A resume

Being back in Germany again I miss the sunshine and the warm climate in Sri Lanka. It's raining and it's cold in Düsseldorf. Horrible.... But on the other side it's nice to see my friends again.

It's time to make a resume of my time in Sri Lanka. In following I'd like to summarise all my activities that I conducted during my 3-months-stay.

IT-training

• Extended the IT-basics course with additional content (at FOG)
• Created advanced web programming syllabus (PHP/MySQL) which can be easily added as an additional module to the web design or programming syllabus (at FOG).
• Conducted a IT-basics class for a group of teachers at Gintota secondary school (at FCS)

Yoga

• Conducted 3 Yoga classes at the sports centre for under 15/over 15 kids of cricket and swimming teams (at FOG)
• Conducted a Yoga class at Gintota secondary school for 13th grade students

Business Productivity Outsourcing (for FOG)

• Supported FOG-staff with coordination of the 2 existing BPO projects
• Created a compelling covering letter (2 pager with the profile of FOG describing the holistic village model and it's services) 
• Applied with covering letter as a BPO subcontractor at several big international BPO companies who are also doing business in Sri Lanka
• Setup accounts in job portals (Elance and oDesk) to create applications for BPO jobs. Applying for several BPO jobs (data entry, copy writing, web research, etc.) per week. 
• Setup workshop to introduce BPO initiative to potential BPO agents (graduates of FOG IT-courses) and check availability of resources
• Support in the strategic planning of the BPO initiative

Cooperations (with FOG)

• Succeeded in setting up a cooperation between Dialog/FOG with Dialog offering a wide range of services which could enhance the work of FOG in future
• Initiated a cooperation with the training company Corporate Skills. Corporate Skills shall provide trainings for free for the BPO staff of FOG in the near future  

Collected Donations

• 1 multimedia projector
• 80 USB pen drives
• 20 mobile broadband USB dongles
• 50 microSD memory cards 
• 5 mobile broadband MiFi Routers

When reading all the listed things above I can hardly believe that I did all this. But it's the reality and I'm very happy that I could contribute this.
But what makes me happy the most is that I met so many nice people during these 3 months in Sri Lanka. So many of them made a difference to me and showed up to me with so much gratitude, hospitality and friendship. I have no words for this....

I want to thank the people who made my stay an unforgetable event:

Saman - Dasun - Fazana - Kushil - Dilip - Suranga - Anura - Gayani - Amila - Champa - Sampath - Anjula - Thushara - Athula - A. Subhana - Lucky - Jesse - Natalie - Ed - Leonora - Claire - Alex - Myles - Ranjith T. - Dhammika - Deepika - Udhithika - Dayani - Supun - Chaminda - Ariyapala - L.G. - Aruna - Ven. Jnanarathana - Ven. Mahaname - Ven. Dhammarathana - Ven. Munirathana - Ven. Mahinda - Ven. Sugatharathana - Ven. Sugunarathana - Ven. Indharathana - Ven. Somarathana - Ven. Samitharathana - Ven. Amitharathana - Ven. Pangnarathana - Ven. Sangharathana - Ven. Mudhitharathana - Ven. Mudhithamano - Ven. Guttasila - Brother Noah Yuttadhammo - Ven. Anoma - Ven. Manirathana - Lyndon Mason - Kalhari - Sonia - Janakie - Michael - Keerthi - Ranjit & Moneena - Dilum - Chapa - Emesha - Iresha - Sheriff - Nandha - Lokumama - Obash - Shyamila - Dimuthu - Anusha - Punmihi Anuhas - Nandasiri - Judy

Thank you for everything!!!

Who knows... maybe I'll be back one day to continue my work in Sri Lanka.....

A message to Mr. Esley and a journey into the past

Unfortunately I'm ill these days. I got the worst fever flu since decades and cannot do anything except resting in bed. I cancelled all appointments and activities and just try to do nothing.

