A few of our International Donor Partners (ie, representatives of the organizational bodies responsible for the funding of our project) are here March 21-31st for their 3rd monitoring visit. All 3 visits (quarterly) have had a very distinctive and different tone / purpose. The first visit was the "oh-my-goodness-what-are-we-doing-here?-our-initial-plan-is-falling-apart-and-we need-to-construct-a-completely-different-one-FAST" monitoring visit. The second visit was the "we-put-together-plan B-and-we-now-need-you-to-use-your-influence-to-intervene-for-us-so-we-can-actually-carry-it-out" monitoring visit. HALLELUJAH, monitoring visit #3 has (finally) been the "yay!-we-can-actually-show-you-how-we've-been-putting-your-money-to-use-and-meeting-the-project-goals" monitoring visit. =) Here are the pictures of Thursday's welcome parade -- Traditional Sri Lankan Style -- for the international donor partners, at the Hikkaduwa Community Center.

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure why we thought the parade should start on Galle Rd -- thus endangering the lives of the Donor Partners.

Above: just beyond the dancers -- left to right -- Chris, Project Manager; Manjita (look hard!), Canada Salvation Army Donor; Celine, Netherlands Salvation Army Donor; Corrie, Netherlands Salvation Army Donor; and Dave, East Coast Construction Manager.

The Dancers -- dancing their way around the corner and into The Salvation Army gate...

(Background) 1 bus passes another, around a corner, on Galle Rd... meanwhile, the Dancers lead the way for the Donor Partners...

Dancers have danced their way into the gate... the Staff are dressed in their Salvation Army shirts, ready for the occasion.

Manjita (Canada), Corrie (Netherlands), & Celine (Netherlands) receive their Welcome Necklaces from the preschool students.

Meanwhile, the dancers are still dancing/drumming towards the front door...

The dancers then formed a tunnel in the hallway... which we all ducked through... and then we all went into our daily staff meeting. =) It's kind of funny -- these moments of color and vibrance and true "pomp and circumstance" that are the cultural norm... which lead directly into the normal tasks of daily life. This is such a great picture of the "regular" pardox that we are constantly interacting with: the normal, unpretentious, routine, modest, simple, humble -- paired with the beautiful, distinguished, exceptional, elegant.