The Dr.Reijntjes School for the Deaf in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, started in 1984 with 8 deaf ...
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Dat betekent dat er in de loop der jaren een gespecialiseerd team is opgebouwd om de groep van 100 dove ...
News Letters
School Trip to Galle and Matara on 3-11-2010
July 28, 2011, 6:52 AM
On the third of November 2010, two busses with 100 deaf pupils and 25 staff members went on the annual school trip. Ine and Nimal Lems from the Netherlands also joined.
This time the trip was going first to Galle in the South. There was a lot to see in the famous Dutch Fort. First we went to the Leynbaanstreet, where Mrs. Lahir was waiting for us with cake and a cool drink in the shadow of the “Light House”. After that we walked up to the “Mansion” Museum where a lot of items were from the Dutch Period in Sri Lanka. The Maritime Museum was the next aim. That was rather new and beautifully arranged for young and old. The last building we visited was the Dutch Church in Fort. The children were afraid to walk over the graves in the church. That is of course also very unusual!
We went then with the busses to the Martin Wickremasinghe Museum in Koggela, a beautiful spot to rest for a while. There we had our lunch. We also went in the Folk Museum and the house of this great writer.
The next point was Matara, where we went to the temple with a huge Buddha Statue. For most of the pupils was this the first time they visited Matara.
Our last stop was to visit the Church of “Our Lady of Matara” There is a heart warming story about this church. During the Portuguese time, 400 years ago, fishermen found at the beach of Matara a statue of Holy Mary and the child Jesus. Nobody knew from where it came. The Roman Catholics were building a small shrine for it what became later a big church.
With the Tsunami in 2004 the big waves destroyed the church and the Statue was thrown to the sea. For 3 days it was missing till it came back to the beach undamaged. The Roman Catholic people see it as a wonder and many people come now to visit the church and to pray to “Our Lady of Matara” special when they face problems.
Very tired but in a happy mood we started the 4 hours journey back to Moratuwa, where we had to wake up most of the children.