But even this bad incidence showed up some good sides. Yesterday night for example I couldn't sleep due to the high fever and also my mind was restless and jumping from one subject to another. So I was abiding in a delirium state lasting nearly all night. A bit like the 90ies TV series "Twilight Zone" actually :-). Several interesting ideas and thoughts, experienced past memories but also a lot of confusion and obscurities came into my head. What a pity that I was too weak to stand up and write them down... But one thing I remember which I will explain in the following:

Recently Mr. Esley (code name) told me that he read through my blog posts and had the feeling that the posts sound to him like a adventure story for children with all these snakes, lizards, bats, etc.. I was happy to hear from my dear and close friend Mr. Esley. But I also felt a bit irritated because of his comment. It was completely not my intention to give this blog an adventure touch. Minutes went by thinking it over and over again. Then suddenly some memories out of my early childhood arised. It was the time when I was between 3-7 years old. During that time me and my parents lived in Kandy, Sri Lanka. Like video clips I could recall at once many situations where I played in our garden (which I experienced as a tropic rainforest because of it's wilderness) or at neighbours' places. There were so many encounterings with animals during this period. Dears, monkeys, elephants, jackals, snakes, lizards, scorpions, centipedes, ants, etc. in all colours, shapes and sizes. I always faced them with no fear but interest and friendship which was sorrowed my parents a lot. There were a lot of incidents where my father need to kill very poisonous snakes in the garden. But luckily I never got harmed seriously. These 5 years have really left a remarkable trace in me. No wonder that in the early eighties when we came to Germany my favorite cinema movie was Mowgli, the Indian boy living in the djungle with most animal being his friends :-).

So I guess with having this landmark in my soul I understand now Mr. Esley's comment. Yeah and he's right. I still love animals, I still freeze when I see an interesting animal around to watch and I still feel not much fear when encountering fierce creatures (Of course a lion would scare me....). And this after more than 30 years! Funny how psychology works...

I could tell some more stories about Yesterday's twilight zone experiences but I feel tired now....

So thank you Mr. Esley for providing this comment which resulted in gaining this insight.

It may be the last time though that I will report anything about animals in this blog. Only 3 days left, then I'll be back in Germany. And I guess not a lot interesting thins will happen within the next days.

But stay tuned. I'll be back soon to publish the last blog post(s)!

A weekend in Colombo to link two loose ends

I was the weekend in Colombo. FOG's founder Kushil Gunasekara invited me to his home in Colombo and I was happy to accept the invitation on Sunday. Coincidently he had also an appointment with an Buddhist monk from New Zealand in the evening and he asked me whether I would like to join. Of course! This was one of these opportunities you rarely have in live. So I accompanied him to the wise buddhist monk who stayed 7 years alone meditating in the Sri Lankan forest. It was really awesome to speak to him. You could feel his mindfulness in every second of the conversation. After 3 enlightening hours of talk we left the place. Also a monk needs to rest :-)

On Monday I had a business meeting with a good friend of my cousin who offered to support FOG with corporate skills trainings. This was a very interesting and profitable offer for FOG at this point in time where FOG wanted to set up more BPO services to provide a sustainable income for the foundation's activities. Therefore I directly discussed this with FOG and we made the appointment on Monday evening and Fazana Ibrahim, head of the IT and psycho-social section, came with me. It was a very good discussion and we made a plan how to move forward and which steps to take next. I was very happy to make this link between the two dots.....

Unfortunately when I travelled back to Colombo Tuesday morning my body was aching and I felt ill. When I arrived in the Southern Province again I had already fever. Due to the heavy rain in the past days many people where ill and it was only a matter of time when that I would get infected :-(. 

Ok now no work anymore just rest and relax the next days...

A wonder this bus can drive....

Oh my gosh I've seen a lot during my time in Sri Lanka but this piece of scrap was nearly impossible to believe if I haven't seen it with my own eyes.....

Take a look:

Sri Lankan mobile operator Dialog supporting FOG

When I prepared my volunteer project in Germany I contacted the mobile operator Dialog in Sri Lanka. Dialog is Vodafone's partner network in Sri Lanka as Vodafone has no direct presence in this country. With the help of some very supportive colleagues at Vodafone I got the contacts of the COO and CTO. I send an email describing my project and soon after got a positive response from Supun Werasinghe, the Chief Operating Officer of Dialog in Sri Lanka. He introduced me to Michael de Soyza who is heading the department of social affairs. With this connection set up I went to Sri Lanka and started my work. I always kept the Dialog connection in mind but the first weeks here were quite a struggle for me as I had some problems to obtain the appropriate visa. At the beginning I also had no clue how Dialog could help other than providing cash or equipment. My intention was to setup a sustainable partnership and not one time donation. 

