Day 12

"Say Good Morning
Say Good Morning
How are you?
How are you?
Let the day be joyful
Let the day be joyful
For you and me
For you and me"

If you could only see these children…

They are absolutely beautiful.

When they saw Ariana was back, their eyes positively lit.

"ARIANA! Didi, Didi"

(Didi means big sister in Hindi)

And Ariana's reaction wasn't much different. If we hadn't been just visiting and she wasn't worried about disrupting their studies, I know she would have gathered them up one by one and hugged them until school was over. She is already talking about how sad she is going to be when she has to leave again.

I think I speak for both Allie and I when I say we instantly fell in love with our first grade class. We will be teaching a classroom of eight students, five boys and three girls. They are so tiny and precious, but I can tell we are gonna have a bit of trouble with a few of the boys. One of the boys, Pawan has a reputation for being cheeky. You can just tell by the way he batts his big brown eyes and smiles that big grin that he knows how to get what he wants.

He and he alone is probably the reason they need two teachers in that class instead of just one… and Guarav says we might even need a third.

But I think Allie and I got a handle on it.

Needless to say visiting the school, day care, and orphanage today made us that much more thrilled about helping the children. We start tomorrow, which means lesson planning tonight. Allie and I are making name tags for each of the children to decorate tomorrow. We will also be going over the alphabet and few animals, playing some games, then wrapping up with story time. We get an hour and a half with them each day, so we got to make it count.

It is a blessing that these kids have a school to go to at all. None of their parents have attended school and the community doesn't value education as much as it does early child labor. However, Channel youth and the kids who volunteer with their program are trying to slowly change this mindset. Since Channel Youth began its program more kids in the community have been attending school and less have been dropping out. They still have a long way to go, but bit by bit they are making a difference.

And there is a way for you to make a difference as well.

Pray for rain.

Being from the The Pacific Northwest I never thought I would see the day when I would actually wish for rainfall. It was, after all, raining for thirty days straight before we left. And here we stand now in a drought. This community depends on rainfall. If the monsoons don't come soon many of the farmers' crops will, not to mention many others won't have sufficient drinking water. In addition, it is really, REALLY hot, and, again I can't believe I am saying this, a good rain would feel pretty good right about now.

So pray for rain. Pray for a lot of rain….

I realize I haven't mentioned who we are actually living with here in Udaipur. Let me enlighten you.

The staff who work here are Ritu, Ravi, Guarav, and Mena Ji.

Ritu is an amazing woman. When I hurt my back the second day I was here, she was very concerned with making sure I got better. She offered to take me to a doctor or physical therapist if I wasn't feeling better within a few hours. Luckily, it never came to that, but it's good to know Ritu is there watching out for all of us. She also knows where the best shops are for everything and is taking us shopping for Sarees on Saturday.

Ravi is so cute. Ravi is sooooo cute! He is the newest staff member here so he gets sent to do the dirty work like enforcing house rules. "Don't sit on the wall" "Turn off the lights" "Time to leave". However, it was very apparent from the time he gave us the tour of the house that he is actually very shy. I think it is his English that makes him self conscious, but once he relaxes he is the biggest joker among the staff. He has the biggest best smile I think I have ever seen. SOOO CUTE!

Guarav is the third coordinator. He oversees most of the field work so I haven't gotten a lot of time to gage his personality. The only time I have really talked to him was during orientation and both times I almost fell asleep. It was the material being covered that was boring, not him, but I still felt bad when I realized he had caught me dozing off once or twice. From what I can tell he is a tough shell to break. He is really nice to all the volunteers and always willing to help, but I feel like letting loose might be more difficult for him than the other two coordinators. We shall see.

Mena Ji is the always happy, smiling cook. "Ji" is a sign of respect in Hindi. Add it after the name of people whom you hold in high regard, usually older, wiser members of the community. Mena Ji makes three meals a day for everyone in the house and they never fail to be absolutely delicious. You would think I would start to get tired of Indian food after a week, but I find myself looking forward to each meal. There is always something different I have never tried and it is all made from scratch. It is definitely a nice healthy change from the junk we were eating in Delhi.

The volunteers who are staying with us at the moment, Sara, Lauren, Shelby, Emily, and Jack, are all from different parts of Australia and are all around 18 years old. Again, I haven't really gotten a good chance to gage their individual personalities, but they all seem easy-going. The first day we were here they told Ariana, Allie and me that Shelby was deaf and dumb. They put on a good act too, calling her stupid and crazy behind her back. Even Mena Ji told us to watch out for her. Then we were all down at a shop and all of a sudden, Shelby took off running and Jack chased her down. Ariana and I just looked at each other like, "What the heck is going on and how is this girl teaching students?" We didn't find out until a game of spoons when Shelby all of a sudden started talking that it had been a prank the whole time…

We'll get them back...

And of course Ariana and Allie are here as well. Seriously, I couldn't ask for better room mates. We make the perfect traveling trio because we are all down to try new things and can laugh at ourselves when we look stupid in the process. Our sense of humor is exactly the same as well. We can keep each other laughing all day with the millions of inside jokes we have already developed.

You know that kind of laughter that is so uncontrollable that weird sounds start coming out of your mouth you have never made before, but you are too overcome with the giggles to even take notice or care? Our laughing is worse. When we start laughing we sound like a zoo… It's especially bad at night when we keep each other and the whole house up. I feel bad for Jack who sleeps in the room across from ours and can probably hear our fits of laughter going on all night long. Between that and our random outbursts of singing, the Aussis and the staff must think we are insane… I say, why be sane when you can be a crazy American?

It is actually quite surprising to me that everyone in the house gets along so well with each other. We will have to see if that keeps up for the the next five weeks or if a war breaks out between America, Australia, and India.