Saturday, Octonber 24th

We woke up early again this morning to do yoga with Muthumari. We stretched and meditated and learned from Dhana Packiam that massaging your feet stimulates an important vein. It certainly made our day more "brisk". Ramya and Nandhini braided our hair beautifully, and showed us how to tie it so that apparently it will grow faster. We're trying! We're jealous of all the girls' strong and beautiful hair.

It's fun waking up early, once you get over the original shock. We helped with cooking before breakfast, standing in front of that big kitchen fire in the smokey kitchen with all the older girls. Wow. What a luxury to think back to our stoves. Hahaa. We grinded up coconut ("tanga" in Tamil) chutney, and spent an equal amount of time cleaning out the grinder after. By cleaning, we mean pouring a little water in a scooping all the residue out by hand, then cupping out the murky water.

We had a delicious breakfast of some kind of mix between chapatti and dhosai and some coconut chutney, that Kelsey had helped grind. Paige kicked Kelsey's butt in an intense Chess game while the kids did their sweeping. Then the intense cooking began. The kitchen women come in later on Saturday, so most of the morning it was just us and the girls. We scrubbed okra with a wet cloth and chopped it into small pieces, peeled tons of tiny onions, and chopped up tomatoes ("Takali"). It's crazy to see how much effort and time goes into cooking and preparation. No buying pre-peeled onions, and all vegetables are cooked. Rosie and Paige grinded up tomatoes, lentils, and other ingredients for a sauce in the giant mortar and pestle. 'Quickly Sister! Quick!' Muthumari said as I tried to move that giant stone in rapid circular motions and avoid crushing Rosie's hand as she pushed the food into the center of the mortar as the stone pushed them out. We cooked the okra over the fire, standing as far back as possible, reaching our spoon in the bowl to stir.

After our help was no longer needed in the kitchen, we led English classes for the elementary school girls. Incorporating Kelsey's very popular iPod, we looked at photos and wrote what we saw. We're trying to have kids sound words out, instead of relying on teachers to always spell everything for memorization. Many of the elementary school girls are quite smart, and when they are engaged classes are really productive. Paige sat with Muga and Nandhini and we learned about 'ing,' what noise it makes. The girls listed words with ing endings and I had them spell them. Expressive little Muga got really excited about it, dancing around the sleeping hall, 'the dog is dancing sister! The dog is running, the dog is sleeping, the dog is washing, the dog is going, the dog is king, the dog is beating!!!' 'Earring sister!' Ramya added while she was folding clothes. It was very fun and exciting to see them engaged in learning. Some kids still struggle a lot with English, reading and school, so it's hard to engage them. The iPod helped a bit, with fun pictures and a promise of dancing afterwards. Kelsey made them say a sentence with the word in the picture (apple, dog, clouds, sun, etc) before they could do everyone's favorite, zooming in and out of the photo.

When lessons were finished, it was time to go play the chess master, Antony, and try and redeem the sister's reputation after it was tarnished with Kelsey's infamous loss to the skinny, 5th grade Antony. After an intense game, with Paige sister concentrating very hard, despite being attacked occasionally by a pack of adorable puppies intent on biting her, sister prevailed. But it was quite challenging, with countless close calls. Antony was not deterred and I'm sure we will play again. Some Uno card playing sister, chinese checkers, and monkey in the middle occupied everyone until lunch. Kelsey impressed Sethu, Muruganadam (Snow White) and Karthi by spinning the basketball around on one finger. Muru is determined to learn, and monkey in the middle was paused for a while to practice. For lunch, we sat outside on the ground with the girls, playing (aka losing) the 'out' game. I definitely feel like we're improving, probably because our eating rice with hand technique is improving and we're learning speed eating techniques from our kids.

After lunch we listened to more music with the boys. They are learning the words to 'Right Round' and 'Gasolina.' Hahaa :) Kelsey and M+M played chess. We're still teaching a lot of the girls the basic rules of chess, but it was quite fun. Kelsey somehow won about 3 times in one game, with M+M making miraculous (and illegal) recoveries each time. We took some rest and then woke up for Saturday market at around 4.

The Saturday Market, in the middle of our little village of Kanivadi, is right next to the temple, the Christian school and the big red Communist flags. People go shopping, walking through admiring and purchasing vegetables laid out on burlap sacks and cloths on the ground. There are brightly colored vegetables and women and men measuring out their produce on hand-held scales for their customers, while others sit on the ground calling out to those walking by. We were hardly stared at all today by the townspeople, which was a pleasant surprise. Kelsey claims it's because she was wearing a shurida. One crazy man approached us, grabbing at us and talking about the Bible and money in Tamil. The people in the market screamed at the man, with one man brandishing a sugar cane and ordering him out of the market. We ate some sugar cane today too. Standing on the side of the bus, waiting, we took bites out of our canes and chewed to get the sugar juice out. We think we were the oldest people there eating sugar cane, as its mostly a little kid treat. We had fun having spitting contests with Muniyappan after we'd chewed the sugar out of our bites. An old woman in the market gave us some interesting, different kind of wider and short bananas which were quite delicious. Rani came with us into town as well, because she apparently has a fever. She's been separated from the other kids, taking tea and dinner in a separate room.

We bought chocolate in town as well, for all the children. We passed out our 33 mini Cadbury Dairy Milk bars at tea time. It's so sweet how thankful and sweet the kids are. All the kids were so happy, saying thank you, thank you, nanri, nanri sister, I love you sister over and over again after tea. Sathya shook our hands and everyone was 'very very thank you sister.' Awww. :) I love all our brothers and sisters here. They remember everything people give them. They love to talk about Shanta who came and brought them clothes. 'She's coming and bringing all the students clothes. She is your teacher? Wow! Super. I like Shanta. When is she coming again?'

We began english classes with the 10th and 11th grade girls as soon as tea was over. They read the Snow White book, which everyone loves. I think it would be a good idea to get more of those big colorful Disney books with simple, but not too simple stories that the kids are interested in. We took out maps and talked about the world and the seven continents. 'How many rupees to come visit you in America? How many dollars Sister? 10 dollars? More than 100 dollars?!' We showed them all the cities we flew to, to get here. They love talking about the Amazon and the giant anacondas they have seen. Zoos were a very exciting idea. We looked at a map of India and Tamil Nadu that Chandra had given us for the kids, and found everyone's native place. It was very interesting and fun. After we put away the maps, everyone wrote their own lines to a Snow White play that we'll perform tomorrow. It was fun just talking with the five oldest girls- they told us about their friends and gossip in their girls' school. We talked about how their parents would get very angry if they were friends with boys. "Indian culture is very difficult. I do not like," said Dhana Packiam, about how her family will arrange her marriage for her when she is 21, and how she's not allowed to really spend time with boys before then.

Dinner was good, rice and vegetables, finished with some toast and jam from Kodai. Afterwards we sat in the hall with the girls, laughing, reading, studying and learning Tamil. Dhana Packiam wrote hilarious jokes in our journals and sketch books. I'll share one with you guys here:

"There are four friends living. Somebody is an angry man. One day Brain is going to the toilet. Then somebody killed Nobody. So Mad called inspector. 'Sir, sir! Somebody killed Nobody, sir! Somebody killed Nobody!' 'Are you mad?' 'No, sir. I am Mad.' Called a Mad. Inspector told 'where is your brain?' 'Brain is in the bathroom sir.'"

By Dhana Packiam
You memory for this joke
You don't forget for me.

It was very funny, and we spent time learning to pronounce a lot of important Tamil words and write our names. Learning Tamil is so much fun and the girls love to teach is. Mary asked if it was normal for Americans to learn Tamil.