Washday

Thursday, December 22

After one day of teaching at GRACE, I fell back in the my standard routine of going to Assisi in the morning and SEAM in the evening.

Our task at Assisi was to decorate for Christmas. We created an assembly line of sorts for the children to paint a Christmas tree, holly, flowers and bulbs. The kids stayed focused on this task for well over an hour. We even had Sister Rose and Sister Matilda helping out too.

We had the treat of having the first graders with us for the afternoon. They had been busy taking exams all week long. They arrived just before lunch and went about their routine of putting their bags away, changing out of their uniform and washing up for lunch. All attention was the Indian soap opera that runs from 1-2PM. There is no point in striking up a conversation with the Sisters or the kids during this show; all eyes are on the TV where it seems that the same thing happens every episode where some Indian girl starts crying.

The afternoon at Assisi was spent rehearsing a dance to the Bruno Mars, Just the Way You Are song along with dancing to a few other tunes. These kids sure have great moves.

We continued our personal hygiene project focusing on brushing teeth and washing themselves today. After their chores were done the kids linked up in a row with their toothbrush in hand. I distributed toothpaste on each kids brush and did a demonstration on how to brush your teeth. We brushed for the duration of 3 ABC’s (which I have to admit is way longer than I brush back home). Some kids had troubles keeping the paste from overflowing out of their mouth. Next was the washing demonstration led by Will, the 17-year-old volunteer who has showered only once since he arrived on Saturday. The kids were eager to follow suit, with some washing themselves three times over. ocusing on brushing teeth and washing themselves today. We wonder how effective it is because once they are done washing, they go out and play in the dirt courtyard.

Our last activity at SEAM was a special project that Joelle coordinated with her art students back in Minnesota. She had her students create a culture box of things that represented MN to share with the kids at SEAM, items included a hockey puck, teen magazine, baseball bat, a completed homework assignment, and pictures of snow. Each kid also received a letter written by the students with a picture enclosed. It was fun to see the children’s reactions to the individual letters. The older boys loved getting pictures of the attractive teens. Some kids received additional goodies including stickers and the prized possession of a $5 bill. We helped the younger kids read their letters; it was fun to share in their excitement.

Next was dinner at Stephen’s parent’s house, which is about 30 minutes away from where we are staying. The intention was for us to take auto rickshaws back to the guesthouse from SEAM to freshen up before heading out to dinner. When Will and Chris were missing at the guest house Stephen called their driver to find that he thought Stephen meant for him to drive them to his parents house and not the guest house. I can only imagine the concern that Chris and Will had when the 5 minute drive turned into a 30 minute one. I’m sure they were put at ease when they were greeted by Stephen’s mom and her beautiful smile.

We agreed that dinner at Stephen’s parents was our best meal yet. Chicken briryani, rita, aloomaddar, abbalam, vada, complete with rice pudding. Since it’s the holiday’s Stephen’s sister and her family where in town on their annual visit. We were also able to meet Little

Stephen’s (Stephen's young brother who is also our driver) 10-month-old daughter Jaclyn. After our meal, we took a tour of the neighborhood to pay a visit to Stephen’s relatives who live nearby. We visited Little Stephen, Roni (our cook), along and Stephen’s aunt and uncle. Stephen’s cousin was home with her youngest child, a 3-month-old baby, Ginny had the opportunity to attend this cousin’s wedding when she was here four years ago on her first Global Volunteers trip. Ginny was quick to hold the baby and was busy signing her songs until she realized that the baby wasn’t wearing a diaper or anything on her bottom for that matter. Ginny quickly said, “Take it back” and her grandmother quickly took the baby and put some sort of covering over the child’s bottom before returning her back to Ginny. We said our goodbyes and headed back to the guesthouse and called it a good day.

