Just got back from a beautiful Temple about 2 miles from where I am living. Pauline, Allison, and I walked there together after work. It is all white with Gold designs on the top and sides. It has pillars and elephant carvings and a long walk way leading up to the steps. Inside, there are different sections of the walls that each have statues of a different Hindi God. There are also murals along the back walls that tell stories about the Gods. I will post pictures of the outside soon. This morning we left the house around nine and walked to the school. The school has about 250 students, both boys and girls, split up into 3 centers in the city. The children that attend this school are the children of city workers who would have to roam the streets all day if they did not have the school to go to. It is all open but inclosed in a fence. It is a fairly large area, all dirt, and all the classes are along the edges of the fence and in the corners. Today I started with standard 4. I taught a drawing class and then a science class. This is a group of 14 students. The school does not know their ages because they have no birth certificates so the put them into classes by their ability. After Standard 4, I went to Standard 5 and helped them study for their science exam. I also began teaching Standard 6 their next chapter of science. They have classes from 9-12:30. They have to be there at 8 and they are fed lunch and leave at around 1 or 1:30 depending on the weather. Tonight Justin, Pauline, Allison, and I plan to eat dinner, play cards and watch The Office. Sounds like home for all of us! Tomorrow I will be going to the Hospital with Pauline and after we will finish planning our weekend trip to Haridwar and Rishikesh!

Hope everyones day went well! This morning around 7 I left for a different host family in a seperate part of Faridabad. I will stay here for a few weeks because it is closer to the street children project that I will be working on. If I enjoy it I can stay here longer. If not I will go back to Kranti and Dr. Bandhu's house and work on a new project. Justin and Allison live in this house and there is another girl from Belgium coming later in the day. This house in a little smaller but it is still nice. It is in an area that is more of the slums and there are more people than where I was before. Everything here is very different from home. A few things I have noticed are that they drive on the other side of the road, there are no stop signs and barely any traffic lights, there are cows, monkeys, dogs, and goats that walk in the road all the time, and they have no problem putting 5 or 6 people on one motorcycle. I also found it funny that they have no problem with the possibility of hitting a person or a dog... but they slow down and go to the other side of the road if there is a cow near their car. Today is much hotter than yesterday already and it was not raining this morning. Yesterday it was very sad to see kids in the streets who can only shower or brush their teeth when it is raining. Many families live in tents made of sticks and tarps along the sides of the roads or in lots set up in fields. Many of  them also run market stands out of their tents during the day. Allison and I are going to the slum school today and I am very excited to meet the new children! I will post more pictures of the children and the city soon.

Goodmorning Everyone! The first set of pictures are up on my facebook and I will put some on here soon. They are from Delhi, the India Gate, Quitab Minar, and the Orphanage. The rain eventually stopping late this morning so we did not get to the slum school. We went back to the orphanage/school that I went to on Saturday. Today we helped the kids with their ABC's and numbers 1-10. Most of them are doing very well!! They love to be a school and are always very excited to see us. When we arrive in the morning the class always stands up, waves, and yells "Goodmorning!!!" and then they all say hi to us a few times and show us their books and bags and what they brought that day. The children were all very interested in the bracelets that I bought and took them right off my wrists. They all loved to be held and will run right over to you when it is lunch time or when class is over. A few have drawn me pictures and some of the older girls speak English very well and come over and ask me what my name is, where I am from, and how old I am. They also love to give me the same information about them. After we left the orphanage we came home and had lunch. Then I helped a young girl (from an orphange right behind Dr. Bandhu's house) study for her upcoming exams. Then Jayati gave me a quiz from one of her school books. I am pretty good with art, history, music, literature, and important people...but I need to brush up on my Indian history! I am not sure what I will be doing tomorrow but hopefully it will not be raining and I will be able to go to the slum school and teach there!

Hope everyones night is going well! I just finished breakfast and now its time for work. We were planning on going to the school for the slum children today but the school is open and its raining pretty hard. We will wait until 9 and if the rain has stopped we will go to the slum school and if not we will head to a different school. School here runs all year with a month long vacation in summer and a week long vacation around christmas time. They leave their houses at about 7am and it runs from about 7:15am to 12pm and they come home and study and do their homework before playing with their friends and doing their chores. I will post more about the slum children and school as soon as I find out!

Hi Everyone! Sorry it took so long for the first post. I love it here so far! I arrived at the house in Faridabad around 1:30 Saturday morning. The next morning was straight to work in the orphanage. I was able to sit in a kindergarten age classroom and listen to their lessons and then help them with letters, sounds, and nursery rhymes. They loved the bracelets I was wearing, so good thing I brought tons for them! Right now it is just me, Marian (From Belgium), and Justin (From Miami) in the house. A few others are on weekend trips and will return tuesday. After we finished at the orphanage we came back to the house and had lunch. We all needed to change money so we called a rickshaw driver and headed to the Faridabad mall. It's fairly close and I can get anything I need there. It's like a mall mixed with a walmart. Today Marian and I left at 8am for a tour around Delhi. I am living about and hour outside the city. It was raining a little bit, but it felt good considering how hot it was! We were able to visit The Lotus Temple, The India Gate, Quitab Minar, and a few shops and markets along the way.  I'm off to have dinner now and I am working in the Orphanage again tomorrow and I have photos from today to post, so hopefully I will be able to do that when I return home tomorrow!

Finally landed in Amsterdam! It's almost 8am here and at 11:20 I board the last flight and head to India!!

10 hours and 5 minutes left!!!!!