Liyanagoda

Good morning all,
The sun is shining here, music is on, guests are happy. It is a beautiful day! We take it easy in the morning and chat with the staff and guests.

We visit Omani and her parents and they show us how far they have come with the curry herbs. All ingredients have been picked and now drying, this takes a whole day. They then grate each ingredient by hand so that it gets into a powder form. It takes about 5 days to make the herbs, it's really amazing to see them having so much fun doing it! We get a cup of tea, they give us a gift of handmade bracelets and after that we continue to Unawatuna.

We eat lunch at a place called SkinnyTom's. We order a delicious egg hopper with salmon and spinach AND oh my god they have halloumi cheese! Robin is very happy, we take a poached egg with halloumi on top and for dessert a raw chocolate bar. We get some inspiration for Ciao Bella and have a good brainstorming session. Lunch was really super tasty!

Now hop in the tuk-tuk, and again to Galle. We had Ciao Bella logo stickers made to use in the shop and decided to have shirts and caps printed for the employees. This way it looks professional every day and it is recognizable who is working. The shirts will be ready in about a week, to be continued ;)

We stop for our favorite snack the eggrol, see our friend the policeman again from yesterday and drive to a last stop. Edward jumps out of them tuk-tuk and Robin and I stay behind. We are on a little hill and I joke 'is the handbrake on?' Behind us a busy street full of traffic. We laugh and the tuk-tuk drives very slowly backwards. We scream and shout 'help' hahahaha, locals come to help immediately and Edward runs to us. Everything went well luckily, we laugh about it with locals. Happy day.

Now we are ready and we drive to Habaraduwa, we go to Minidu and Vishmi, dear neighbor children of Edward's home. We brought some fabric that we bought in the store because their mother can make beautiful cushions from this fabric. This will be ready in 3 days! We also ask if she can make clothes, but she recommends a man a little further into the village. We walk in that direction with the kids and explain our idea to the man. He really likes it and we order 15 tops from him. Tomorrow we are going to buy fabric and deliver it to the man, curious about the result! They will be one size tops for the Ciao Bella shop. Robin and I are so so excited about this part, we really think it's great to be creative and to be able to really implement everything in this way. Also to involve the locals and give them nice work so they can earn some extra money.

We go back to Ciao Bella Kabalana and have a team meeting with Sajith and Ashen. Discuss some ideas, brainstorm about the menu, the terrace, reflect on some situations and then play UNO and listen with interest to Ashen's life stories. Very interesting what he tells about his childhood, his relationship with his family, work experience and about crime in the country.

Perfect day in paradise, tomorrow is a new day. We’re going to close for a day and work together with the entire team to make Ciao Bella even more fun and beautiful.

Sleep tight!
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