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Kindergarten

In the absence of Humaid and Michel, the children were presented with a box of apples.  In Sri Lanka with a big variety of tropical fruits, apples are very rare and also very expensive. 

The children were delighted but the kindergarten teachers still had big glasses filled with sugar candies from our last visit!

Die Kinder beim Singen

Die Kinder beim Singen

They once again sang some songs for us and I discovered several new faces.  The children attend Kindergarten for two years, so new children had started Kindergarten while others had become proud first graders in the meantime.

The space for the Kindergarten had become even more cramped as UNICEF was building a new school and they were tearing down the old school piece by piece.

But they would not build a new Kindergarten building. 

Bei SingenBei Singen

Despite the fact that the Kindergarten was registered and approved by the government, it was not run by the government and therefore, the kindergarten teachers were not on their payroll.  (Obviously, an important part in the curriculum vitae of a Sri Lankan child is to have attended a government approved Kindergarten!)

This brings me to the only negative experience of this trip:  the Headmaster of the school told me quite embarrassed that they had only received our payment of 9,000 rupees for the salaries of the month of January.

We immediately went to the Director of the school together with Roy’s sister-in-law Zariya who managed the micro credit program and her aunt. 

He was quite surprised by our visit and ordered his wife to bring us some tea.  Then a very confusing discussion started.  I was sending SMS’ to Michel and talked to Roy on the phone.

When the aunt suggested at one point that we should send a notice in the future when the payments were made, I became a bit upset.  I would handle the transfers of the payments personally every month and if we would promise to make payments, they would definitely be on their way – without further notice!

 

The atmosphere became rather frosty and I told the Director that all would be cleared when the fax from Switzerland would arrive.

A lot of people had given money after the tsunami and never came back to see what happened to it.  So therefore the temptation to the Director to keep it must have been too big.  We had promised to everybody handing us even the smallest amount to keep track of every single Swiss franc.

Roy came to Hambantota on the following Saturday and because of the public holiday on April 13/14 there was no way of getting information from the bank.

Later on, the scales fell from my eyes:  the Headmaster had shown me the bank book a second time with the January payment of exactly 9,000 rupees and emphasized that he really had not received any payments after that.

Because of the exchange rate it was not possible that there had been the exact amount of 9,000 rupees.  The money must have been in another account first, before forwarding on to the Headmaster’s account.

Because of the evidence the Director would have to forward the money.  It will be his problem, to avoid losing his face in this affair.  Otherwise, we will pay him another visit in September.

Further payments for the Kindergarten teacher’s salaries will go to Zariya’s account.

At this point, we would like to thank the Bank Cial, once again, for not charging fees for the transactions.  That way, we are able to send all payments to the individuals and don’t have to send the money to one recipient that might “forget” to forward it.

We did not arrange direct payments to the teachers as Roy and the Headmaster told us that this might lead to the problem that they might “forget” to show up for work.

Die Kinder winken zum Abschied

After my return to Switzerland, Roy informed me that the money had been “found” on the school’s account and had been forwarded in the meantime.  The Director would also provide one schoolroom for the Kindergarten children.

Together with Roy, we will check out the possibilities to build a Kindergarten in Siribopura to eliminate the dangerous trip to and from the school for the children.  25 little children in an eight-seated van is a quite common school bus variation in Sri Lanka. 

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