The first backpacking trip I (Noëlle) took was to Sri Lanka. There I was, 18 years on my own at Colombo airport with the goal of volunteering at the Lama Gramaya children’s home of the Ayubowan Foundation.
When I worked 40 hours a week at the grocery store during my gap year, I had quickly figured out that I didn’t want to do this all year but wanted to save up for something. Soon the idea of backpacking came up and then I knew right away in which country I wanted to do it: Sri Lanka.
No other country in Asia came to mind, only Sri Lanka. After all, I have been to Sri Lanka once before. In 2014, I took a 3.5-week trip here with my parents and sister and a private driver. The reason why we chose Sri Lanka then (and I do again now) is that we have a ‘pen pal’ in a children’s home here, so it was amazing to visit her after writing so many letters back and forth. This children’s home takes in children whose parents have died, or children who are in an unsafe home situation. So a great initiative!
For this reason, I decided that I would like to backpack in Sri Lanka, but also volunteer at the children’s home for a few days so that I could get a better idea of how the children there live and what a day looks like for them. I ended up spending 3 days in the children’s home. I slept in a separate cottage, with its own shower and toilet, very well arranged!
When the children came out of school, they were curious who was in the cottage. After some murmuring and trying to look through the windows, I stepped outside to get acquainted and they almost didn’t know what they saw. 6 girls stood there and all got big eyes, immediately after that my hands were grabbed and I was taken to the cottage to get acquainted with the others under loud “You’re so beautiful.” They were immediately impressed by a colorful watch I was wearing. After a round of introductions, during which everyone was very shy, it was decided that I should sing and dance. After a few hours of teaching a typical dutch dance with the youngest children, they could do the dance all by themselves. Also present in this cottage was auntie Shiromi, who helps the children in this cottage with all kinds of things.
The next day I went with some kids to watch the marching band practicing with a teacher. Very nice to see once and already a good sound came out of it. After, I met the children from the other cottage, these were mostly older girls, and they were tremendously shy. After they braided my hair, again I had to sing songs. In the afternoon I went with the youngest sister to the town of Hanwella to buy a mountain of presents for the children.
The next morning I gave it to them and how happy they were with it! Very nice to see. The watch that all the children were so impressed with I gave to auntie Shiromi, as a memento, she was moved to tears and kept saying that I was now one of her children too. The rest of the day I again danced a lot with the youngest.
In the evening they were allowed to watch television, some kind of Bollywood movie, I sat in the middle with next to me 2 girls holding my hands, 2 against my legs and another girl on my lap. And that with 30 degrees! They wanted to feel my white skin and rub my birthmarks all the time, very funny.
On Monday morning I had another very nice breakfast and then was dropped off at the bus by auntie Shiromi. The sisters were extremely friendly, especially head sister Bernadette, who really did everything to make me feel comfortable. I had a very good time here and am very grateful that this was arranged so well for me!
All the children were so sweet. Thinking back on this, I would prefer to visit more often “just like that” to do some dancing and cuddling with them. Unfortunately, that can’t just happen because Sri Lanka is obviously not around the corner, but it is so beautiful to have been a part of this.
Have you become curious and would you also like to support a writing child for a small amount of money? Then check out the Ayubowan Foundation site for all the children’s homes in Sri Lanka.
