almost there!
PART FOUR! The Glorious Children's Home
This one has a ton of pictures, I'm serious! It's mad crazy! Yeah.
This was our main reason for going to India in the first place. We were sent to take supplies to the orphanage and hang out with the greatest kids in the world! We mostly played, and set up a nursery for the new babies. It was tres exciting.
Those are all the children in the home, plus us in the back, the tallest people there! It was incredible, we expected only 80 children, but because of the December tsunami, we found 25 new children, bringing the total to 105.
They like taking group pictures, everyone seems to just crowd in.
On my last trip, we built a playground for the children, and stuck this boat there because as Americans, we thought it would be nifty...it turns out that they had no idea what to do with it. But they eventually figured it out apparently.
We brought this kite with us, expecting them to have no idea what to do with it, but they got it flying. They were so happy with it, because the only kites they had were those they made out of sticks and tissue paper. At the end of our trip, we bestowed the kite to our friend McKenzie and he became the official Keeper of the Kite for the rest of the kids. He was so excited about it that he carried it around with him for the rest of the day, he wouldn't set it down at all.
The kids have so much fun when we come because it's like we get to break all the rules with no consequences, they can stay out late, neglect their homework, and eat candy. It's like a two week long party for them, and they love every second of it.
We loved it too. They got us quite into the whole business of playing. We taught them games like Redlight-Greenlight and Red Rover and they taught us games like Cocoa and LONDON. I still have yet to figure out exactly how you play Cocoa, as far as I could tell you just run between people and try to tag someone, but it turns out I was wrong. It was far more complicated than that, as I learned when I tried to play it.
LONDON is just the Indian version of the game where one person tries to make the others laugh, and the others can't show their teeth or smile. On one occasion, the game was finished and Clara decided to have a little fun of her own. She pretended that she didn't know the game was over. The poor girls were very confused and they kept trying to get me to tell her that the game was over, but I just shrugged. It went on for about five minutes, until Clara couldn't hold it any longer.
There was a lot of just hanging out. They tried to teach us more Tamil, and we failed miserably, and we tried to teach them more English, which they excelled at.
That's Clara and Jody and Janci.
They love to pose for pictures. Whenevery you get the camera out, it's "Auntie! Auntie! PHOTO!!! Photo! Hannauntie! Please, photo?" Until you submit and take fifty pictures only to delete them seconds later. We ended up with over 500 pictures, these episodes notwithstanding.
That's Sarro. She's my buddy, another of my favorites, though I shouldn't say that because I love them all.
Every time we go to the home, we have a special movie night for all the home children and all of the people who live in the compound, we cook giant tubs of popcorn over an open fire with the kernels and the oil flying everywhere! The popcorn is always delicious as it is the closest thing they have there to an American snack, it's so close to an American snack that we have to bring it all the way from, get this...the U.S. Wow, coincidence?
So this trip, we showed the kids Bambi. The majority fell asleep, and the older men in the room definitely enjoyed it much more than the children anyway. You could hear them chuckling in the background when all of the characters get "twitterpated". But everyone loved the popcorn and they all raved about the "flim" the next day (they can't actually say "film" you see, so it's "flim" instead).
While we were at the Home, we set up a nursery for the new babies. See, the Children's Home was originally set up to rescue the baby girls from the infanticide that runs rampant in South India. So far, we've rescued five: Grace, Ruth, Blesse, Angel, and one unnamed baby girl. Grace was adopted by the family who runs the Home, and Ruth and Blesse live in the home. Ruth was there on our last trip, and Blesse was brand new this time. Before we got there, they were sleeping on these...
And by the time we left, they were upgraded slightly...
They were a little weirded out at first by the new cribs, but the next day they were napping in them.
This is Ruth.
And this is Blesse.
They were adorable. Ruth really didn't like us at first, but we grew on her, and giving her a teddy bear cemented the deal. The night before we left, she was hugging and kissing us like we were her sisters. I wonder how much she'll grow in the next year until I see her again?
And now I will finish with some random pictures of me, Clara, and our favorite kiddies!!!!
