November 12th

So this morning Kelsey got attacked by a chicken. We were walking around outside with our tea to see the kids pumping water out by the well, and as we turned the corner of the building we encountered an angry chicken. She wasn't happy we'd surprised her and invaded her space, so she attacked Kelsey's leg with her whole body, wings and claws out. No permanent damage though. Guess chickens don't like vegetarians more.

We did field work this morning, moving all of the bricks and other remnants of the broken kitchen stove that had been lying in a giant heap on the ground. We built a brick, trench-type wall with them, on either side of a little stream where the excess water from the well flows. We then spent a few hours collecting stones from the wet soil. We're so happy to have rain, but it makes our stone collecting a lot muddier! Our two really cute puppies were helping us by running around and rubbing more mud on us the whole time too. Oh puppies. What would we do without you?

After hauling a few buckets of water up to our room, we spent the rest of the morning organizing all of the 34 gifts we're giving to each kid before we leave. We have little bags, jewelry and toys for everyone and we're really excited to give it all to them! These kids get so excited about little things. We didn't realize how much 'stuff' we had, until we saw how much they appreciate it things we'd even consider throwing out. So we went through everything we have, picking out things to give as gifts and little bags for everyone. After lunch and a rest, our 8th and 6th grade girls came home- little Muthumari, Suganya, Rani and Veni (the twins), Nandhini and Sathya. Muthumari and Nandhini braided our hair and all of the girls gave us bundles of bright yellow flowers. They had picked them from "Grandmother's" (the old woman who lives next to Bethania) field. M+M said Grandma was joking about charging them 150 rupees because they pick so many flowers from the field on their way home from school.

When all the kids came home after we'd had tea, we brought out some new chalk. There was some intense chaos bringing it out, all the kids jumping on it and taking five pieces at a time. Once it all calmed down it was fun though, writing on a huge blackboard on the side of one of the houses. We took adorable pictures of all the kids and their artwork. Mani drew a mountain, Muga drew a bunch of butterflies, and Pandi little stick figure Paige and Kelsey people. It was really fun, they all love the brightly colored chalk and coloring. We spent the evening watching Christmas practice and having an English lesson with all of the elementary school. We brought out our iSpy books. The kids took turns reading and finding in the books, and then we picked useful words like coconut tree, angel, ball and egg to spell. Sometimes these kids books can be frustrating because they write about things the kids can't relate to at all, like The Statue of Liberty, snow and Autumn leaves. "Eloise" is a tough book for the kids to understand, even though in America it's fun. It be nice to have more universal children's books. We had fun spelling contests at the end and passed out tons of stickers, like usual. It's fun, sticking stickers on everyone's cheeks and hands, at the end of a good lesson. We had a delicious dinner of dhosai and beets, and after being instructed to wake up the girls at 4.30 in the morning to study, went to sleep. I'm reading the note on my hand now: "4.30 A. RAMYA DHANA PACKIAM WAKE UP!"