploring and have so far seen a blow hole, the largest sitting Buddha statue in Sri Lanka, we’ve been surfing and paddle boarding and have mooched about the local town. It’s definitely more of a locals’ town than a tourist town and on the surface seems absolute chaos but the more you get to know it, and the people in it, the more order you find. Still bonkers, but bonkers that you can navigate your way through and know where you’re going.

So we’ve been getting used to quiet village beach life, hanging out with the locals, working a bit, eating some amazing food (the manager here has taught us to cook a banging lentil dhal and we make our own coconut milk everyday) and have generally been enjoying the slower pace of life…