Dirty Clothing BINGO

Wednesday, December 21

It's hard to be in two places at once, but I've always been one to try and everything seems to work out. In this case, I had been missing teaching at GRACE school in the morning. I had opted to go to Assisi and spend time with Jasmine and the other kids. We were able to work it out so that I could teach for one day this week, and that's how my morning began. The children and staff of GRACE school's faces lit up when I arrived to help out. Ester, the principle was upset that I had not come earlier in the week, but she was excited and surprised to see me nonetheless. The older children were working on their exams. I was assigned to a group of four five-year-olds for the morning. Two hours of teaching the same kids at that level got a bit tiring; I was relieved when our time was up.

The plan was to head to Assisi after lunch to join Joelle and the kids until Stephen got a call that Joelle was headed to the hospital. She had a horrible reaction to something that bit her arm. Stephen wanted to check on her and I came with...on his motorcycle. Yes, I experienced darting through Indian traffic on a motorcycle. We were greeted my Dr Sr Rexline, the founder of the hospital who also founded Assisi Illam. She's quite an amazing woman and I've had the opportunity to visit with her on each trip. Joelle got some sort of shot and medication for the small price of 200 rupees (equivalent to $4)...which is less than the cost of my beer at dinner.

Joelle went home to rest and Stephen dropped me off at Assisi. I had to entertain the children myself, so I turned on some music and taught them a few dance moves. We had a blast.

Later that night, the team went to SEAM to continue on the inventory project focusing on the boys clothing and personal hygiene products. The boys brought their trunks or duffel bags full of clothing down into the courtyard and we counted how many pairs of pants, shorts, shirts, underwear (if any) they had along with toothbrush, soap, comb and towel. To make things even more chaotic, there was a large amount of dirty clothing in a community pile that had to be accounting for. So this is what we did: we gathered all of the boys into the hall with their trunks of clean clothing and divided out the

inventory sheets for the children between the five volunteers sitting at the front of the room. We brought in the massive pile of dirty laundry and had one of the boys lift up the laundry piece by piece and the kids would shout out who it belonged to. Once the kid was identified, they'd come forward to the volunteer who was holding their sheet and they'd add it to their inventory card. It felt like we were playing a practical game of BINGO. Once the child was identified, we'd have to determine which volunteer was holding their inventory card. It may not seem like it, but this was a TON of fun. I couldn't keep from laughing.

After this was all sorted out, the girls were invited into the hall and I passed out the pictures that I had taken of each child individually the day before. The kids LOVED these pictures. They were wanting us to take pictures of them holding their picture. The kids treated these photos as if it was one of their most prized possessions, which it might very well be.

Birthday Celebration

Tuesday, December 20:

I was reminded how India isn't much different than the states this morning when our yoga instructor took a call in the middle of class. Luckily we were in between poses. :)

Roshan, Stephen and Sheeba's 3-year old son, is taking a liking to me. He insists on sitting by me at meals and he tends to get his way. Having him around sure makes things interesting. At breakfast we plan out the days activities and read the team journal from the day before. I really enjoy mealtime together. It brings be back to my childhood where my family of 7 shared meals together. When there's this many people together, there are endless possibilities of where the conversation will turn. Maybe that's why I enjoy dinner parties.

Today was an extra special day at Assisi as it was Jasmine's 5th birthday. I was really excited to be able to spend a birthday with her. Jasmine was dressed in a special birthday outfit and she was the center of attention all day long (nothing new here :)). We picked up a delicious cake to share. After she blew out her candles she fed me my first bite of cake. yum yum. I gave Jasmine her birthday and Christmas gifts of a Jasmine Doll (from Aladdin), a Cabbage Patch Doll (something I always wanted as a child but never got) and a photo book that I made with pictures from my last trip. I was impressed that she wanted to look through the book and name the people in each picture before playing with her new dolls. The first thing she did with the Cabbage Patch Doll was redo her hair, which wasn't a surprise, as Jasmine's been doing my hair every chance she gets.

