Susannah Palk immerses herself in the daily life of a village on an unforgettable volunteering holiday.
We are stuck in a traffic snarl at yet another military checkpoint where a bored young Sri Lankan soldier stands in the middle of the chaos. He twirls a red and yellow traffic sign that reads "stop" on one side and "slow" on the other. We are going nowhere.
He flicks his sign like a ping-pong paddle in one hand as the other cradles an AK-47 rifle slung casually across his chest. Even pimply-faced traffic wardens get weapons here. Big weapons. There is nothing subtle about the military presence in Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital. Maybe holidaying in a conflict zone isn't my best idea but, then again, I'm not on a typical holiday.
Dias, the driver who has collected me from the airport, gets the nod from the soldier and we navigate our way out of the hullabaloo of the city. Galle Road is the backbone of the west coast, running through Colombo then down to the old colonial fort town of Galle 120 kilometres away.
The urban jungle of Colombo melts away to reveal a landscape of lush greenery, beaten back only by beach towns dotted along the way. We are heading south into palm tree country, to the sleepy coastal town of Kosgoda, 45 kilometres north of Galle, where the most dangerous encounter will be falling coconuts.
Although right on the beachfront, Kosgoda doesn't boast the bluest water or the whitest sand. For those you will have to head further south to places such as Hikkaduwa and Unawatuna. What Kosgoda does have is a community centre, the school where I'll be staying and a special experience of everyday life in Sri Lanka.
No, this is not your average holiday. But I want to do more than scratch the surface, be more than a casual observer, so volunteering is my choice.
My role at Kosgoda is to teach English to hyperactive five- to seven-year-old children and work with some of the poorer families in the community. Although it is a tranquil little town now, Kosgoda was devastated by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and is still recovering.
I dump my gear in a simple room off the side of the school. It's clean and has just enough space to fit two single beds with mosquito nets, a table and a squeaky ceiling fan. My introduction to my charges is over lunch in the school's outdoor dining room, where 40 children sit at a long table shielded by a tin roof. Volunteers, all of them travellers like me, are dishing up plates of chickpeas to children who devour their free meal.
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