A few weeks ago I contacted Dialog again with some ideas on how to cooperate with the Foundation of Goodness. Dialog was luckily still willing to help and Yesterday we had a meeting with Michael de Soyza at the FOG centre in Seenigama. It was a very fruitful discussion and Michael came up with some interesting ideas for Dialog's potential support:

1. Medical Centre
• Provide capability for video surgery in case of additional assistance of medical experts is needed. With this capability (video application and dedicated internet line) it is possible to incorporate medical experts from all over the world
• Provide health care applications. Examples: web based patient database or sms application which is able to send reminder sms to patients treated in the Seenigama medical centre. The reminder sms can be individually configured to the patients medical treatment (e.G. 3 sms per day reminding the patient to take the list of drugs to take)
2. Business services
• Implementation of SME Toolkit. Dialog has already vast experience in enabling their salesforce (partnering shops) to enhance their business through the SME Toolkit. It needs to be assessed how FOG could avail on this
• Tradenet.lk is a mobile application which brings together people who offer or need specific things. It's a bit like ebay but also different as it only brings together people via sms/email based on their profile on the platform
3. Children's club
• Dialog has a portal where customers can buy pictures for mobile wallpapers. The children in the pre school and the children's club are drawing a lot of pictures during their time they spent at FOG. These pictures could be photographed and then be uploaded to the Dialog's web portal where customers could buy these pictures.
4. IT
• The FOG IT education centre in Seenigama qualifies a lot of people of the rural community in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. Dialog maybe can set up an ICT Application Development lab where applications can be tested by the students and Dialog gets the consolidated feedback looped back as input for further development. If the students are skilled enough the could even develop applications for Dialog.

These are the results of the first session yesterday. We will follow up in the next weeks to detail the concept and carve out the necessary steps to take from both sides. I'm really happy that a simple email to the COO of Dialog turned out to the beginning of a promising partnership between Dialog and FOG. I'm sure my FOG colleagues will sustain the momentum we now created to build up the Dialog partnership. I will anyway keep an eye on it when I'm back in Germany... :-)

Saying goodbye to Gintota school

Yesterday I held the last yoga class and also the last IT-course for the teachers as the school vacation has started now. Both classes, the teachers and the students, handed over some small gifts to me. I was very pleased because their thankfulness was so impressing. But the highlight was today. The school principal invited to the lunch party at a hotel nearby. All teachers were attending the party and I have never seen so many people singing on stage. Nearly every second teacher went to the stage (a band was hired for this event) and sang a song. Not everyone was a singing talent though :-). But It was nice to see how committed the people where to contribute something to the party. Nice....

Even the principal performed a song on stage:

The party went from 11:30 am to 3 pm. The last two hours (after lunch) the teachers danced and danced and danced.....

A bat and a snake

I cannot resist to post again about some animals that recently crossed my way (see also my previous posts on this topic: 1 and 2).... 

The first incidence was at the Buddhist temple in Hikkaduwa where I was about to teach the child monks one evening. Unfortunately there was a power cut when I came so we could not do the computer class. So we chatted about this and that when a bat accidently flew into a room of the temple. The kids got very excited and tried to catch the batch. When they captured it I told them not to hurt the animal but to go out and release it again. I took the following video of the bat's escape.

The next encounter was today morning when a rat snake crossed my way to work. Luckily this snake was not poisonous so I grabbed my camera and took these shots:

The rat snake is seeking cover in the bush of century plants

 

Some findings about Sri lankan people

During my stay in Sri Lanka I was mindfully observing the way people are working together in this country. I recognised some remarkable differences to the European culture  which I would like to point out in the following.

As a project manager who manages international Telco/IT projects I already was able to gather some experience in in a multi cultural working environment. I worked a few years closely together with a supplier company from Israel and also with other companies from China, Korea, Spain, etc. Also Vodafone internally the communication is already very international as it is a multi national company operating in over 20 countries all over the world.

One very funny behavioural pattern of the people is when they shake their heads. I guess many tourists experience this behaviour as quite awkward. During conversation people often shake their heads when listening to someone. The movement of the head resembles the way of shaking your head when you are denying something. But the meaning is far away from that! It means neither 'no' nor 'yes'. Thats the funny thing with it, it just means 'I listen to you'. As I'm half Sri Lankan and I lived 5 years during my childhood in Kandy I'm of course familiar with this characteristic. But it's maybe the most astonishing behaviour a foreigner can experience here (and as well in India) therefore I want to mention it in this context.

