Clothes Shopping & McDonald's
OSI-Sri Lanka (Pamunugama)
30 March 2007
To launch their April school break and to celebrate the major Sinhala/Tamil New Year holidays, we took our Pamunugama children on a special outing. As new clothes are one of many traditions for the New Year holiday, be decided to make this a bit more fun and to let the kids choose for themselves! -an experience they've never had. We capped an afternoon of shopping with dinner and play at McDonald's, by popular demand of the children themselves!
Our Day
We hired a bus, and after much happy singing and dancing during the wonderful ride through the jungle, we arrived 45 minutes later at the modern "Kandy" clothing shop in Wattala. There, we took the unprecedented step of taking 40 children shopping at once! Anita and the orphanage staff were stretched thin but after a heroic effort, every child had chosen an outfit for themselves (we won't comment on their various tastes). We would like to say that it was an educational experience for our children in shopping, but it was really more a matter of survival for ourselves. In any case the girls left the clothing shop very happy! Back into the bus, we proceeded to nearby McDonald's, which since our Christmas excursion has been in high demand from our kids. Forty happy-meals later, there appeared 40 chocolate-dipped ice-cream cones, followed by 40 children on the indoor jungle-gym. When they were worn-out, we piled back onto the bus, where they somehow found energy to dance and sing some more (well, most of them... see photos below!).
