November 11

At 4.30 am, Kelsey's alarm went off. We'd been instructed to wake up the older girls then so they could study more before exams. So at 4.30, Kelsey went to wake up the girls and as if on cue the rooster started crowing and the dogs howling. Paige was a verryyy annngrryyyy sister. But luckily we were able to go back to sleep eventually and wake up in time for tea and prayer. Unfortunately, an outside pipe broke this morning, so Joseph and three boys were holding it down to keep water from spraying everywhere. A lot of infrastructure problems recently! We enjoyed our delicious breakfast of idly and coconut chutney and said good luck to all our students. A few kids requested lucky pens/pencils before the exams, so we were rushing around putting peacock stickers on pens and such. Little Antony was so cute with his pen. The kids are so sweet. If you ask them to give back the pen when they come home from school, they always do.

We went to work in the kitchen, peeling onions like usual. It's crazy the kitchen women are cooking all the food for about 40 people on a tiny outdoor camp fire. They were steaming maybe 150 idlys this morning over a tiny camp fire with a pot of boiling water. We peeled and chopped onions for a long time with them, then decided to take advantage of a day without perpetual pouring rain to do wash. It was so nice to do our wash, and not have to worry about the drought, but our clothes have yet to dry from this morning. We have them all hanging in the inside hallway against the wired wall to hopefully dry eventually, next to all the girls' clothes. We are setting aside so many things of ours to leave with the kids. They are so appreciative and have so little, we want to give them everything. They are all calling things they want. It's funny, things we would just toss in the States the kids get so excited about and ask to keep, like zip lock bags and those plastic gum boxes.

Ishwari gave us beautiful purple flowers for our hair again today. We enjoyed a delicious lunch of spicy green bean-like vegetables, pepper like-vegetables and curd rice, and then took rest. When the kids got back we handed out Starbursts candies to everyone at tea, with different animal stickers on each one. It's fun cause we know most everyone's favorite color, or favorite animal.

Everyone has been studying really hard. After tea, we played with the younger kids, drew pictures with the little boys and practiced counting with little Akash, Joseph's son, who is five. His counting was impressive, able to write and count at least up to 70, with few mistakes. Little Karthi wrote everyone's initials and laughed at Paige's. 'PB PB!' His little smile and crazy laugh are so sweet. He also drew a picture of all of his favorite Uno cards. The boys wrote us sweet letters and drew beautiful pictures. We're currently trying to set up an email account for Muniyappan, the 17 year old boy, who will be able to use it when he goes to college next year.

There was more Christmas dance practice, and lots of studying. Ramya explained food webs and food chains in Biology to Paige. She should be a teacher, she's so good at helping people to understand and being sweet. But she says her aim is police woman and artist, because kids ignore teachers except when the teacher hits them, and at least as a police officer, you get to catch "dentists". She later clarified, that she means to catch "terrorists", not dentists, but the first one seemed like a pretty good reason to be a police officer to me.

At night all of the girls sat and told us about their homes for a while before we left them to study. Muthumari says she loves going home to watch TV, which she does for hours! All of the kids go home or to stay with a relative for the month of May and then come back to Bethania. Ramya says when she stays with her Grandmother she doesn't have a TV, and has to do a lot of kitchen work. All the kids seemed happy to think about their families back home, and the thought of living at home for a month over the summer.