November 9th

Today we woke up early, thinking we'd spend time with the kids before they went to school. But at 7 the kids started shouting and running to come hug us and let us know that school was cancelled today because of rain! Dhana Packiam and Muthumari (who are best friends like Paige and Kelsey, they informed us) sprinted into our room to give us huge hugs. No snow days in India, just rain days! They were supposed to have exams all this week, but since they are state exams, if any regions of Tamil Nadu can't go to school because of heavy rain, no one can take the exams. We taught a lot of English all day, studying, answering questions and making practice tests. The English books are frustrating. Some are almost 20 years old, missing covers and pages and with complicated English lessons. It's hard to understand and I'm good at English! To get an idea, they talk about Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and the USSR in them!

It was fun having a whole day to spend with the children, without school. We're sad about having to say goodbye to all our amazing brothers and sisters. We're trying to make the most of all our time here.

We had our tea at 7.30 and read all of the emails we'd received for the kids. They are so happy to have personal messages coming to them. We wish there was a way for them to email us after we leave! After a delicious breakfast of coconut chutney and dhosai we drew pictures with the elementary school girls to keep them away from the older girls who needed to be studying. Sweet, little Nithya drew many pictures and was laughing, 'Muga say Paige Sister, coconut tree!!!' Today Muga decided Kelsey sister is a dolphin. 'Hello coconut tree sister! Dolphin sister! I am monkey sister.' Muga is so expressive, dancing around pretending to be a monkey, then a crazy dog, then a dolphin. The best by far is the baby chicken impression. The baby chickens are big enough now to be wandering around Bethania, three little white chickens travel around in a pack, tweeting, squeaking and getting into trouble in the office, in the dining hall and with the dogs. During the heavy rain, watching these three little white baby chickens running around in the rain was quite sweet and comical.

The kids have been asking for 'scent' a lot recently cause their clothes haven't been drying fast enough with all the rain. So we took out Kelsey's 'Downy wrinkle release spray' and a tiny sample of perfume and spent the morning spraying everyone's clothes. The girls brought out all their clothes and most everything they own to be sprayed with 'scent sister!' It was funny. Nagehswari took the spray and sprayed her entire cupboard, as well as each article of clothing that she owns, individually. After we learned more about the internet by introducing some of the older girls to Google images. We googled Tamil movie heroes all morning to the amazement of everyone. Dhana Packiam now is asking incessantly to Google Vijay, everyone's favorite Tamil movie hero. It's a lot easier than M+M's request to email Jesus though!

Today was full of drawing, games, music, watching Christmas practice dancing. Their dances are so cute! The elementary school girls and some middle school boys dance in lines next to each other. It started off quite sunny, but rained on and off for the rest of the day. We went over a lot of English grammar with M+M, Muthumari, Rani, Dhana Packiam, Divya, Surya, Saraswathi and other high school girls. Kelsey helped Mary with math homework too, she asked me how I knew all of the same math that she was doing in school! It was difficult trying to figure out what the questions in Tamil were asking, but the math problems themselves were the same as we did in IB math in Atlanta!

In English we studied active and passive, direct and indirect voice, antonyms and synonyms. It's frustrating with their English books and notes that include mistakes and many words the kids do not know the meaning of. They have to memorize synonyms and antonyms for words they don't know the meaning of. We also helped with prefixes and suffixes, which can also be difficult with their often limited vocabulary. Some of the girls, like Rani, are so smart it's impressive what they can do with so little.

We stayed out late tonight in the hall helping the older girls study, and will wake up early for them. Some girls will wake up at 4am tomorrow to study! It seems crazy to us, but is normal for the older students during exam week. We'll wake up a bit after that, that seems a little early!