When it rains, it pours.

You know the saying, "When it rains, it pours?" Here it is so so literal. Today my coworker from the Slums, Yogen, called me about 4 minutes before I would have been entering an auto and heading out there to tell me that there was a huge traffic jam and that it was not worth coming. Everything literally shuts down for the day/week/month. It is crazy. Now that the rain has come through for the first time since I've been there, though, everything smells so much nicer and the air is much cooler.

My time with the "orphanage" project so far has been both trying and extremely satisfying. I was defintely thrown into the situation. I was given no tasks, and had, literally, a chalk board and a piece of chalk. Basically the center I am volunteering at is a very small room on the second story of a building in the slums of South Delhi. It's near the "Nizamuddin Railway Station". It is not really an orphanage, as there are no beds, no furniture and only 6 children, mostly those over the age of 10, sleep there (on the floor). Basically my day is this: I arrive at 11, and teach about 15-20 two to eight year olds English until about 12 or 1230. We write the ABCs, 123s, we talk about colors. We act out animals. After 12 or 1230, we play games or color. When I arrived they had a bucket of crayons, about 17 or so, and very little paper. The first day I showed them how to draw a face and talked about the parts of the face in English. Then, i had them color the background and make their own hair. The problem is..only one staff knows English so I usually wait till he gets there before doing any sort of project of game, as it is literally impossible to explain something like "you need to draw your own hair and color the background" without knowig Hindi myself. Thus, the trying part. I have learned a lot already. The most important thing to learn is "good" or "that looks good" because they scream "DIDI!" (sister) until I tell them they have written their A right. "Acha Hay!" or "Theek Hay (OK)!"works well. So far the most satisfying experience has been with Guddu, a 17 year boy who is staying at the orphanage and has lost one of his legs. He loves loves loves art, and has been sketching for years. It's almost all he does and he showed me everything. The next day, I brought him watercolor paper and gave him my watercolors and brushes and showed him how to dip the brush and use just a tiny bit of color at a time. In no time he drew this beautiful ladscape with a church and hills and forrest and painted it all in like he had done it a thousand times. It was amazing. I was really inspired by him and am going to think of more challenging things for him to do.

At 1, the children eat lunch-provided at no cost. Then they leave (DIDI NAMASTE DIDI NAMASTE!) and a new batch of 15 or so kids arrive from school. They know more English ("Ma nem ez Farah") and actually make fun of me for my bad Hindi. Yesterday we played the Hokey Pokey and they loved it.

More later, but I love it so far. I feel really amazing here. I am spending money more than I thought I was going to be, however. I'm going to the Taj on Saturday with Naomi on a 1st class train..think The Darjeeling Limited. I can't wait!

Didi Namaste!!!!!! Namaste Didi!!!
Love always,

Erin