A glimpse of my morning.

Bike rides through the village and down to the junction…I love them! Down unpaved roads and loose gravel. Numerous Indians waving and smiling while they are all in a trailer being pulled by a tractor. Stopping to take pictures of the cutest Indian children in the villages. Passing by a meat market. Riding down to the junction to eat delicious ice cream cones at 9 in the morning. And last but definitely not least, riding through herds of cows while we are greeting them with vanakkam. These are the many adventures that made up my bike ride through the village and down to the junction this morning J

I love India and the many different things I can do here. I love being in a country where the people are so friendly and welcoming. These things make me feel like I belong, that I'm supposed to be here, and that India is my home away from home.

My little bundles of joy!

UKG is the Indian equivalent to Kindergarten in the US. So we are talking about the cutest little 5 year-olds I have EVER seen. I’ve come to love and adore these kids so much! I’ve spent so much time with them and have gotten to know their cute little personalities, like they are my own nieces and nephews. I call them all my tambis and tangachis (little brothers and little sisters) because they truly are! Between UKG singing time in the morning, the English program Reading Horizons, PE, and UKG Playtime, I probably see them the most out of all the kids in the school.

Here are some of my favorite pictures that have been taken:

Mithuna

Priya Dharshini

Kaviya

UKG singing time is the best way to start out my morning. We start by going around in the circle and asking what everyone’s name is. Some of them are still struggling with answering this question, but it’s adorable to see all their classmates yell from across the circle, answering the question for them, “My name is Abhirami!” which then Abhirami says quietly, “My name is Abhirami.” They totally stick up for each other, which I think is the cutest thing ever. Next we usually do the “A says Ah” song and go through the whole alphabet with the names and sounds of the letters. The kids are usually squirming all around by this point and are putting their hands up to do the Bananas song. “Bananas unite! Peel banana. Peel peel banana. Slice banana. Slice slice banana. Mash banana. Mash mash banana. Eat banana. Eat eat banana. Go Bananas! Go go bananas!” It’s the cutest thing ever! We continue on with “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”, and end with “Five Little Monkeys” but we tailor it to however many UKG kids are in the class that day. So if there are 12 UKG kids, we do 12 Little Monkeys and they all jump up and down until the end of the song. It’s the greatest thing to be working with these kids, I love it!

Here are some more pictures, because they're just SO cute! :

Diyasri

Charles (pronounced 'Char-less')

UKG Playtime is the best way to end my day. I go pick up the UKG kids around 3PM and walk over to the playground, while they are all surrounding me and saying my name and who knows what in Tamil. Keep in mind, these kids barely can say, “What is your name?” So I just assume that they are saying all good things, while they are giggling away. Once we get close enough to the playground I count down from 5 and have them run as fast as they can to the merry go round. Yes, they have a merry go round, which is extinct in all of America’s playgrounds. It seriously is the best physics experiment, because it goes so fast! The kids whirl around and come off of the merry go round about to fall to the ground, but they love it! The other day, David (the medical coordinator) was going down the slide with all the kids on top of him and by the time he got up there was a huge sweat mark on the slide. Jeevanithi, the oldest UKG kid, started saying that it was pee. At first they were all going back and forth on who peed, and then David said it was mine. And literally the whole playground was laughing and saying, “Yemily pee!! Yemily pee!” It was hilarious and they all had a kick out of it. But when Sangeetha, the ring leader of all the UKG kids that loves me, came over I whispered in her hear that it was David’s pee. So she ended up convincing half the playground that it was David who peed on the slide haha. “David pee (then words in Tamil I don’t know)” and “Yemily pee (then words in Tamil I don’t know)” was the buzz around the rest of the playground the day.

Delhi Trip!

JAIPUR: Pink City



First things first, as soon as I got out of the airport and we were riding in the bus on the road, I SAW A CAMEL JUST GOING WITH THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC ON THE ROAD!! It’s not the best picture, but considering the camel was going 2 mph and we were going way beyond that, I would say it’s a good take. Not only did I see a camel, but I also saw an elephant. Two things were crossed off my bucket list and we weren’t even 5 minutes into our tour.

Later that night, we went to an observatory. It was so cool! University students use it for their astronomy and science classes. I wish we had something like this in Idaho

 Mom with HALF of the huge sun dial. (This sun dial could be used to know the time up to 2 seconds)

he whole observatory from a distance. This observatory was way into using your horoscope for different things of science, it was really interesting.

  After that, we went to the Pink Palace, where an Indian wedding was being set up. There were guards at the gate, so naturally we all wanted pictures with them. Little did we know that they wanted money from us…

The guards

The gorgeous palace!

 I LOVE all the flowers at Indian weddings. It’s gorgeous!

The Om symbol was made out of roses!

I have NO idea what this was about.  

Maurine and I in front of the Pink Palace

The next day, we rode elephants up to the Amber Palace, as well as camels down a boardwalk!

Where the elephants rode us up to. It was about a 25 minute ride.

There are about 115 elephants total!

Our elephant driver had us wear his turban and I wouldn’t have been surprised if either of us got lice from it…

Our view from the elephant. GORGEOUS.

Inside the Amber Palace with our awesome group!

Me riding a CAMEL!!

Camel smile next to a camel!

Mom touching a camel

Camel camel camel CAMEL! If you didn’t notice, I love camels!

Last, but definitely not least, we went to the beautiful Taj Mahal!

Probably my favorite picture of my mom in front of the Taj hahaha.

I loved going to Delhi and Agra again and experiencing Jaipur for the first time! It was awesome to be able to spend some good quality time with my mom for the last few days she was in India. Saying bye to her was hard, but I’m so grateful that she was able to come and experience India. If you want to read about her experience from India go to: http://www.rsoutreach.blogspot.in/2014/07/a-volunteer-experience-mindy-hashey.html 

PET!

PET…or otherwise known as PE or Physical Education in America. PET is an acronym for Physical Education Training, or at least that’s what I thought the PET Instructor told me. Every standard gets PET at least once a week. Sometimes they have PET by themselves and sometimes it’s with another standard. The volunteers have the option to do PET and depending on the heat they usually pick it. It brings variety and fun to the education schedule, and there are so many fun games that they play.

Some of my favorites include “Dog and Bone”, “Below the Knee”, and “Catch”. In “Dog and Bone” there are two teams that are standing in a horizontal line facing each other. There is a considerable distance between them with a ball in the middle. Each player is given a number and when your number is called you run up to the ball and have to make a couple of rotations around it. Once you make a couple of rotations, you ultimately either want to grab the ball and get back to your side without being caught or if the other player grabs the ball you want to catch them before they get to their side. I’m not going to brag or anything, but my team has won every time, so far.

In “Below the Knee”, there are two teams and it’s kinda like dodge ball. One team is in the middle of the circle having to dodge the ball below their knee and the other team is on the outskirts of the circle throwing the ball at players inside the circle below the knee. I’m awful at being inside the circle, partly because I am taller than all of the kids and partly because I always forget that I can move when the ball is thrown at me…whoops haha.

Lastly, “Catch” is played with primarily UKG. So they always make any game fun! They all stand in a circle and one person is in the center throwing the ball to someone in the circle. Once you catch the ball you go around the circle 2 times and the best part is the little UKG kids sing “Happy Birthday” to that person the whole time. It makes me crack up every time!

The other day at PET, the instructor told me how he is getting married the following week. Sadly, it is on the last day of the session and I am leaving for Delhi that night with my mom, so I can’t go. I love how inviting and welcoming people are. I met him only a few weeks ago and he wants me to celebrate at his wedding.

I love India. I love the people. I just love it!