October 19

Today was full of work and washing. It was quite enjoyable. After morning prayers, a delicious breakfast of Kelsey's favorite dhosai and coconut chutney, and waving goodbye to everyone as they headed off to school, we went to the fields with GP. We were put to work again, removing rocks from the field and throwing them over the edge of the ravine. After carefully digging and removing and chucking all the rocks out of our field plot, along with the occasional piece of trash, it was time for the real work to begin. Today we designated as sheet washing day, and we went to the water pump with our buckets, our clothes, our saris and our giant sheets, ready for the daunting task before us. We pumped our buckets full of well water soaked our dirty sheets and laid them out on the tile by the washing house. On our knees with a bar of soap, we went to work scrubbing and rubbing all the dirt off, even as we laid the sheet down on the dirty ground. We scrubbed and flipped and rubbed those sheets, covering our clothes and hands and arms and feet in soapy, well water. The best part was when we decided it was time to wash our sheets the real Bethania style by smacking the sheets on the tile ground to... I'm not sure..remove dirt? Remove soap? Who knows what the exact objective is of slamming our sheets onto the ground and splattering ourselves and the nearby noisy geese with soapy sheet water, but it was quite a lot of fun and a nice relief from the hot sun we're working in. It took us quite a while, with some highlights including Kelsey pouring an entire bucked of water on me in an effort to wash soap out of her sheet I was holding. It clearly was not a well thought out plan, that took in the laws of physics or the nature of the sheet. I guess the idea that the water that she threw from the bucket onto the sheet, may go through the sheet and hit me, didn't really register. But it was quite funny and was useful, as now I don't really need to wash that skirt for a while. Thanks Kelsey! It was quite the adventure washing, and I'm pretty sure I'm unable to adequately describe the enjoyment of this activity. It took many hours of scrubbing and drying and hanging. In our room we have established an ingenious system of dental floss clothes lines for drying clothes we can't hang outside in public. So our room is a maze of dental floss and drying clothes.
After a late lunch, because we finished washing so late, more cleaning ensued. Kelsey decided to sweep the whole room, which was greatly needed and appreciated. She trimmed and culled the massive peacock feather collection we had accumulated in our room and brushed out many of the bugs that had taken residence there. Paige took a much needed nap after all the laundry smacking on the tile. (That was her job.)
We were so happy when the kids finally arrived home. Little Antony had come home early because he has a fever. He has been coughing a lot for the past week, and India's great concern about swine flu meant he was rushed home at the first sign of fever. I hope no one else gets sick. He's a little trooper though, very sweet kid. When the kids got home we had tea with leftover sweets from Deepavali mixed with puffed rice. Game playing ensued immediately, with the boys playing chess along with Uno cards. Everyone was washing their Deepavali outfits too. Today was a special school day, because the kids didn't have to wear their uniforms, rather they could wear their new Deepavali clothes.
After a few good chess games and some 'uno card playing sister' the kids had Christmas song practice and prayer. After dinner we taught the elementary school girls English. We read a Curious George book, formed sentences with cut out words and talked about the book. At the end we gave a writing test. They love 'exams sister!' It's crazy at what different levels they are. Some girls in 5 standard are reading, spelling and understanding well, while girls in 6 standard can't recognize simple words. Naghewari, in 5 standard is quite strong in English, while Sathya, 6 standard, struggles. It's difficult to know how to teach for some children who probably have a learning disability and for whom reading is a struggle. One very sweet little boy, Sethu, with the cutest smile, has a speech impediment, that you an also hear when he speaks Tamil. He can't say S's. It's difficult to know how to help him overcome this. We love working with all the children, though. All the time, their sweet smiles and crazy stories brighten up the day, and we hope to be the best teachers we can be.
After dinner Kelsey sat with the girls and helped with English homework for Rani. Rani is very smart and top in her math class. She wants to be a doctor when she's older. Its hard though, because there are a lot of spelling and grammatical errors in their English books. We don't know if its a bad idea to tell students that their English teacher is wrong, but we want them to learn properly. The stories they read are really strange. A lot of them deal with really sad topics like the death of a mother or child, or the life of a "faithful servant and his master." Very strange. Homework time with the girls always involves some good stories and fun laughs which make it worth it!