Scavenger Hunt in Hettipola!

Sameera showing me his image.

Through our students' photographs and our experience here, we have found that in this rural environment, the people here engage in their families and communities very closely through school, temple, farming, cooking, and their evening washing at local water sources. This small community of families is wonderfully tight- knit and their relationships are reflected through thousands of the kids' pictures we've had the pleasure to look through.

The closest town center, Hettipola. Photograph by Ayomika.

Now that our photographers had the chance to visually investigate the people and places closest to them, we thought it time for them to have the experience of shooting in a busier and slightly more foreign environment. Our kids are on summer vacation now, so this allows us the freedom to arrange a field trip! With a lot of help from Chinthaka and Sampath at SLWCS (Thank you both!), we arranged transportation to the closest town center, Hettipola. About 6 miles away from the school and temple, many of the villagers make it here a few times a month to buy goods and clothes, and visit a bank, post office, or hospital.

Packing in for the field trip!

Rebecca helps Hasita, Sampath and Anil review their list of potential subjects.

With English vocabulary in mind, we posed a challenge for the children as they ventured into town with cameras in hand.... an English scavenger hunt! We split them into small groups and handed out lists of English words for them to search for as they explored the visual landscape of a bustling place of commerce. It was a thrill to race around with the children in search for each word, and we were amazed at how focused and intent they were in their purpose... very few of them shot photographs of anything other than the words on their list (which was astounding considering the volumes of images they have been shooting around their homes!). The pictures from the outing were both clever and precise. Have a look....

Anil finds a two-for-one! BANANAS and BICYCLE. Photograph by Maleesha.

Sameera photographing Flowers

FLOWERS
Found by Sameera, Rasika, and Sisil.

Ravidu and Madusanka teaming up to photograph a pencil.

PENCIL
Found by Ravidu, Ishan, and Madusanka.

AIRPLANE
Found by Rahdunu.

JUMP
Found by Kelum and Thushan.

RICE
Found by Deeba.

Maleesha and Sandhamalie framing an image together.

To aide in reinforcing their English vocabulary words and providing a visual tool for their school, our students categorized prints of their scavenger hunt images alphabetically onto posters. We hope that these photographs are a source of pride and confidence (and a reminder of a really fun day!) when our kids see them displayed at school.

For many more photographs from our trip to town click here.