We started working on a paper mache project with the kids. They loved getting their hands in the glue and glue ended up everywhere. Jasmine helped me wash up. She took my hand and scrubbed it with soap, scrubbed my hand with a brush, rubbed my hand against their concrete washboard and rinsed it out. She went through this routine twice on each hand to assure that they were clean enough. This might have been the highlight of my day.

Jasmine's a fantastic helper, always eager to help clean up without being asked. I think she actually enjoys cleaning.

On the walk over to SEAM I ran into one of the children who is no longer staying there, Monie. It was great to reconnect with him and I was happy to see that he was doing well.

Our big project at SEAM is to do an inventory of all of the children's clothing and belongings. The boys were getting haircuts, so we focused on the girls today. Each girl had all of their belongings in a box (which I help build last year) under their bed. The girls were excited to show us their clothing and it was our job was to make sure that it still fit and was in good enough condition to wear. Cloths were either accounted for and kept, discarded, or if in good enough condition, placed into a pile for someone else to wear. Ammu, one of the youngest girls had two adult sized nightgowns that she insisted on keeping and I couldn't argue.

We were also checking for underwear, combs, hair accessories, toothbrushes, and soap. The girls were lucky to have 2 or 3 pairs of underwear and their toothbrushes where often buried under heaps of clothing which makes me think they don't get much use. Our next project is teaching them personal hygiene.

One common frustration that the volunteers have is not knowing the children's names. It means the world for the kids for us to know them by name. They are constantly running up to us asking, "my name is??" Many of the kids look alike and their names are not common to us, so I decided to do something about this. I took pictures of all kids yesterday and had them printed out and put up two poster boards in the guest house of the 36 kids with their names written beneath their picture. I also made a sticker coding system to mark which ones are brother and sister. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Back at it

Sunday December 18: Orientation

We spent the better part of the day going over the orientation which includes getting to know the team, learning about the service options, setting team goals and learning the rules. This is the third time I've gone through this training, so I could have done without it, but it was nice to get to know my team. We've got a great group of people: In addition to my Aunt, Joelle and myself there's a 17-year-old senior in high school from Denver named Will, a 26 year-old guy from Atlanta named Chris, Kerry (my roommate) from California, Mary from Florida, and Genny from Worcester, MA. Based off of our first day of conversation, I can tell we are going to have a blast together.

I've enjoyed playing with Roshan, Stephen and Sheeba's three-year-old son. He has warmed up to me a ton. In previous visits, it was all I could to to hold him for one minute. Stephen, Sheeba and Roshan are living at the guest house with us, so we get to spend all sorts of time with them.

We went to SEAM Children's home, where there are 36 children who are orphaned or semi-orphaned. There were five new children (since my visit in February) at the orphanage, meaning that five have moved on. One of my favorites is gone and I'm sad to miss him. There is a long waiting list of children wanting to come to SEAM. The kids had so much energy and were extremely eager to gain our attention and affection. We danced and I lifted the children into the air, over and over and over again. I love these kids.

Our team went out for dinner. I was so tired that I was literally falling asleep at dinner. Classy, I know. This jet leg has me waking up at 4:30AM so by 9PM I'm spent.

Monday, December 19: First official day of the program

We started the day off with yoga on the rooftop. We asked our instructor to start at the intermediate level; I hope that wasn't a mistake later next week as we advance.

After breakfast we headed off to our assignments. This time around, I decided to spend the majority of time at Assisi Illam with Jasmine. In the past, I've taught at various schools. Being the children had exams this week I thought my time would be better spent at the orphanage. I've realized it's hard to do everything and be everywhere, but I'm going to try. It was hard for me not to go to GRACE school today; we're going to work something out for me to go later this week.

