FINAL WORD

Well, the truth to be told, the  leadership training was quite an experience. The Government spends millions of money for the course but the officers and the staff are not getting paid any single cent for their service!

Anyway, apart from the politics and such and such adult’s things, that was a wonderful time we spent together. Something worth to have. Something worth to remember. All the staff members and the officers were really nice to us. Not only that, meeting new friends and getting to know each other helped us to widen the border of our social circle and the social experience too.

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THE LAST DAY

We had our drill and they gave marks depending on our skills and the performance at the drill. And there was a show by Army Physical Training Instructors. Actually it was really great.

The commandant made his final speech and at the meeting they announced the winners of the 3rd batch. Well, we were 3rd in place. On the final day due to bad weather, previously decided functions, events were cancelled and we had another musical night as our final day event.

This time most of the students participated to this event and I noticed even at the dance floor some were writing and signing the autographs! There was a friend of ours, who had asked out from several girls from the first day onward but even in the final day he not a single girl had told him yes!

But one of (actually not only one) our buddies were very lucky because he could get what he wanted in the final day. Well, we were happy for him but on the other hand all of we were angry and mad at him because he missed the so-called party!

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THE CULTURAL TRIP

We went to Polonnaruwa as our cultural trip. All of the company members participated in this event.

We traveled by buses. We could cover many places on that day and we reached back at about 4’o clock in the evening.

At night, after the dinner we had a musical night too. Well that was the first musical night we had in the camp. The army band played there. Most of the students participated to that but unfortunately some of the students couldn’t due to some medical reasons.

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INSPECTIONS

Early in the morning, as I mentioned before, we had to clean the billet and the garden. Well, the officers gave us marks depending on the cleanness and the linear manner of our billets.

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TEAM WORKS

In some evenings we had to do the team works, meaning we had to perform some task as a team. Before that we were divided in to platoons. I was assigned to the 1st platoon of Wellassa Company.

We performed a three-wheel! Some others performed a tank, a bus, an aircraft, a tractor and etc. Not only that we had to build a building using our team members too! Those movements were actually great.

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THE HIKE

We went on a hike through a jungle. Even though it was fun to me, but some other did not feel the same. We travelled the way alone with other officers and staff members. Well, that experience was something worth remembering! Finally we had to prepare the lunch by ourselves and we had to build the tent too. My company did a great job in that case and because of that we could win the 1st place! We performed “Uwa-Wellassa Karalla” for the starting event of our house.

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PRESENTATION

Well, in this case the story is bit different. Even though we did the presentation in our level best, we couldn’t at least get the 3rd place! Each and every company member told us that our presentation was the best but unfortunately we didn’t win. Actually the judge board couldn’t understand our presentation. Each and every other presentation team did their presentation in a dram like manner, we were the only one who did it in a professional way, in that case may be the judge board thought that we were too professional.

 The main idea was to explain the leadership qualities of the person we selected. We had to do the presentation about Mao Zedong. And again, we were the only one who did the presentation on the qualities of leadership of Mao Zedong! The other groups just did their presentations on the social life, personal life and etc. None of them mentioned and explained the leadership qualities as we did. It’s a shame that we didn’t get a place even though we did the presentation like a presentation according to their regulations!

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DRAMA

Everyone’s main concern was the drama. In our company, even though we had some pretty good actors our team had to change the drama story more than 6 times. But, finally it was our team who won the drama competition! All of the company members helped to see the success of the drama.

The most important thing is that because our drama team was constantly changing the topic, they had not enough time to practice.

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DRILL PRACTISE

That was the all ones hated time throughout the whole course. The sun shine was at its peak level. Most of the girls were avoiding the drill practices by falling out of the parade. Well unfortunately we, boys, couldn’t do that because in “Wellassa” company there were only 26 male students and if one of ours got absent, it was highly noticed to all the other officers.

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BREAKFAST-LUNCH-DINNER-TEA TIME

Normally we had rice and curry for the 3 meals but sometimes it was different. There was bread with “pol sambal”, “kiri hodi” and egg or rice with 2 curries or milk rice for breakfast.

For lunch, we had mainly rice and curries. Well no need to mention that the taste was much more different from our homes. There was desert for some days. Usually it was a yoghurt or banana. We had noodles for the dinner sometimes. Well, when the meal was good, actually good enough according to our criteria, we used to eat two times! (For the greater good)

When it comes to the tea time, my company was the first to be lined up! Well we were 1st at least at the dinning time! Any way I still remember the taste of the milk tea we had at our first working day! I was shocked. But when I looked at my friend’s faces I realized that I was not the only person who was shocked by the taste of our so-called milk tea. Some of my friends just threw their tea but later we all got along with the taste of our tea. We usually had 2 biscuits with our tea but I found that for some of my friends, it was about 5-8 biscuits! Well, we all know that first to come is first to serve. Right?

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THE FIRST DAY

In my billet there were 26 students. Ten out of them were Sinhalese while the rest of others were Tamil. Language problem was a headache at first because most of them couldn’t understand English either. But later we could resolve it through our translators. 31st of October was the starting day of the leadership course.

So we had to wake up at about 4.00 am in the morning and cleaned the area including our billet. From on the first day, I realized that there are 3 major problems. Waking up early in the morning? No it was not a problem for me because when I was doing A/Ls I woke up at about 3 am. But that was a major issue for some of the others.

Any way back to the topic, the first problem was the washroom. Actually we didn’t have something to call as washroom but the toilets only. And they were terribly bad. At first I couldn’t think what to do. The other problem was the bed. It was small for me. I couldn’t even sleep properly because of its small size and the comfort of the mattress! Apart from those problems, actually the billet was okay. At the first day we had the starting ceremony (actually a speech). We were introduced to the camp site and so on. That was it, the end of the first day.

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THE STARTING JOURNEY

It was the 30^th of Thursday of October, my father and me started to go to Polonnaruwa early in the morning.  Well, it was about 5 hour’s journey. We traveled by using public transportation bus. After reaching Polonnaruwa, we had our breakfast there. That is where we found out that there was a bus to the Army Base at Maduru oya. It was a great thing because if we had to use the public transportation again at this time, then it would take extra time to reach the destination.

The bus was full of university students. Most of them were girls. Some of they were talking like they were known each other since child hood. Finally we reached to the army base. No need to mention that the climate and the natural surrounding were so different than my town area. The entrance was decorated by some art works. Well that was it.

After completing the registration process I was assigned to “Wellassa” Company. After that I had to departure from my father. Well that was it. End of the registration and the new life of 20 days was about to begin.

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