I arrived to Avvai Ashram very late on the 10th and met Sarah, the other volunteer who I am sharing a room with. She's Canadian and here for 2 months, and we are getting on really well so far!
We have quite a big room with two beds and a kind of sunbed. Sarah likes the sunbed so I sleep on a bed, but with the mattress from the other bed also because it is really hard otherwise. Its metal and digs into hips a lot! I can't complain though, as the children sleep on bamboo mats, many of them outside because the bedroom floors are too crowded. I want to take them into my room!! The bathroom is pretty nasty though. We have a toilet and a tap (so no hot showers/baths etc!), so we have to wash in the tap water. Sometimes that facility is unavailable as the water occasionally smells very strongly of faeces. Anyway, for most of the time I've been there we've had no water at all so we've had to go to collect water and carry it back for washing and toilet flushing!
Sivasilem, the village where the orphanage is, is in the most beautiful location. As you leave the orphanage, there are fields and fields of rice, banana trees, palmtrees...and in the distance, a row of amazing mountains...
So far I've been trying out gradually all of the different areas in which I can help out. A lot of the time is spent playing with the little kids - I took colouring books with me which they loooved and thousands of stickers which were gone within 2 hours!!!! Now they come to knock on door and say "sister, sticker" ALL of the time! I've also painted their nails, drawn patterns on their hands and feet as everybody is really into body art and decoration. Last night I was teaching one of the 9 year old girls, Mariya, how to count past 100 in english. I was so impressed by how well she did! And then we did adding and subtracting games which she loves
. The same little girl adores the jigsaw puzzle that I took of the map of the world - she's done it so many times already!
The older girls love to dress me up with their clothes. It was 'Pongal', a Tamil festival this week so they dressed me in a half sari (which had this corset top thing that really really didn't want to go round me! however, they forced it on so I had to hold my breath all day!!). They put lots of bangles on me, a necklace, earrings, put a flower in my hair, did the henna pattern on my left hand, gave me a bindi.....you name it! And we went to the temple to celebrate and ate sweet rice.
Lots of the little kids have horrible sores all over and because of such dirty living conditions, the open wounds are just getting more and more infected. Its very difficult to see something really bad when you know that it can be prevented so easily in the west. Sarah and I have stuck on over a hundred plasters (literally) and put antiseptic cream on before they go to bed. SO now we also get knocks on the door saying "sister, bandage" at the littlest, most minute pimple!
There is a day care centre based in the grounds of the children's home where loads of under 3's are taken by their parents - they are SO cute (but SO hyperactive!!!). I spent a morning there and then one afternoon I went to the Middle School where the children from the home go to help with a Spoken English class. It was like being a celebrity!!! "Sister, wot is yor name?" "Sister, wot is your farther's name?" "Sister, wot is your mother's name?" "Sister, yor native country?" "Sister, yor fevorite colour?" etc etc etc!!!! I think I was more of a distraction than anything else!!
Yesterday I went to the High School which was slightly calmer. I seemed to be pretty popular with the 15 year old boys. I had over 20 surrounding me for over 2 hours, questioning me about myself and England, and telling me about India. Then loads of them asked for my autograph!!
