September 30th and October 1st

We've been helping the kids with a lot of chores. With the young boys we carried metal bowls of dirt from the garbage compost to the field. At the field we gave the bowls to GP, one of the men working here, who flung the dirt around the small plots where plants were growing. They would then fertilize the coconut trees and other vegetables that should be growing if the land wasn't so dry. Even though there's been a bit of rain here, much more is needed and we're still in a drought. Its important how self-sustainable Bethania is, recycling waste as it decomposed into the soil and growing much of its own food.
While we helped the boys with this we sang songs. MK told Kelsey about how he wants to be a lorry driver like his dad when he grows up, and what he's going to drive in his truck. After it was emptied, Antony used his bowl as a steering wheel and honked its horn as he drove up and down the field's mounds and dodged the cows and geese while Paige honked loudly beside him, like how she does in Atlanta. It's so nice being outside with the kids, with the nice breeze and hot sun, but we were very dirty and hot afterwards. We joined the girls and carried jugs of rain water on our hips up to our room for bathing. Everyone works together here in a beautiful way. Now if only we could get the children to share the markers as well. Today we also learned a bit about sharing, not hitting our friends when we want something and putting the cap back on the marker when we finish. Yesterday we learned about putting the books back properly on the bookshelf and not throwing them in a pile on top of the other books. Paige does some good demonstrations, acting out the 'good!' (sharing, cap on pen, book on shelf, saying please) along with the bad, and it's very clear which one is right. 'Please!' is already becoming almost as common as 'give me sister!' Great success!
English lessons were very fun and challenging with the younger boys. After reading aloud, we assigned parts and acted out the book again. Then we chose vocab words, had the little boys draw, and then label them. Then everyone was tested on the vocab, verbally. It was nice when the boys could remember the story. Today while we were coloring, some of the girls drew scenes from the book we read last night. It can be quite challenging to know what kids are comprehending, as the older kids can read aloud well, but not explain what they have just read or write or spell the words that they read. It's nice to see when people remember the English stories we read and want to talk about them. This genuine excitement about learning on the part of many of the children is very sweet and encouraging.
The kids taught us how to wash our clothes like they do in buckets- we pump water into our metal pails and hand wash our clothes in there with soap, then rinse a second time in water, which turned a good shade of brown from the dirt layer on everything. The kids were very amused by our blue liquid detergent that we'd brought with us. We decided to skip out on the step where the kids beat their clothes violently against the stone ground, and just wrung ours out and hung them to dry in the sun.
Our two visitors from Kodai left today and another girl came who is here for 4 days as well. We've been busy with the kids non-stop. Playing capture the flag, nundrie ("hopping game, sister!"), Uno, having them read to us.. We did English lessons with the 6 oldest girls in 10th, 11th and 12th grade today. We worked on their listening comprehension skills. It's still difficult to get them to answer in their own words, as they want to answer questions we ask them by just repeating what they had heard.
We had a successful English lesson with a lot of the kids today in the morning. Someone had taught everyone to respond to 'How are you?' With 'Fine, thank you.' Even though most of the younger kids didn't really understand what they were saying. We drew different faces with different emotions written underneath them and played a bunch of acting out games. It was quite fun and it's a pleasant break from the chorus of fine thank yous. Today during a particularly contested capture the flag point, Nandhini informed me, 'I am angry!' And my heart swelled with happiness that she had learned something from our lessons. We taped up all the different emotions along with the giant 'how are you?' sign in the dining hall next to the labeled person, two giant drawings, one by the boys and one by the girls and the map of the world Kelsey brought. It's really fun to look at the wall and see all the stuff we've been working on and hear the kids practicing naming the body parts and talking about their feelings. It's fun teaching and learning from the kids as well.