The younger children had off from school for the holiday. Nonetheless, Sister Rose had us helping them with homework. I'm impressed with their penmanship and how much they've

learned. Jasmine's in her second year of school at age 4 and knows how to write 1-100, ABC's in upper and lower case and is able to write the spelling of one, two, three up to ten without help. I sat on the ground with the kids to help them with their homework, they were clinging to me as they went about their work. It's heartwarming how they want to be so close with us. After the homework was done, we sang songs and goofed around. I was able to capture Jasmine singing Skidamarink. See the link. http://youtu.be/7Ckqh8p01Tw

We spent the afternoon and early evening at SEAM. We got there just before they came back from school and they were so excited to see us there when they got home. The kids went about their routine of changing out of their school uniform and doing their chores of doing the dishes, cleaning their rooms and sweeping the dirt ground. I had Stephen line up the kids in order of age so that I could get their individual pictures taken so that we can learn their names. The kids love getting their photos taken. I plan to make copies for them to keep as well. After the photos were taken, we spent time with the kids one-on-one for two rounds of a half hour each. I think it's going to be much more effective to work with these kids on an individual basis. We spent the last half hour playing with the kids. I arm wrestled a few of the older boys. I wonder if I shouldn't have been so competitive and let them win. Oh well, something for them to work up to :)

The Big Surprise

I'm glad to be back in Chennai, which is becoming more like a second home with the frequency of my visits.

There was no drama or stress related to my flight getting to India this time around. I didn't even mind the 20 some hours of flight; I was able to sleep, read (I put a small dent into Shantaram), and catch up on some new releases. My flight path was Mpls to Chicago to London to Chennai. I left Mpls at 2Pm on Thursday the 15th and arrived in Chennai at 1AM on Saturday the 17th.

I met Stephen (the leader of the India Global Volunteers program) at the airport. I had seen Stephen just the week before when he was in town for his annual training; it was great to see him nonetheless. We connected with another volunteer, Chris from Atlanta who will volunteering here for the next 8 weeks!

With the jet leg effect, I was wide awake and ready to go after four hours of sleep. I started the morning off visiting with my aunt, Joelle, who had came to India earlier this week. Joelle is the one who introduced me to Global Volunteers and it's great to be back in India with her a second time. It's easy to see that she's loving everyone moment of her experience here.

They roads are all torn up outside the guesthouse due to some sort of construction, which made the morning run difficult for footing. I dragged the two young volunteers with me, and we were off. We ran to SEAM (one of the orphanages) to say "hi" to the kids. They were so excited to see us and were quick to quiz me on their names. I loved that they remembered me and they loved I was back. We couldn't stay long as we needed to be back in time for breakfast.

Breakfast was one of my favorites; eggs with noodles and, of course, Indian coffee. It was fun to reunite with Sheeba and Roshan, Stephen's wife and three-year-old son.

Today was the day of the big surprise. The leaders of the orphanage, Sister Rose and Sister Matilda and the children didn't know that I was coming. They had been asking Joelle about me and she'd reply, "Katie's really busy and wishes she could come. She sends her love." Little Stephen (Stephen's brother) brought us to Assisi and parked down the street. Joelle, Sheebha, Roshan and Will walked in first and I made my grand entrance about five minutes later. Will caught it on video. http://youtu.be/8mwP_4hG3XE

Immediately as I entered the gate, one girl started shouting my name and the other kids came running. Sister Rose came out and she was thinking, the kids must think it is someone who looks like Katie, it couldn't be Katie. She she saw me she gave me a big hug and a friendly slap on the face. George climbed up on me right away and the kids crowded. I felt like a celebrity!

Sister Matilda, Jasmine, Sophia and Silvia were at the hospital, so we did a second surprise when they arrived. The second surprise was fun as well, all the kids were so excited to be able to help in the surprise. Jasmine knew exactly who I was and quick to latch on, which I loved. We played games and sang songs. My favorite was Skidamarink a dink a dink, I love you. She'd end the song by giving me a great big hug. Truly priceless. The kids took us to the rooftop where their laundry was hanging on the line. We had so much fun playing with the laundry on the rooftop. It really doesn't take much to have a good time with these children. Joelle led a water painting activity and I was impressed with their focus and attention span. Without any hesitation, the children happily gave us all of their artwork. Joelle's going to make art into boxes and return it with a treat.

