October 6th and 7th

We had a very calm Tuesday morning after morning prayer and breakfast with the kids before school. We did a lot of wash outside in our buckets and hung it up on a line outside. One good thing about the heat is that everything dries quickly!
At night, we did an English lesson with the six boys in 7th and 8th grade. We read a Curious George book together, each boy reading one page. Then, we asked some questions about the story. We gave them pieces of paper, each with one word written on it. They had to correctly arrange to words to formulate a grammatically correct sentence that answered the question. It was a fun, active learning exercise that most kids found challenging but seemed to enjoy. They generally could get the right answer with little or no help and all enjoyed the story about the bad monkey who saved the day.
We also spent time talking and bonding with the older girls. We braided hair together (Nandhini loves to tell us about our hair, "I very, very LIKE sister!") and talked about school, their friends, Bethania... I also helped the four 10th grade girls with their English homework. They seem to learn English in a really ineffective way at school. The teacher will have them memorize entire essays, word for word, and have them rewrite it as a test. Most kids don't even understand the content of the essay, and can't formulate a grammatically correct sentence on their own, but they have whole essays memorized! It's frustrating trying to help with homework, when this is their homework.


We woke up this morning and drank our morning tea, read The Hindu and talked with the children. We played our countless thumb wars before sitting down to a breakfast of Idly and some spicy tomato sauce. After waving goodbye to all our friends we changed into our field work clothes and headed out into the fields with GP. He climbed trees and hacked off branches with a machete while we dragged the huge branches back to Bethania to use the leaves to feed the cows and the wood for firewood in the kitchen. It was good work in the heat and a lot of walking, carrying and of course, singing. :) You're welcome Kelsey and Bethania staff. Sorry to the geese. (They don't seem into it.) By the end we had accumulated a massive pile of tree by the cow shed and were quite proud, and dirty. There were tons of spiders crawling all over, but they seemed friendly so we just brushed em off. No screaming. After washing our hands we enjoyed a delicious glass of 'lime juice' which is kind of like very sweet lemonade made from a small greenish yellow fruit they call lime, but it's different than the lime we're used to. Very delicious and had been refrigerated which was awesome! After taking a much needed shower and a short collapse, I mean nap, we enjoyed lunch followed by a real nice long nap till the kids got home. Those naps are so important, because once the kids get home it's non -stop. We decided to do art tonight, after tea. We passed out cookies from our large stock from Vijayasarathy to each kid during tea time, as there was no other snack provided today like usual. After, we brought out tons of paper, colored pencils and crayons and sat down in the sea of artists. The kids drew after they had finished doing their wash and bathing, and more after Christmas song practice/ prayer.