Graduation!

We had a birthday party for Sita but I neglected to take any photos... she looked so beautiful in her pink and black dress!  

The school had a graduation ceremony for the 12's and the whole school was involved!  All the grades had a different performance whether it was of Shiva and Parvati or a Hindi rap song that everyone knew.  Oh and I had lost my nose ring during the night and only remembered during the performance so I had run back home and put a new one in.  The only thing that was wrong was I couldn't find the piercing hole because I was in such a rush.  I grabbed my ear piercing that has a super sharp end and stabbed it through what looked like the closed hole, took a lot of pressure and pain but I finally stabbed it through.  I took the piercing out and grabbed my nose piercing to put back in and for some reason I found the original piercing hole... I was so mad at myself.  My nose was red and bleeding and all for nothing because I was too rushed to find the original piercing hole.  I am such a butt.

So I got back and watched the performance of everyone and it was so much fun to watch.  Despite my bleeding nose I enjoyed all my kiddies performing as Shiva, Parvati, Saraswati and all the many dancers.  After the performance I embarrassed the girls by dancing and worked up an appetite... just in time for lunch at the school.  Food was very spicy but I am use to it by now and after I did much more dancing but it got to a point that all I wanted to do was go back home and rest.

Boys always interested in taking photos with me.

Suma our new graduate

Head girl

Dancing!

Parma and friend in blue

Selfies!

They love their makeup

My little performers

So cute!

Big rap dance

Graduating

I don't know what dance this was but it was pretty cool

Oh Lord Shiva

Our two girls in pink

Our girl is Parvati

This cutie

And Ceremony is all over!

Many days mixed together...

I apologize for the inconvenience of not posting anything but I have just gotten side tracked playing with my many new children and giving all my attention and love to them.  So here are the photos from the day I stopped blogging to a couple days ago... I will get more photos soon!

I was proposed to...

My lovely bridesmaids 

Aadi and I at the doctors office... he had an ear infection and puss was coming out of his ear.

The last photo of this puppy before it un-expectingly died the next night.  We made the flowers for him... so beautiful.

Johnney helping with flower making

My beautiful Sita!  

One of the many hair styles the girls do for me before Arati.

So much love for this little man

Brianca... always getting each other in trouble

Teaching Aadi to drive

Brianca

Pinkie my other best friend

They always ask why I make weird faces...

Simi the cutest girl ever... she's always in her own world

One of the maids boy... he calls me didi now too.

So now they call me Kayla didi, Kayla means banana in Hindi... I don't know how I acquired this name but it has stuck.  During break the girls and I always walk around with my music and dance crazily but they never do it in front of other people.  When I dance in public the girls always say "Kali-di no don't, everyone is looking", and then I just dance harder in attempt to embarrass them.  Monkeys are a big deal here and they are always causing problem; coming inside, knocking over bins and stealing food.  Everyone chases them and the dogs will always go after them.  I help everyone study as much as possible because exams are coming up.  Deepak always asks questions and says 'why' after every answer until I can't say anything more.  Seema didi is the head lady here after Rashmi and both are now good friends... although Seema didi never fails to inform me if my top is just slightly too low or if I am looking fabulous.  Since Australia my computer screen has continued to crack but now it has reversed and won't get any bigger, a good 1/5 of the screen is black with coloured lines.  At 4 in the morning really loud music will start playing because of an  upcoming holiday on the 17th... it is pretty much right outside my window and I just want to sleep.  

Arati has been really fun because I can get so many people in trouble by making them laugh and then Gautam will get mad at them... best thing ever.  I have been very good recently, only because Seema Didi has joined Arati and sits at the front watching everyone... but I can do no wrong because Seema loves me.  

We have two new visitors that come very often; Cronti and Sudan.  They are very good friends of the Ashram and come every year... sometimes even more.  

I am always running around with the kids and playing, which was fun at the start but now it is getting so exhausting... being pulled this way and that.  The little girls even fight over who gets to make my hair... I only let Pinkie touch it because she massages it at the same time.  So many massages here... sooo nice!

I brought the good weather with me and it is getting warmer at night now, I no longer have freezing toes in bed.  Showers have become simple and I am a pro at bathing out of a bucket now.

Tata for now!

Sunday...

I don’t know how I managed this but I have gotten my days mixed up because I haven’t been journaling lately.  So this journal is the Sunday journal but it is in between day 107 and 108… if that makes sense at all.

