Cinema and Saris

Hello!

We have just been shopping. WE had a free afternoon for some to collect A Level results and to give us a break from cutting up paper and dance/face painting practice. Lydia Cat and IO went to Hot Chips for Lunch (Indian fast food) then SHOPPED, bought far too much but everything is so lovely. We had great fun in the last sari shop giggling with/at the guys and getting photos taken.

Can’t remember when I last wrote so I will start with Tuesday I think. We went over to see the boys and run our first properly planned session, with badge making to help us learn names, except they would cover them up, and then keep going, ‘my name my name’, I resorted to calling them Roger. In the evening we picked up our tailoring and quickly got dressed up in our saris to go out with Prince, one of the YMCA secretarys, for dinner and to see the new Rajnikanth movie (he is the Tamil Nadu superstar). The film didn’t start till ten and was three hours long! But we had incredible seats, they were like really comfy big leather armchairs and they could recline right back. I think we all missed parts of the film through falling asleep. Apparently it wasn’t as good as last years ‘blockbuster’ but it was ok.

Yesterday was another day of prep, some of us attempted to go to the Oasis tailoring course, but our lift never showed up. We were practicing face painting and learning our dances for Yellegri though so had lots to do.

Today we spent the morning dancing again and now are free until this evening when we have to get all dressed up for Independence eve celebrations.. Tomorrow is independence day and we are going over to the boys again, then Saturday we are off to Bangalore and Mysore to see ALL the elephants.

I sup[pose I should mention some of the other stuff that Chennai Challenge is doing here. Before we came out we all had to raise 1,300 pounds to pay for flights etc, but also to pay for other projects. So many people raised over their target that we ended up having about 13,000 to spend whilst here. Partly this money goes towards providing the boys with an extra meat meal a week for a year, and we also have restricted funds to buy a computer, but with the rest we are installing a water purification system at Kottivakkum, painting the inside and outside of Kottivakkum school, providing bibles and school equipment at Egmore, putting asir conditioning in the computer room at Kottivakkum, taking 150 boys to Yellegri, providing a big celebration meal our last evening here along with packs of useful and fun stuff for all the boys, and various other little things too. So whilst we so a lot of dancing and Uno silliness, Chennai Challenge and the money we all raised is doing a lot more!

Sooo speak again soon,
xxxx