But there were also some new things and challenges for me during the past 2 months. One is that people switch their attention very quickly to different subjects. I had several times a discussion with somebody and in the middle of the conversation somebody came around to ask something and immediately my conversation partner switched to another discussion no matter how unimportant it was. Also people do not even ask whether they may interrupt your discussion. They just do. I find it therefore very difficult to focus on a topic during a discussion when you are interrupted all the time and your conversation partner(s) are distracted so often. But for the people its normal. The same with phone calls. If the hand phone is ringing the call is always answered no matter who the caller is. Any discussion, no matter how important, is second priority when you get a call. This happens also on events where somebody is having a speech to an audience. This would be unthinkable in the 'western' culture! Also during my courses people often get calls and they even stay in the room and have their phone conversations in parallel to the lesson. Quite challenging to stay cool when this happens.... For a person who is used to structured and focused conversations or discussions this is a real challenge. I had an interesting conversation with a German friend about this topic. He prepared a master thesis about the cultural challenges in working environments where people from Germany and India are working together. The above described behaviour was also a topic in his work. He told me that the people always want to get the best out of all. This can also mean that 5 things at one time are being done. Unfortunately most people think have the ability of multi-tasking but they are not realy capable of doing this.... But to some extent it is also just a different approach which is very unfamiliar to people living in a western culture. Especially for the Germans who are known to be very structured etc. this is a huge challenge :-).

Another behaviour characteristic is that the people are very helpful. I watched them often helping each other at work. They are always very supportive willing to solve the problems of others. I was very impressed by the following event: Recently the FOG founder's mother passed away. All employees of FOG came to the funeral in Colombo, most of them travelling 3 hours in a bus to reach the location!

Also the people are very hospitable. I was invited to the homes of people uncountable times. Even strangers invited me to visit their homes when I had chats with them during my numerous bus travels between Colombo and the Southern Province.

So, there are also many more charercteristics and habits of the people here (listening to radio and TV in highest volume, drinking incredebly sweet juices, tea and other drinks, hot food -> the hotter the better, etc.) but this would fill a book.... 

Somebody said 1 gram of practice is worth more than tons of theory. So come and find out yourself :-)

Some FOG-events in November

Recently FOG celebrated an English & Tamil day (as posted in my previous <blog>). This time it was in combination with the tamil language course. I attended the first 30 min of the celebration which started with some worship rituals where FOG founder Kushil Gunasekara, FOG general manager Sampath Viraj Prasanjana, IT & Psycho social section head Fazana Ibrahim & others were coloured with a Hindu point on their forehead (the majority of the Tamils are Hindus in contrast to the Singhalese which are mostly Buddhist). I also got painted and I looked very different afterwards (my impression). What a difference a small dot on the forehead can make!

Sampath Viraj Prasanjana and Kushil Gunasekera 

Sampath Viraj Prasanjana and Suranga Jayasekera Arachchi

Sampath Viraj Prasanjana, Suranga Jayasekera Arachchi and Fazana Ibrahim

After the painting session the crowd wandered into the ceremony hall. 

Soon all seats were occupied but still a croud was standing around watching the event. This time many people came. Before people started to speak on stage the obligatory Sri lankan intro ceremony took place, the lighting of oil lamps. Again the management team of FOG was asked to come to the front and one after the other lighted an oil lamp. I had to light one too :-). Unfortunately I then had to leave as I was about to conduct a Yoga class at the sports centre shortly. So I left.... But a complete report can be found here . And there was also some press echo to be found here.

Friday 18th of Nov Microsoft came to visit FOG with a bunch of volunteers. This was a nice event as Microsoft sent experts for many units of the foundation (IT, business, pre school,  house holding, etc.) to provide expertise and conduct workshops for the people attending the FOG courses. One very interesting event was the donation of the multipointer computer projector which was installed at the pre school. This device enables 6 kids at one time to play games or learn under the direction of person who controls the multipointer from a separate working desk. A very cool device. See in following some videos of the multipointer system.

Also for this event you can find more information here.

More animals passing my way

Here is an update to my previous blog post about Animals which crossed my way. Lizards in all shapes and sizes are quite common in Sri Lanka. See here some quite big water monitors in the following two videos:

An animal which is not that often around is the grizzled giant squirrel, the big brother of the normal squirrels you see here everywhere. See here a snapshot of a nice specimen:

Kathina-Ceremony at the Buddhist temple in Hikkaduwa

Yesterday I had the opportunity to join the Buddhist Kathina ceremony conducted by the temple in Hikkaduwa where I teach the monk kids. The chief monk invited me for this once in a year ceremony of the temple which is kind of the biggest party that buddhist monks are having :-). Not really knowing what shall await me in the evening I approached the temple at 9pm. I was told that the main event will be from 2-6am where a procession through the surrounding villages is taking place accompanied by thousands of villagers....