I woke up in the morning with Sonja and walked back over to my room wrapped in my blanket and everyone starred at me even though it was too dark to see anything.  I got my baggy clothes on and came outside to do the Cross-Fit exercise.  It started out with a 300m run, and 30 sets of 4 jumping jacks… this was just the beginning.  After that I was showed how to lift the metal bar with weights at the ends of them and put it over my head.  I was paired up with Sonja so the whole workout was in a pattern.  One person runs 100m and the other lifts the bar… then you switch, one person runs 100m and the other does burpees… then you switch, one person runs 100m and the other lifts the weights above their head… then you switch, one person runs 100m and the other does jump rope.  Everyone does three sets of this and then the workout is over and everyone goes off to change for breakfast… I was too lazy to change so I stayed outside and stretched everything out as much as I could.  Finally it was breakfast but I didn’t eat as much as normal because I knew that if I did there wouldn’t be any point of having a workout.

 After breakfast everyone got to do their chores and I did some of mine but mostly I went and had the Sunday meeting with Rashmi and some of the other older kids here.  After this I just stayed in the office and her and I talked forever about travelling and the kids here.  I don’t know where the time went but when we finished talking it was almost lunchtime and I went to my room to relax.  When the lunch bell rang I went to the dining hall to join everyone and when we were done everyone went to play or study.  Finally I put my new knowledge of atoms to use and I was so happy that the boys understood everything.  When atoms were done the oys got more work out about bio and chemistry and I helped them with that as well.  When we had finished our work Deepak had questions about the Bermuda triangle so we googled it and read as much as we could until he was satisfied with all the information I gave him.  Finally it was playtime and I brought my speaker out and danced with everyone and taught them what i learned in dance at school.  I even taught Guatum how to dance with a girl... he still needs some work and everyone laughs when he tries to break out the moves.  Deepak called me over and him and I bathed the puppies, I grabbed my towel and dried the babies off so they didn't freeze.  I continued to play after this.

Clean puppy

I have photographers everywhere.

The concrete slide.

Deciding on a dance.

And this is how dance class started... swinging Sita around.

Who doesn't love to dance!

The Arati bell rang and Sonja and Sita whist me off to their room and my hair was done again… Sonja always makes me look so pretty I love it!  During Arati now some one always manages to make me laugh and thank goodness that I don’t get in trouble.  When Arati is done I grab my dinner plate and sit next to Sita and anyone else that wants to sit next to me…. I always have a new place to sit and always someone who wants to sit with me.

I had hot milk and then went to bed like usual but tonight wasn’t as cold and it didn’t take long for my feet to heat up.

Atoms!

After the kiddies went off to school I went to Kavita’s room to watch a movie called Heropanti… a love story about two people who shouldn’t be allowed to love each other.  I am starting to fall in love with Bollywood movies, there is so much singing and dancing in them that I am always smiling.  When the movie finished it was just about time for lunch and everyone was returning home.  My phone seems to have become the object of play and Sita is always holding it watching Pokémon on my TV app.  I eventually have to take it away and tell them to go play.  When it came to study time, Rashmi told all about how the teaching system is messed up and how you can’t really consider it teaching because the teachers just give the students what they are given to teach.  They don’t do anything fun to explain, they just write things down on the board and the kids rewrite it and that would be the lesson for the day.  Sometimes the kids don’t even understand what was taught but have a test on it the next day so all they do is memorize without understanding it.  To be honest I started getting a bit frustrated hearing about the education system and how ridiculous it was.  So to help out I taught the grade 9’s about atoms, they had to learn the whole chapter in a day and then tomorrow they would start a new chapter on something else.  I did my best to help them understand what everything was but to be honest I was having trouble myself in remembering what was what.  By the end of the lesson I felt like I could have done a way better job… so I emailed my grade 11-science teacher Mr. Wiebe who I think knows everything there is to know and I absolutely adore him.  Hopefully in the morning I would have all the information I would need to know to actually teach my new students. 

After teaching it was playtime again and of course I was pulled this way and that to come play here and there.  I was constantly sliding down the concrete play slide and running away from this and that.  When the bell rang for everyone to get ready for Arati I couldn’t have been more happy for it and retreated to Sonja’s room to get my hair brushed and done up.  When it was time to go to Arati we lined up and ran off to the prayer room.  We sat down and began singing our normal songs but Kavita saw that the songbook was touching my feet and snatched it away and said something in Hindi and then kissed the book.  I smiled and then started giggling and then had a full out laugh attack.  Soon I was crying cause I was laughing so hard and I couldn’t control myself… I felt so bad cause there was nothing I could do to stop myself.  Guatum, who is the boss of Arati, started staring me down and I knew I would have to be quite or I would get in trouble… but then some of the other girls started giggling too.  By the end of Arati Guatum walked over to me and pointed to the door and I left the room laughing my butt off, seconds later prayers were done and everyone left laughing as well. 

