November 8

Today we woke up early and sat outside in the hall with the girls and read all the emails they had received. They were all so happy. It was so sweet. They all were so excited to read what our families and friends wrote to them individually and couldn't wait to respond. Kelsey did yoga with Muthumari- seven poses, breathing exercises, stretches. It was very nice! Muthumari is disappointed that I still can't touch my feet to my head over my back though. It was fun, with Ramya and Saraswathi and Suganya joining in. Meanwhile Paige sat with the other girls with the phones to supervise and assist with more email writing. We'll probably start using the email writing exercise as a good English lesson, but for now it's sweet to be able to hear their voice in their writings. Correcting their English or doing something like adding spaces between the words they write would just ruin that personal touch :)
There's nothing like an email that says "Lintsehhowyoryoufinthank you" and "ukitchenworkeverynice"! Still not sure how M+M knows that our mothers' kitchen work is very nice, but she likes to include that in her emails. It's so sweet!

It was nice to be up early and have a lot of time to spend with the kids before Church. At 7.30 we had our morning drink- coffee instead of tea! That was a huge shock to our routine! After everyone finished washing, getting dressed, braiding and putting flowers in our hair, and a few thumb wars with MK and Karthi, we had church at 9. The minister came and spoke about technology (from what we could understand from the few English words in his Tamil sermon "European", "ATM card", and "internet"), which was a fitting topic for our lessons about emailing! Afterwards, little Muthumari told us, "I write email to Jesus, sister. Give me phone, I email to Jesus, sister!" Paige informed her that "Jesus doesn't have a computer!" Kelsey told her that praying was like an email to Jesus. Paige appreciated Kelsey's "Knee-mail, not email!" joke! Cute Kelsey sister. Cute.

We enjoyed a delicious breakfast of idly and coconut chutney, sharing from our table our extra chutney with the kids which they were really excited about. They love coconut chutney. We then began our Sunday games. The middle school and upper school have exams all next week so they had to study today. We drew, sent more emails to Jenna sister and Ella sister, listened to music, danced, played chess, played, looked at pictures, took many pictures, braided hair. The boys played some cricket for a while in between downpours. Some family and visitors came by- the son of Tangapandi (our bus driver) and Suvinya (one of the kitchen ladies) named John Kenadi, and a girl who is in college now and used to be at Bethania, named Ramya. Mani's mom, Mary and Rosalie's grandmother, and other relatives came by too. The kids are always happy to see them, and get little gifts. We all had lunch sitting in the covered hallway to stay dry, and played the eating "out!" game as always, where you are out if someone sees you put food in your mouth. At least we're getting better as our eating with our hands skills improve! We told them how our mothers would be angry if we ate with our hands in America and they all asked why. 'You eat only with spoon sister?' Saraswathi told us she doesn't like using a spoon or a plate, and that banana leaves and hands are the best way to eat. True say.

This evening, after a great nap, we awoke to a delicious snack and tea. Some visitors from Kodai are stopping by on their way to Madurai for a wedding. They were very nice and enjoyed their time with the children a lot and ate dinner with us. We drew pictures with the elementary school girls, listened to music (softly) and played chess. It was a lot of fun, drawing pictures and writing cards. Nithya loves to write everyone's name and then Jesus really big at the bottom it's so sweet. She writes 'Paige, Kelsey, Ella, Jenna, Nithya, Jesus' and then colors in everyone's names and gives it as a card. It's so sweet. Muga's favorite joke right now is, 'Paige sister is a coconut tree.' Paige has a bunch of drawing of coconut trees from Muga and a beautiful sign reading. 'Paige. is. a. coconut. tree.' We took pictures with our well-loved green doll Panjavarnam with Divya, before heading to sleep early to let the girls study!