RCCI Leader :)

The supervisor of RCCI, Ms.Nyriz chose me and Uthpala as the next RCCI leaders. Last year it was Alice who was the leader of the CAS. This year she chose two leaders as we can help each other during all the RCCI sessions. Alice and the teacher explained us all the responsibilities we have as the leader. Later, we even elected the Treasurer (Nadeera) and the secretary (Kuval Dutta) of the RCCI. I feel that our CAS is more organised now, we all divided the works among ourselves. This time we wanted to concentrate more on fund raising compared to the last year. S we decided to raise money in all possible events. We also planned goals to achieve. We wanted to build a new center for RCCI. These were our initial plans for the RCCI.

WWW Planning Committee

For the grade 11 Week Without Walls, which is happening during the second week of January, we are going to Hambantota. So Mr.Lockwood, has arranged a planning committee who will be helping him arranging the trip and making sure everything is fine when we go. So, during this weekend, four people can go with Mr.Lockwood to Hambantota and visit the school we are going to work on. The four people are not decided yet as we are 8 people in the committee, but we have to make sure there is a Sinhalese speaker for easy communication.

This year our trip will be a complete focus on community and service and a safari. We will work on two schools. This committee will help the class know more about the school. So, now we will know what the school needs and we can help them accordingly. We also made a list of things we already think they will need. The trip with Mr.Lockwood will leave on Saturday evening and then return by Monday evening.

My First Class In Learning To Make A Kurta

After learning the basics of stiching, my teacher decided to start my first class by learning to make a salwar. It will take three weeks to finish making the salwar as my classes are for once a week. So it will take a long time to finish it and hence required a lot of perseverance. So,  decided to learn more about before the class starts so that  I can have a better idea when learning to make it. This was very challenging and hard to make. So, I decided to write about the dress on my blog so that the readers can know what I want to make.

Salwar is a loosely fit pajama like pant. The legs are often wide at the top, and narrow at the ankle, although there are several styles of shalwar pants in modern times, some trendy and jean-like. In the old days the kurta looked different from now. More cloth were used in making them so the pants looked heavy. Right now I'm going my goal is the make a salwar that is the most commonly used type in India.



This was the kind of kurta girls wore in the old days.




This is the kind of kurta I'm going to learn to make



RCCI Food Stall in the Primary Production

During the primary production, Dr.Seussical, our CAS had set up a food stall for fund raising. Most of the CAS members managed to get some eatables for the stall. We were supposed to get 30 pieces of any food item. This is when I helped my mother with cooking an Indian sweet. I wanted to learn to make this sweet, so it was really fun doing so. I showed perseverance while cooking and realised that cooking is a challenging job and required a lot of skills. We couldn't make much money for the kids of RCCI. Alice, our CAS gourp leader later mangaed to sell some of them to the 12 graders. Now we are trying make proper use of the money we got so that it will be useful for the  RCCI kids.

My Yoga Classes

My Yoga classes in the Indian Cultural Center started two weeks ago. So far we learned the basics yoga exercises (aasana's). I like the yoga classes as it makes me feel fresh and my mood gets better. I feel that this is really important now as in this starting stage of IB Diploma, I get lots of assignments and I have to study a lot. This makes me more stressed and tired. But by doing Yoga on Saturday and Sunday, I can feel the change in myself. This new skill that I was developing seemed to be very useful in my life. 

There  are many benefits  by doing yoga. There is more flexibility in our body, strength in body, less stress,  more concentration and better health. Yoga also benefits our body because of all the breathing aasana's we do in our class. Because of the deep, mindful breathing lung capacity often improves. This new strength that I'm now aware of, helped my undertake challenges. 

In my yoga class

Right now, I'm doing the beginners level of yoga which would be for four months. I would like to continue these classes in future if the timings work.

My initiation into the art of making Indian dresses

Learning to make Indian dresses was always one of my wishes which I couldn't fulfill. But now I finally started learning to make them.I was looking forward for my for this class for a long time.

On the first day I learnt the basics of stitching like hemming, plain stitch, stitching buttons and hooks and basting. My first practice was basting the cloth as a temporary stitch and then hemming. The image below shows sketch of what I did and the next image shows the one I did. I was proud that through this CAS activity, I can develop a new skill and get more aware of my culture.

     
I then learnt stitching buttons and hooks on the same cloth. My teacher started of my by teaching everyday useful skills needed. This would help me make dresses like salwaar kameez in future. This creativity required a lot of perseverance and patience. I had to work collaboratively with my teacher.

Photos of my work when I was learning to stitch buttons and hooks. :)

This is what I learnt in my first class. I liked my class a lot as I always enjoyed this art. I would make sure I won't miss any class so that I can learn more.

Service in RCCI

Last week we had RCCI where the children from RCCI came to the school. The children in RCCI look forward for this opportunity. Our team made sure that we show perseverance and commitment in all the activities we do. Any lose of patience can cause ethical implications where the RCCI committee can get disappointed with us. So we had to make sure that they enjoy their visit, so we try playing interesting games with them to make it even more enjoyable. We take them to the gym where we play basketball, football and other ball games with them. Majority of the children doesn't know English, but still communication is not a problem. We make signs so that they can understand what they have to do. Some of them are too shy to play, so we talk to them so that they can learn something. We usually have 15 to 20 children who come every week, we have to make sure everyone is taken care of. This experience made me aware of my  new quality to communicate with children in spite of the language barrier. This challenge seemed difficult at start, but slowly I started enjoying this experience.

I enjoy my time with the RCCI children. I'm happy that I can help them in some way. I want to continue RCCI in future too. We are trying to brainstorm new games for them so that they can have more fun.

We also plan to have a food stall at the primary production so that we can raise money for our CAS.