I was exhausted and took a long enough nap not to know if I woke up on the same or next day. Turns out it was just three hours, I was up in time for dinner.

I forgot my camera cord at home, so until I find a different solution, you'll have to use your imagination until I'm able to insert photos.

Dinner with the Parents

I wore a sari today, and as I entered the doors of Grace School, all of the kids shouted, “Super!” It is so easy to please here :) The teaching continues to go well, however, I still have a hard time seeing the teachers hitting as a form of punishment in the schools. I obviously do not do this. Instead, I just raise my voice, hit the desk or lightly touch their arm.

I enjoyed another afternoon with Jasmine, George and John at Assisi Illam. Jasmine insisted on doing my hair. She has a way of getting her way, and not just with me.

The kids at SEAM greeted me asking when my last day was. They were sad to hear that I’m leaving this weekend. I too feel sad as the time has flown and there is still so much time I want to spend with the children. I do feel a little overwhelmed when I think of returning home and all of the work that goes along with that including starting my Ironman training. It's nice to be able to take a longer break, in this case two weeks, to separate myself from my daily routine and really focus on the children here.

We came back to the guesthouse to freshen up prior to our dinner at Stephen's parent's house. We were surprised to see five of the young Assisi Children back at the guesthouse with Sr Matilda as they were invited to join us for dinner. We took the van to Stephen's house which was an adventure in itself, trying to keep all 5 children's arms and heads inside the vehicle. We were greeted by the wide smile from Stephen's mother. She prepared a fantastic meal for us and I was happy that she joined us for dinner. The five children ate on the floor in the next room. It was fun to see the kids get excited about a new house full of toys. We took a tour of the neighborhood which included visiting Stephen's brother Stephen, two aunts and their children. It's fun to get a feel for the culture through seeing a variety homes.

Field Trip with Assisi Illam

Wednesday, February 16

We had a day off from teaching as the schools were off for a Muslim holiday. Stephen said between the Muslim, Hindu and Catholic holidays, schools and government offices are closed for about 25 days each year.

Sr Rose had invited us to join the kids for a trip to the countryside to visit one of Dr Sr Rexline’s projects. She is building a farmhouse complete with animals and 30 acres of land for crops. We had all the Assisi Illam children (about 30 in total) piled into a bus. The bus ride was a blast. Every time someone saw a train, everyone would yell, “train, train!” with excitement. There was even more excitement for airplanes. As we passed through tolls, all of the children would wave and say hello. I had one kid on my lap and one at my side leaning on my the entire way. We stopped at a church at the base of a mount on the way. It was too hot to walk up to the top (I was the only one that wanted to anyway) but we arrived just in time for mass. I sat with the children in the front of the church, which was given in Tamil. I was impressed with how well the children sat through mass, especially having so many of them so close together without a parental unit.

The kids had a blast playing at the farmhouse, they have so much energy that they needed to get out. I love witnessing the creative games that these children come up with. I haven’t seen one child play video games since I’ve gotten here.

The next stop was the beach in Chennai. I had never been to this beach, so I was just about as excited as these children were. As soon as they were off the bus, they ran for the water. Several beggars followed us around; I know I was a target being white and all. We also seemed to get a lot of looks; they were probably wondering what Westerners were doing with so many Indian children. We drew a line on the shore and didn’t allow the kids to step past it. We stood and waiting for the water to it. There were a few big tides that got us wetter than we anticipated. We had a bit of a picnic snake and we played on the beach a bit before returning home.

On our way home back to the guesthouse, we volunteers were commenting on how tired we were. We couldn’t imagine that Sr Rose and Sr Matilda still had to feed these kids and put them to bed. Bless their hearts.