Countdown

Flying out in just a few days, almost certainly via two days in Singapore. And, as these things go, I suddenly have lots going on!

 

Yesterday Pauline took me shopping for my saree- I needed one, intended to get two, and walked out with three. You know how these things go. I found the perfect saree for my last day at school, but I found it in two perfect colors! I knew I'd regret whichever one I didn't get, so I got both. They even have coordinating trim, so I can wear the blouse intended for one with the other and vice versa, so it's like I got four for the price of two! Right? They're insanely beautiful, and while spending more than 1000 rupees on a single item boggles my mind after a few months here, it actually works out to be $20. The third and final one is one I've intended to buy for years and years- sometime in high school I got it into my head to own a black and gold saree. And now I do!

After saree shopping, we went to a swanky little ice cream parlor (cookies and cream tastes different here, but is still delicious!), bought glass bangles to match my saree, and then rushed off to Boys Home on a dual errand. Tuesday night is normally when we go to Boys Home, plus one of their neighbors is a lady who could stitch my saree blouse! Rosalee, the house mother (as well as my favorite teacher), insisted on accompanying us, which turned out to be very fun and useful. She was suitably impressed with my selections, and she LOVED the black one and wants it for her birthday. Putting my hair up so it wouldn't get in the way of the measurements led to a five minute demonstration of my awesome hair comb. And she explained to the seamstress how soon I needed the work done!

My favorite picture I have taken at Boys Home- Gopi looks like in this moment, his life is as perfect as he has ever imagined

Today my big item was finally picking up the last of my churidars from the tailor. Just in time to wear everything once and go home! But now I'm prepared for return trips.

Check out the fancy detail they added on this neckline (using fabric from the pants):

 

Tomorrow is going to be hopping! Directly from school, Pauline and I are going to the small local mall for mehendi- those gorgeous intricate henna tattoos all over my hands. So excited!! Will probably also pick up some sort of necklace, because apparently it will be a tragedy if I don't wear one with my saree.

The henna will take some time, and then it's straight off to Boys Home again for final fittings for my blouse, and to confirm plans for Friday morning with Rosalee. Once that is done, it's back to the flat for a girls night in with Dominos pizza. Pauline has never partaken, and specifically requested to join in.

Friday morning, it's up bright and early to hustle back to Boys Home one last time so Rosalee can help me tie my saree, do my hair up with jasmine flowers, and anything else I need to be properly fancy for my last day. Then it will be my last day at Little Lambs! A few weeks ago I couldn't wait for that, but now it all feels a little fast! I'm very excited about what I'm moving on to, but still.

 

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Puppies and Plans

I should have news within the week about my next stop on this crazy journey- not absolutely definitely, but things are moving quickly and positively on multiple fronts. 

In the meantime, here are some new pictures of the puppies at Boys Home

P.S. I've added a widget on the side (if you are viewing the desktop version and not the mobile site) that shows you some of my recent Instagram posts. Little snippets that might not deserve their own post, but give more frequent updates. 

Children's Home fun

I met a baby parrot at Children's Home this week!

No name yet, but they are teaching her to talk and dance. 

Spent my non-parrot-communing time learning to play a sort of board game that seems to be like pool, but played with checkers instead of balls and fingers instead of cues. I've gone from terrible to occasionally good over the last two weeks, but I'm still learning how to hit the checker without brutalizing my fingers. 

Little Moments: Chameleons

There are chameleons here.

 

That is all.

 

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Girls' Home

Spent two hours at Girls' Home tonight. No crazed children stealing my camera, so no photos for you today, but I absolutely will be taking a few pictures when I visit next week, because the view from their roof is spectacular.

 

Actually, I will show you one picture:

 

Several children have asked me over the past few days to see a picture of my family. This picture is saved in my Favorites on my phone, so it is very easy to pull up. I point out my mother and my sister, and without fail they point to me and ask who it is. And without fail, they are shocked when I tell them it is me, and stare intently at me trying to see it. So apparently I'm looking a little dowdier than I thought lately. So now I'm on a mission to locate an optometrist so I can get contact solution and put an end to this nonsense!

Back to Girls' Home. They were eating while I was there, and they dished me up a bowl. I don't think it was the actual meal, but I haven't figured out how these things work yet. Regardless, it was excellent. It was cooked chickpeas. Just chickpeas. I even checked if they cooked them in anything, or added ghee, but nothing. Just pure, unadulterated chickpeas cooked from scratch. And they were so good. Eaten sitting on the floor, with the bowl on the floor, with your fingers. I noticed several, but not all, of the girls mashing each handful a little before they ate. I tried it, but it didn't affect the taste, and seemed like unnecessary effort to me. I also had a cup of tea at the end of the night, with a little sugar and lots of milk. Definitely not as much sugar as they put in my coffee each morning- I mainly drink that to be polite, but it's doable because it basically tastes like tiramisu.

I spent about an hour on the roof with some first graders, doing maths (writing out the words for numbers from the digits), and despite my repeated attempts to explain that I don't speak the language, correcting their Tamil homework as well. The last half hour was back inside (with tea!), helping one of the older girls with her maths. She needs to brush up on the basics, but picked it up astonishingly fast once I started walking her through it. She is going to come find me during lunch tomorrow to keep working on it. I am rapidly getting frustrated with all of the Reading work I do with the kids, but who ever would have thought I would become the Math Maven?

 

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Boys Home

I visited the boys hostel for the first time today. I'm working on a longer post that goes into more detail about Little Lambs School, but for the purpose of this post you just need to know that about 50 of the students come from very rough backgrounds and have been placed in one of three group homes the school runs: Children's Home (next door to my flat), Boys' Home, and Girls' Home. The volunteers go to each one once a week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) to help with homework and play with the younger kids. My flatmate and fellow volunteer Pauline has been very sick for the past 10 days, so this was the first day she was able to take me along.

 

Probably the most exciting part about Boys' Home right now is that they have puppies.

I spent the majority of my time hanging out with some of the younger boys in the yard playing with the extremely tolerant puppies, and a little time towards the end helping with math, science, and social studies homework. I definitely had to look up some of the math information- who actually remembers how to apply exponential functions to fractions?

 

This little lady just hung out like that for about ten minutes without complaining

 

 

P.S. For those who were following the saga, it looks like Pauline does not have Dengue fever! We are all very pleased.

 

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Watch This Space...

Hello, world! It's been a while, hasn't it?

Maybe we should go somewhere... somewhere exciting... sometime soon...

...say, Chennai, India?