Saturday was a stressful day at work as it was panic stations the day before the sports day! I of course got my bossy hat on and everything was ready on time but as you can imagine I always have to check if people are working to English time or Indian!!! In India 10 could mean 10:15, 10:30 or even 10:45!!! So I booked an auto van for 1pm and asked for it to be in English time, well that was a big mistake, it finally arrived at 1:40, we loaded it up to take the stuff to the sports ground where the event was taking place so that took us till 2:00pm the drivers then went for lunch as they did a whole 20mins work so it finally left at 3:00pm!!! That's Indian time.
Divya and I then decided we needed some retail therapy and went to the forum which is a huge mall and I stocked up on pick and mix!!!
We then were invited to Hema's house for tea; Hema is the GapGuru rep in
Bangalore. So I, Lizzie, Divya, Tom, Clive and Nathan turned up!!! There are 6 of us in south India - if you saw the photos it was us holding the very large drinks!!! We then had a race home in the autos; I, Tom and Nathan in one auto (we won of course) then Divya, Lizzie and Clive in the other.
Sunday was a very very very very long day. We picked the children up at 7am from their various homes etc. where they normally are, most of these children live on the streets so have very little clothing and most have no shoes! We then gave them breakfast and played a variety of non competitive games with them to encourage them to work as a team and every child got a goody bag at the end of the day (those are the ones I spent most of my week organising!). I decided to try my hand at Indian dancing much to the amusement of the children, and all I heard was auntie like this, auntie not like that etc... For those who don't know the children call all elders either auntie or uncle. I was interviewed by NDTV which is India's nation wide news channel about the work I am doing and how I helped organise the day etc... It was on TV this morning! I am now officially famous. The children then called me on stage with the others who helped organise the day and sang a song in thanks, it was very emotional!
Today was a really good day, we had orgainsed for the older children of Ananya (one of the six places I work with) to watch a movie, it was called "Life is Beautiful" it was set in Italy during the war and it was about the discrimination of Jews. I know that sounds very heavy but it was to show them that while they are looked down on because they live on the streets and in slums, not all people are like that and they have to think positive in themselves and channel their anger into other things. It was a very emotional day and they got so much out of it!!! And so did I!