Dinner was normal… everyone talking and not being eating dinner in silence and food scattering all over the floor.  When dinner was done I took my warm milk outside and sat in the cold and soon I had Deepak and Guatum asking me questions about cars and the school system and movies… when I give an answer Deepak will just keep asking why until I run out of explanations.

I didn’t sleep in my own today instead I slept in Sonjas bed… we had a secret sleepover and Rashmi was not allowed to know about it.  In the morning there is no school so we have a huge workout in the morning… can’t wait to get up at and run at 6:30!

Finally meeting Rashmi.

This morning was a bit different from the first few that I have had here so far… I finally got to meet Rashmi.  Although she was in a very big rush and zoomed right past me with a quick ‘hello’ and ‘sorry I am just so busy right now’, that was the first of her that I saw in the morning.  I really wanted to ask her about going into town to get things essential like toilet paper and maybe warmer socks but she was rushing in and out of the office signing things and doing this and that I felt it might have been an unnecessary thing to add to her plate at the moment.  I did get to talk to her a bit to tell her about my trip and where in India I came from for a little while.  I was in such desperate need of toilet paper that I asked Seema (the lady that has the keys for everything) for some… entering into secret rooms she pulled out two rolls of toilet paper and awarded them to me.  I was so insanely happy to finally have them I couldn’t stop smiling and making my happy noises. 

After that I kind of just chilled out and did my laundry because it was such a nice day out, I just had to do something productive in the sun!  I filled up a bucket of water and grabbed my soap bar because I had nothing else at the moment.  Stuffed all my clothes in the hot water and soaked them completely, I picked one thing out at a time and soaped it up with my bar and then dunked it back in the bucket.  When everything had been done just like this I squeezed all the water out of them… or as much as I could and then hung them up on the plastic wire in the corner of the balcony.  When all was good and done I made my bed and took a shower with a bucket.  Feeling clean and refreshed I went outside to sundry.

Lunchtime rolled around and everyone came home for food and a bit of playtime and then they were off again.

I went onto the girls side and brought my laptop with me just incase someone might want to watch a movie.  As I lay on the balcony with Sonja soaking up the beautiful sun, Rashmi cam out of her room which just so happened to be right in front of us.  Finally her and I got to talk about the kids, their education and even a story of how Aadi, the youngest, came to the orphanage.  Just so I don’t keep you wondering, he was found by friends of the orphanage in a riverbed on a very rainy evening.  The friends rushed him here instead of the police, the police didn’t do anything anyway, Aadi has been having seizures but so far he is getting better and hasn’t had another episode for a while.  Rashmi says he probably receives the most love out of everyone at the orphanage because he is so cute.

Sonja braided my hair before Arati.

Soon everyone returned from school and it was study time.  Rashmi paired Sonja and I together to help tutor two little girls who are 6 and 7, unfortunately I kind of forget their names and don’t know how to spell them.  I helped with math, their ABC’s and even Hindi… but only a little bit, I mostly was taught.  I helped one of them with her nursery rhymes and taught her ‘Row Row Row your Boat’ and the fun action that goes along with it, she had it all down by the time I became tired from rowing… which would have been probably 20 verses.  Finally it was play time and Sita ran over to me, grabbed my hand and whist me away to run everywhere.  We played tag with the puppy and climbed all over the monkey bars, played hide and seek tag with the other kids and ran up and down the slide to many times.  I was so tired after that it was unbelievable.  Luckily, the bell for Arati saved me from this exhaustion and I got ready for prayer.  There was lots of singing like usual and crazy boys beating the drums much too hard and girls trying to sing over top of all the noise going on.  It always seems to be a bit chaotic in a good kind of way… I enjoy it every time and I am starting to learn some of the words to sing along.

Finally dinnertime approached and I was dragged here and there to sit with this person and this person.  Only when food was being served did I get a break from all the kids.  When dinner was done I drank my hot milk outside and talked with everyone that had questions about this and that… Guatum always has something to say after dinner.  Bedtime couldn’t come soon enough and nor could my shower.  Pouring buckets of water over my head is the best thing ever and going to bed is even better than that.  Even though it was 8:30 I was sooo ready for bed and didn’t try to keep myself awake.