I heard first some rhythmic drum sounds and some flashy tones which came close to the sound of a trumpet. The following video shows the guys who made the music:

Until 2am in the night the monks were singing buddhist Pali verses. Inbetween some statues or other relics where solemnly carried to certain places in the temple. Many laypersons were sitting in and around the temple buildings praying or watching the scenery. An important relic (silver stupa) was then passed by the chief monk to a small boy (dressed as an ancient prince symbolising maybe an important person in the buddhist history) who carried the relic to a sacred room where it was deposited:

Later the procession began and several pickups carrying symbols like a golden buddha statue or several small buddha statues started in walking pace. More and more people joined and soon thousands of people came together in the middle of the night. This was really surreal!

Kathina procession in the streets of Hikkaduwa

I didn't wait till the end of the procession because I wanted to witness the ordination ritual which took place at the temple. At 4:30am I went back to the temple accompanying the chief monk. See following sequence of pictures I took of the ordination ritual:

The head of the small monk is getting shaved. The little boy was sighing silently. Poor boy, he realised now that his further live would be the life of a monk, apart from family and friends.....Quite hard to take for a boy of his age I find.....

After getting rid of the hair white clothes are worn

He looks nice in the white dress but the little monk aspirant is so sad....

A last hug of his mother can't ease his sorrow

The ordination process begins....

Now the monk robe is put on

Already looks like a monk now....

The buddhist ordination ritual is taking place

Beautiful buddha statue in a separate temple building

A lot of ornaments and further statues are telling the ancient story of the buddha

At last at 5:30am I arrived home. Luckily today is a free day due to fullmoon which is a bank holiday in Sri Lanka.....

Yoga class for the FOG cricket team

Yesterday I conducted another yoga class. This time for the kids cricket team of the foundation. All kids were below 13 years of age. Luckily I had support by Thusara (manager of the sports academy) and Anjula (cricket team coach) helping me with Sinhala translation and the instructions.

See following sequence of pictures with the instructions below the pics explaining my instructions (some poses of Surya Namaskar are missing though, for a complete sentence please ask your yoga teacher or have a look here (Ashtanga style) or here (Shivananda style)):

With a deep inhalation, raise both arms above your head and tilt slightly backward arching your back.

With a deep exhalation, bend forward and touch the ground, both palms in line with your feet, forehead touching your knees.

Hold your breath and straighten both your hands, legs and back. Your neck spine, thighs and feet should be in a straight line. Then lower your body to the ground

With a deep inhalation, slowly raise your head and your chest arching your back as much as possible. No weight is on your hands

Exhaling deeply, again push your butt and hips up towards the ceiling, arms aligned straight with your head. The heels are striving to the ground keeping your legs straight

Exhaling deeply, rise up and touch the ground, keeping both your palms in line with your feet, forehead touching your knees.

And here also some video snippets from the class:

 

Yesterday's class was the first of 3 additional weekly Yoga classes (cricket and swimming team of the foundation). Now I conduct 4 classes in sum.

Actually I haven't had any plans to teach Yoga in Sri Lanka. It was just by chance when the Gintota school principal asked me to teach his students when I told him that I practise Yoga in Germany. Now I'm having 4 classes a week and I still can't believe it that I'm doing this. But it's great to see that the kids are enjoying so much. And it's even more fun for me to teach Yoga than the other IT-stuff (except the IT-class for the monks, this one is really so great because of the children...). Sometimes your life takes unexpected turns and delivers you to places you haven't expected to be possible.....

Leadership workshop with kids from the psycho-social unit of FOG (including a Yoga class at start)

FOG has also a unit which provides psycho-social support for villagers living in Seenigama and around. See following link for detailled information. On Saturday a leadership seminar for youngsters was held at the premises of the foundation. A week before Fazana Ibrahim, the head of psycho-social unit, asked me whether I would like to conduct a Yoga lesson for the participants of the workshop. I agreed  and asked for her support during the lesson to translate from English to Sinhala in case my Sinhala should abandon me.... (most of the kids were not able to understand English).

Saturday 9:00am I started the course. 25 kids were present at this morning and they may wondered about what they will going to face during the next hour....