This one has a ton of pictures, I'm serious! It's mad crazy! Yeah.
This was our main reason for going to India in the first place. We were sent to take supplies to the orphanage and hang out with the greatest kids in the world! We mostly played, and set up a nursery for the new babies. It was tres exciting.
Those are all the children in the home, plus us in the back, the tallest people there! It was incredible, we expected only 80 children, but because of the December tsunami, we found 25 new children, bringing the total to 105.
They like taking group pictures, everyone seems to just crowd in.
On my last trip, we built a playground for the children, and stuck this boat there because as Americans, we thought it would be nifty...it turns out that they had no idea what to do with it. But they eventually figured it out apparently.
We brought this kite with us, expecting them to have no idea what to do with it, but they got it flying. They were so happy with it, because the only kites they had were those they made out of sticks and tissue paper. At the end of our trip, we bestowed the kite to our friend McKenzie and he became the official Keeper of the Kite for the rest of the kids. He was so excited about it that he carried it around with him for the rest of the day, he wouldn't set it down at all.
The kids have so much fun when we come because it's like we get to break all the rules with no consequences, they can stay out late, neglect their homework, and eat candy. It's like a two week long party for them, and they love every second of it.
We loved it too. They got us quite into the whole business of playing. We taught them games like Redlight-Greenlight and Red Rover and they taught us games like Cocoa and LONDON. I still have yet to figure out exactly how you play Cocoa, as far as I could tell you just run between people and try to tag someone, but it turns out I was wrong. It was far more complicated than that, as I learned when I tried to play it.
LONDON is just the Indian version of the game where one person tries to make the others laugh, and the others can't show their teeth or smile. On one occasion, the game was finished and Clara decided to have a little fun of her own. She pretended that she didn't know the game was over. The poor girls were very confused and they kept trying to get me to tell her that the game was over, but I just shrugged. It went on for about five minutes, until Clara couldn't hold it any longer.
There was a lot of just hanging out. They tried to teach us more Tamil, and we failed miserably, and we tried to teach them more English, which they excelled at.
That's Clara and Jody and Janci.
They love to pose for pictures. Whenevery you get the camera out, it's "Auntie! Auntie! PHOTO!!! Photo! Hannauntie! Please, photo?" Until you submit and take fifty pictures only to delete them seconds later. We ended up with over 500 pictures, these episodes notwithstanding.
That's Sarro. She's my buddy, another of my favorites, though I shouldn't say that because I love them all.
Every time we go to the home, we have a special movie night for all the home children and all of the people who live in the compound, we cook giant tubs of popcorn over an open fire with the kernels and the oil flying everywhere! The popcorn is always delicious as it is the closest thing they have there to an American snack, it's so close to an American snack that we have to bring it all the way from, get this...the U.S. Wow, coincidence?
So this trip, we showed the kids Bambi. The majority fell asleep, and the older men in the room definitely enjoyed it much more than the children anyway. You could hear them chuckling in the background when all of the characters get "twitterpated". But everyone loved the popcorn and they all raved about the "flim" the next day (they can't actually say "film" you see, so it's "flim" instead).
While we were at the Home, we set up a nursery for the new babies. See, the Children's Home was originally set up to rescue the baby girls from the infanticide that runs rampant in South India. So far, we've rescued five: Grace, Ruth, Blesse, Angel, and one unnamed baby girl. Grace was adopted by the family who runs the Home, and Ruth and Blesse live in the home. Ruth was there on our last trip, and Blesse was brand new this time. Before we got there, they were sleeping on these...
And by the time we left, they were upgraded slightly...
They were a little weirded out at first by the new cribs, but the next day they were napping in them.
This is Ruth.
And this is Blesse.
They were adorable. Ruth really didn't like us at first, but we grew on her, and giving her a teddy bear cemented the deal. The night before we left, she was hugging and kissing us like we were her sisters. I wonder how much she'll grow in the next year until I see her again?
And now I will finish with some random pictures of me, Clara, and our favorite kiddies!!!!