Educational videos for teenage mothers

My fellow volunteer, Nienka the nurse has been working at Ma Savena, a teenage mothers's home. When she first started working there, the condition of the home was horrid. She said the place was filthy and depressing, and there was basically nothing great about it. All the girls had head lice, and the babies were wearing soiled clothes all day because they weren't wearing diapers!
The home is called a reform house even though those girls are the victims of rape. They are only 13-18 yrs old. They didn't do anything wrong, really. The girls are called inmates, and they are not allowed to go outside of the premise. Some of the girls stay at the home for more than a few years until they turn 18yrs old (sometime court orders that they stay at this home until they are old enough not to be the Gov's responsibility)... There is a law in place to prosecute the perpetrator, but it takes a long time. The girls tend to be hesitant to stick through the process because of the shame attached. The case quite often gets thrown out for silly reasons like a missing paperwork.
When I visited the home, a girl who was raped by her father just came back to the home with her baby. I didn't know what to say. Just too sad. She doesn't have a home to go back to either.
Nienka did fundraising in Netherlands, and she used the money to purchase new mattresses, pillows, diapers, personal hygiene items etc, etc. She made amazing changes to the home. She also taught the girls a lot about nutrition, hygiene tasks, baby care, cleaning of the house etc. She was worried that the girls and the staff might go back to their old habit once she leaves. So, we decided that we make education videos about nutrition, hygiene care, and cleaning to remind them what they need to do. We also wanted to do the videos for the new mothers arriving too. I was the camera woman, and Yoshi (another volunteer) helped as an interpreter. The videos are obviously made by amateurs, but they are funny and send clear messages. It was a fun project and also very nice to be able to work together with the fellow volunteers I respect a lot. I hope the girls will not forget what Nienka taught them.

social etiquette in Sri Lnaka

I don't really know how Sri Lankan guys interact with Sri Lankan girls socially, but the way they communicate with us, I mean female foreigners, is very different from what I'm used to in America or Japan. Awkward, really.
For instance, I was at a grocery store the other day, looking for tofu. since I didn't see it, I asked one of the shop attendants if they carry tofu. He took me to the fridge section, couldn't find tofu, and turned around to ask me "your country is?". I replied "Japan and America" And he said "your phone number is?" I just stared at his face and said "no phone number" and walked away.
It is so strange, but this seems to be such a normal progression of conversation to Sri Lankan men. He didn't even ask my name! It is always like that. After 30 seconds of conversation, they want my phone number. It's happening to all the foreigners I've met. I'm guessing they do this to us because it's not socially acceptable to do such a thing to Sri Lankan ladies. They can't really have a girlfriend like the way we do in the West. They seem to be very young and naive comes to dealing with opposite sex.

Right after I arrived to Sri Lanka, I made a mistake to give my phone number to one of the security guards at my office. I had the hardest time to understand his English, and I somewhat thought he needed my phone number because he is a security guard (not sure why I thought that). Since then, he has been calling me at least 2x/day even though I never answer the call anymore. He calls really late and early in the morning too. A similar thing happened to my housemate, Adam too. He met a Sri Lankan guy during his field trip. Apparently the guy fell in love with Adam while they were hanging out for like an hour. Since then he has been calling Adam obsessively even though they would probably never see each other again. The guy texted Adam one day, saying "I love you too." Well...Adam said this guy's English is not that great, but we are trying to figure out "too" part... It seems that this guy thinks he is in a relationship with Adam?? And just a few days ago, Adam received a text with picture of two doves kissing. The writing in it said "you and me" in Sinhale...

It's just very strange. Very different.