Starting the yoga class

Me and Fazana demonstrating the downward facing dog

Kids practising the downward facing dog

Kids completing a sun salutation

Demonstrating the cobra

Kids practising the cobra

Preparing for Trikonasana

Tree posture

streeeeeetching the leg....

The hardest part :-)

Finishing the class

I conducted a very basic Yoga course because there were only beginners attending the course. Most of them never heard of Yoga which is quite strange as Yoga has been developed not far away from here, in India. Anyway, we practiced a lot of sun salutations and some easy yoga postures afterwards. The kids were quite flexible (must be the genes :-)). After about one hour the lesson was over and the kids were fit to jump into the leadership workshop.

Unfortunately I was not able to follow what the kids were doing afterwards in the workshop. There were 3 teachers with different approaches. I have selected some pics in the following where one can get an impression of the following leadership workshop (team-building exercises and other games, presentation mode, etc.). It must have been great fun!

Presentation

Teamwork

Artwork

What the hell is that? Looks like a weird Voodoo game

Presentation of team work?

Final discussion

Practising yoga with the kids was really fun although the language is a challenge for me as my Sinhala is still not good enough to explain everything in necessary the grade of detail. But it's getting better the longer I'm here, I already learnt a lot from Fazana's Sinhala translations. What I really like is that Yoga unfolds it's effect immediately while you are practising it. Unlike IT-trainings were you get the benefit only after several lessons. Therefore the kids really enjoyed their first yoga class.

I'm looking forward to conduct two additionaly weekly yoga classes for the kids swimming and cricket team of the foundation. The classes will start next week.....

Donating a multimedia projector to Gintota school

A friend in Germany just donated some money for my project. I am very happy as this happens at the right time. With this money I bought a multimedia projector in Germany which my friend Alex brought to Sri Lanka. This projector will help me during the weekly lessons for the teachers as it is a lot easier to teach in a presentation mode than having to write everything onto the black board (as you can see on the following pic).

My first lesson with the new beamer. What a difference...

I already used the beamer in the last lesson on Thursday but today at the school's assembly I officially donated the projector to the school during the assembly. I was impressed that school starts always with a 20min assembly event where all teachers, students and the principal are present. It has quite a ceremonial touch as you can see in the following videos:

So today me and Alex were present at this event. After performing some rituals and singing the national anthem the principal spoke to the audience. He introduced me and explained what I'm doing here at the school during my 3 months stay. Then he asked me to come and say some words to the audience... Ups.... I didn't expect to speak to the audience so I was a bit exited when I entered the 'stage'. My audition was completely freestyle but I think it went ok as I got a big applause :-). May be I was the first 'foreigner' who gave a speech at their assembly!

Me live on stage....

Note from Nov. 4th:
Yesterday I had a good coaching session with the teachers. This time in the computer room together with the new multimedia projector (last time we had to use the chemistry laboratory due to missing keys for the computer room).

The white thing on the left is the project, my notebook on the right side

Sorry, not a perfect picture but at least the teachers are on it :-)

The lessons are now much more effective with the new multimedia projector. This device can be even used together with a DVD player. It also has sound output. This is ideal for showing films or learn DVDs during school lessons. What a great benefit for the school!

Thank you Sigrid for the donation. As you can see in this post, you did a very good thing to the people here!

Teaching Yoga at Gintota school

Today I gave a yoga lesson in Gintota school. See some pics and a video of the 6:30 morning class:

Here in this building the yoga class is taking place

correcting the yoga postures

I have to sweat as well :-)

 And here a video snapshot:

Yoga practice in Hikkaduwa

I'm so glad that I found the Yoga studio Kailash in Hikkaduwa. It is located on the roof of the very nice Kailash hotel and the owner Lyndon Mason is having a yoga class every morning. 

Kailash Hotel + Yoga studio as seen from the main street

Entrance way

Appartments and the yoga studio on top of the building (Lyndon is already waving with his hands :-))

Now I'm able to learn and improve my own yoga practice. Lyndon is a very skilled yogi and is having a relaxed and humorous way of teaching shivananda yoga (Vishnu Devananda style). And I learnd already a lot in the past 3 lessons!

See here 2 video snapshots from Lyndon's yoga practise....

Note from Dec. 11th:
After weeks of practice the scorpion pose feels not so difficult :-). It's has not the beauty and elegance as Lyndon's scorpion pose but at least it's a start....