Getting Caught Up

Hello everyone,

Apologies for the massive delay in postings. I've been fairly sick the past two days with a throat thing (unfortunately, I think it's a mixture of exhaustion and the orphanage) so I've been pretty exhausted at night and not really in a "writing" mood. So I'll do my best to summarize the past few days!

On Friday, we had originally planned to do a 6hr hike (3hrs there, 3hrs back) to a "local" monastary, but when confronted with the waking up at 7am, few people got up. This was when I started to feel really sick (horrible sore throat) so I backed out and went back to sleep. They decided to postpone the hike until a later date when we would all be up for it. Instead, a few people went out on a shorter hike to a monastary (I continued to sleep). I woke up around 1030, and sat around with Alex, Rebecca and Steven until about 1 when we had a lighter lunch. After that, we decided to go into town for a few things. Steven wanted to get some shorts, Rebecca needed a few cardigans and Alex and I wanted to get a whiteboard for the orphanage to play Hangman on.

It was raining like crazy (it's been raining for the past 2.5 days nonstop) so after walking about 1/4 of the way into town we decided to take a taxi (it cost a whole 15rupees each, or about 30cents). We were enticed by a restaurant that offered "Pizza with Pizzazz" and decided to try it. We're all starting to crave our favorite foods (for me it's sushi, which I would NOT under any circumstances get here. Or a salad), and beginning to miss our "normal" foods just a bit. So we went and shared a small pizza with mushroom, banana pancakes and fries. The pizza was overly sweet in my opinion, and Steven pointed out that it tasted a little "packaged". I tried a bite of banana pancake (that Alex kindly tried (and failed) to pick the banana pieces out of) and thought it was okay, and the fries were alright. All in all, our attempts at western food fell a little flat but was worth the adventure. Not sure if I'd mentioned this before, but one day while waiting for everyone else, Alex and I stopped at "Gangtalk" and had bruschetta and a veggie sandwhich thing which were actually REALLY good. Laura and Claudia said that  they stopped there and had something similar and really liked it as well. "Gangtalk" is our closest relative to our deeply desired Western food.

Anyways, after that Alex and I grabbed our whiteboard and went on our merry way to the orphanage. The kids were, as always, delighted to see us. The only negative that we continue to run into is that because Ms. Keepu wants us to focus on working with the Level 3/4 students (apprx. 20+ students), when there's just two of us we can't really spend time with all the younger kids who really want to spend time with us. Every day we come, they ask "where all the missus?" because they realize that we probably can't play with them. Additionally, the 3/4's police the "library" to make sure none of the younger kids come in. Alex and I find it very difficult because we want to give the younger kids attention but by the time we get there, the older kids are ready to read with us. Additionally, playing with the younger kids is more draining/difficult for us because they aren't as disciplined (as they've never been to school), so being with the essentially means running around in circles desperately trying to keep up with them. We're trying to find an activity to do with them, but with only two of us for the 30+ kids, it's very difficult.

I think the funniest part of working with the older kids though is the lengths to which they will go to make us stay. We can hear all of the younger kids upstairs praying and then going to dinner or even getting ready for bed, and we'll ask "Is it dinnertime?" and get a resounding (frequently screamed) "NO" in response. The kids love working with us and showing off their reading skills so much that they're willing to put off dinner, which I find truly amazing.

After reading for awhile with them, we decided to head home around 6. We finally got back (hoping we'd missed the Hindi lesson, only to find out it hadn't happened) and had dinner with everyone. After dinner, we played Scrabble which (no surprise here) Alex won, as he has every game we've played. We brainstormed with the other kids some games for the younger kids, and Claudia decided to draw some very basic pictures which we'll photocopy on the way into town to make coloring pages and have the kids color. The problem we run into with the younger kids is that they're so excited to show off anything they do or know that they don't want to learn from us or have us show them anything. So this is a way to keep them under control (not running around like maniacs) but allow them to show off somethin they'e done. I think on the way into town today, Alex and I are going to pick up our Harry Potter books (which have officially arrived) so that we can start reading them with the kids. We're also going to try and find some large posterboard to make a "star chart" for the kids so that anyone who reads a paragraph or explains a paragraph gets a star, and we'll give out prizes later. Rajiv also came up with the idea that we should ask Ms. Keepu how she'd feel about us taking 12 kids every few days down to the market to show them a fun time. Maybe buy them ice cream or take them to the small (SMALL) arcade...just get them out of the house for some "alone" time. We'll see how that goes.

Anyways, sorry for the rambling...I guess I just like the talk!

Lots of love,

Sara