Sunday, November 8, 2009

November 7

Today was a fun, long, rainy Saturday at Bethania! We woke up early, had tea at 7 with the kids and spend time with them as they did their huge Bethania dirt sweep before the rain started. We got some beautiful white flowers by the chapel from Divya, and were chased by puppies relentlessly. MK made us some rather ingenious bows and arrows made out of reeds and string. They're actually very impressive, and can go quite far. He's really smart with coming up with little inventions and engineering things, if only we could get him to read now! After breakfast, we helped with some girls in the kitchen, slicing Indian green beans and carrots for lunch. As we sat in from of the kitchen it started to pour out. Later we were sitting upstairs in the girls' hall and it started to rain very, very heavily. All of the girls got very excited, got on their knees and told us that we had to pray! "Pray for more rain coming sister! Thank you God sister." It seems like a good thing to pray for, still even though the last three days have been very rainy! They get so happy every time it begins to rain hard, the girls scream and laugh and the little kids dance around. The kids pray for seemingly everything here- for Bethania, good grades, health, for kids who are sick, for Sister Paige and Sister Kelsey, and even for longer hair (Muthumari swears that her hair was short, so she prayed and prayed for longer hair and it grew very fast and is now long and beautiful!) In a blue striped poncho, Muniyappan hauled our big water drum out to collect rain water, which we'll use later to shower. It was very funny seeing him wearing that silly poncho, but there are a lot of comical outfits here at Bethania. Alagarsamy and Chella Pandi are two brothers in 7th standard who always have the funniest, brightest outfits. Their mother brought them new clothes of Deepavali, both brand new shirts that were made of sparkly fabric, Alagar's bright purple and Chella Pandi's bright green. So sparkly, these shirts reflect the sun like mirrors. The best though, is definitely their bright, glow in the dark orange shorts. They both have these shorts that are huge on them and the brightest orange you can imagine. Literally when the power goes out and we're playing chess at night, you can still see the board if they are wearing their orange shorts while playing. They glow in the dark that much.

We had a fun morning, getting caught in the rain on and off. We listen to a lot of music, played a lot of chess, took many pictures, played cards, and played Uno. The calculator function on the iPod was discovered by the girls, and has now been called "number game" which is actually something that's "played". Very fun game for Muga and M+M! They loved it. 'Go Fish!' which is referred to only as 'four cards sister!' or 'Sethu looking my cards sister!' was also played all morning as we sat under the awnings out of the rain. It's a pretty intense game. Little Karthi, my partner in the game, and in 2nd standard couldn't get a hang of not showing his cards, so when I would take them from him he would scream out the card he wanted till I gave it to him, and another boy promptly took it from him. We had lots of fun, despite 'Sister. You are losing again sister!' Karthi's fun was not impeded though, as he stopped the game often for a dancing break, where he and Akash would dance excitedly around the circle to Muniyappan's dj-ing. Akash has taken to wearing a ski hat recently, as it is 'winter.' We googled the temperature today cause all the kids are wearing sweaters and talking about how cold they are all the time. It's 78, but feels like 83. Hahaa. Still sometimes we feel a bit chilly, especially after a bucket shower. I guess we're just too used to normal Indian climate!

The kids were all practicing for their Christmas show dancing today. Mary and Rani are the two front dancers, and were practicing for a long time in front of a computer playing the music and video of little kids dancing. It was a "Happy Christmas" song in Tamil. The dance is very Indian- hand waving in circles over their heads and down over their faces. They are so adorable! Later all the other dancers- 6 boys and 6 younger girls joined in, making 2 lines behind Mary and Rani, copying their movements.

At night we did and English lesson with the 10th grade girls (they had to go to school today, an extra day for exam preparation, but came home early because of the rain) and a few other older girls. We thought they wanted help with studying for their exams that start next week, but we just played games instead. We played games where we had to write as many words as possible starting with a certain letter, and played hangman, which they loved. They all liked making up the sentences, bad spelling made the game a bit more difficult though! We also helped the 12th grade girl, Lavinya, with her English homework. It was difficult- deciding which tense out of 7 or more to write a sentence's verb in. They don't understand why we don't know what present past continuous tense means! The book seems to complicate English a lot, and she was struggling, just wanting us to give her the answer while we wanted to teach her and for her to learn. It is so hard though, even if she gets the verb tense right, she doesn't know how to conjugate the verb properly anyway most of the time!

Tonight we taught the girls about the internet after dinner. We got out our blackberry's and they got so excited about sending emails. They've never written an email before and many girls didn't really understand the concept. They were so happy though, sending emails back and forth between our two phones and to Jenna and Ella sister. They wanted to write to our families and friends and see pictures of America. They were also very excited for everyone to write them back. :) it amazed them that it would be sent all the way to america instantly!

Here are some of the emails sent tonight:

"Eminem how are you ella? I fine thank you I meet you america jenna sister meet america kelsey sister meet america paige sister meet america

Every time you very very happy you don't no cry. Me every time tell kelsey I miss ella sister. "

"Muthumari jenna howare you I dont fargat you! $i$teriloveyou yuocome bethania comevisiting! I dont forget! I love kelsey and paige and jenna"

"Hi paige! How are you? You have rain." -Dhana Packiam

"You very beautiful girl" -by Ramya

"NanDhINi hi Paige sister How are you?"

Their typing skills are improving dramatically :)

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