Pen pals in Sri Lanka

Once a month, on the day of the full moon, Sri Lanka takes a public holiday. These are Poya days, rooted in Buddhist observance: schools and banks close, many shops do too, alcohol sales stop, and many Buddhists spend part of the day at a temple dressed in white. Each Poya has its own name and meaning, so a pen pal's calendar has a rhythm that follows the moon as well as the week. If a letter mentions "the long weekend", it may well be a full moon that made it.

Two languages, two scripts, one island

Sinhala and Tamil are both official national languages, and English is recognised as a link language, widely used in business, universities and the media. Sinhala is spoken by the majority; Tamil is spoken across the north and east, in the tea-growing hill country and by many Muslim Sri Lankans. Each has its own script, both full of rounded, looping letters, and they are not interchangeable.

A pen pal may be comfortable in English but more expressive in Sinhala or Tamil. If you are learning either, ask them to add a line in their own script to each letter; seeing handwriting next to a transliteration is one of the quickest ways in. "Ayubowan" ("may you live long") is the Sinhala greeting you will often see written; in Tamil, "Vanakkam".

Weather that depends on which side you are on

Sri Lanka sits just north of the equator, so it is warm all year in the lowlands, and the seasons that matter are the monsoons. The south-west monsoon brings rain to the west and south roughly from May to September; the north-east monsoon soaks the north and east from around December to February. A pen pal in Colombo and one in Jaffna may be having opposite weeks. Up in the hill country, around towns such as Nuwara Eliya, evenings are cool enough for a jumper, which surprises people who picture only beaches.

The school year follows the calendar year, starting in January, with three terms. Rice and curry, several small dishes around a mound of rice, is a typical lunch rather than an occasional treat, and in many homes tea from the island's own hills is drunk throughout the day.

A year of shared festivals

• Sinhala and Tamil New Year, usually on 13 or 14 April, is celebrated by both communities. Families follow auspicious times for lighting the hearth, boiling milk and eating the first meal, then visit relatives and play traditional games.
• Vesak, on the full moon in May, marks the birth, enlightenment and passing of the Buddha. Streets glow with paper lanterns, and volunteers run dansal, roadside stalls handing out free food and drinks.
• Deepavali, Christmas and the Eid festivals are also public holidays, reflecting the island's Hindu, Christian and Muslim communities. Lunar dates move each year.

One misconception to set aside: Sri Lanka is sometimes treated as an extension of India. It is its own country with its own history, languages and food, and while there are deep connections across the Palk Strait, a pen pal will usually appreciate being asked about Sri Lanka on its own terms.

Our letter prompts work well alongside these questions.

Where to begin

• Which Poya day matters most in your family, and what do you do on it?
• How does your household spend Sinhala and Tamil New Year?
• Which monsoon reaches your town, and what changes when it arrives?
• What do you put in your lunchbox, or what does your rice and curry usually include?