On the first visit during this stay in Hambantota, the kindergarten was closed because of school vacation, so we only brought two lockable metal closets.  They had asked us for one, but as we could not decide between the two available models, we bought both.

Since the closets were supposed to be filled, we had emptied a stationary shop in Pettah:  coloring books, crafts and coloring paper, scissors, glue, coloring and wax pencils, puzzles and memory games.

When we had asked the kindergarten teachers what we could bring for the children they suggested 60 umbrellas.  Therefore, we also bought the crafts supplies for that number of children.  The amazing amount of presents added up to 180 Swiss francs.

Along with the umbrellas, we also bought two bicycles and went for our second visit.  The children were not in the corner of the Zahira School anymore, as the school building was being used as a polling station for the upcoming elections.  They were in an annex and were to go back to the schoolyard after the election.

In January, the new kindergarten building was to be finished!

This time the children parted more voluntarily with the flowers and the songs they sang for us were first and foremost loud.  It became even louder at the time we gave them the umbrellas.  When we bought the umbrellas, we completely missed out that there was a whistle attached to each one and the concert was ear splitting.

Under the big eyes of the children the closets were filled.  We hoped that they would have a lot of fun playing with everything.

The three kindergarten teachers were thrilled.  We learned to our surprise that they are not on the payroll of the government.  As all kindergartens are private, their salary was being paid from the school fees of the children before the tsunami.  After the tsunami for most of the parents, it was not possible anymore to pay even a small fee.  It was very difficult to pay their salaries as the funds were almost used up.  We asked about the amount of the salaries and it was 3,000 rupees per teacher per month before the tsunami.  We agreed spontaneously to cover the costs for a year.

We have never made a promise, which we could not have kept out of our own pocket.  Every bit of help from outside enables us to new commitments.  Our sincere thank to all that have helped us so far.  Foremost, our thank goes to the Bank Cial in Basel.