Phase 33: July to September 2007

You have to try many ways and you need strong assistants to help victims of violence and civil war. Michael Kreitmeir is able to travel freely
in the former civil war area because of the friendliness of this army major. Other organizations are not allowed to enter these regions, which are deemed critical.
The safety risk has to be calculated by the founder of Little Smile for every journey, but these trips to the wards on the east coast are never safe.

In July the harvest of pepper will begin. The careful management by the former manager Bandula, who started to plant pepper 7 years ago, and the good maintenance through all these
years is paying off now. People in Germany cannot imagine how much work it is to grow 10 tons of pepper. Clearly, evryone at Little Smile has to pitch in and help.

Even in the countryside it has become very difficult to get workers for the complicated pepper harvest. The pepper plants can grow to 10 meters of height. Mostly the oldest people, who were trained by a hard life, are the ones climbing
these plants to harvest the pepper corns.

Even small Sarah wants to help, removing corns from the stripes and is happy about the
recognition and additional snacks. To create something together, this catches on and nobody wants to be left out.
Playfully, the small children learn aboiut teamwork and that everone must do his or her part.

Children have to give up their volley ball court for a couple of weeks. The pepper is spread out in front of the school building every morning to dry in the sun.

Every evening and before each rain the pepper corn has to be collected. It takes 5 days to dry in the sun.

After plucking, drying and cleaning, the pepper is in Dikkapitia awaiting the trip to Germany. Big and small, the helpers are proud about their performance. Beside pepper, cinnamon, gloves and Muscat arealso harvested and exported to the AVO company in Germany.

A retired doctor relocated his medical practice via Uli Pickel from Hopfen to Sri Lanka. Today some of his machines are saving life in one of the poorest regions of Sri Lanka. No wonder that doctors and patients are happy.

End of June "big brother" Aja Manuel is visiting the children’s village again. With photos, small presents and, above all, much love, Manuel Kreitmeir is welcomed. If there were not some new “Little Smile faces” it seems that he was not away for months but only for a few days.

In Sri Lanka, the long school holidays also start at the beginning of August. Little Smile puts on a small festival to celebrate the end of the school semester and the end of the pepper harvest. The children put on dramas and sing but most of all they love to dance, liek 16 year old Shamali here.