I can't believe my day today, its been quite full on but brilliant and inspiring. Dominique has really done some truly amazing things here in India, as well as setting up a school she is getting sponsors to help another school for children from the north and an orphanage right here on my doorstep in Vashisht. I spent the early afternoon in the school for nomad rajahastan children early afternoon(there are about 25 at present as some families have gone back to rajahstan), and we started doing scenarios in role play in Hindi, and my mission this weekend is to make them english scripts. Ideas for scenarios came from the children themselves. One scenario is ' Selling saffron to a customer, another is 'visiting the doctor' and finally ' getting a dress made for Diwali', which is incidently tommorow! English versions begin on Monday! I also tested out some of the resources I made for the children, and it went okay. No problem with CH words, just a few say ssss instead of SH! The childrens families live near the school under these plastic tents which is hard to imagine right now as its suddenly gotten cold and its been raining all day and doesn't look like its going to stop. Anyway, after this I went with Dominique to the other school I will be volunteering in every day after the first school for a couple of hours to help the older ones come to grips with their English beginning Monday. This is a Buddhist boarding school with children from Spiti Valley and Lahoul. There are a few classes of various age groups, and the building is quite basic and has no heating which can begin to be a problem soon apparently. I met the principle and the children briefly, but will establish more of an idea as to what to teach them when I meet them on Monday. Lastly on the way back (but not least!) we visited the orphanage close to me, and my heart melted. The kids were lovely and the 2 teachers had such big hearts, you could see it in their eyes. They only have 2 sponsors at the moment, (that is, you send money every month-minimal amount of 15 euros), and they are clothed fed and housed as needed. So I will be doing a mail shot soon to try to get 5 sponsors, Dominique will give the info soon. The other thing I found was that they had no reading books at all, so I am going to try to see if its poss to get some from schools I have worked in that are not being used and flown over here. Having been used to teaching in the UK, I feel there is so much to do for these kids, and how little they have is unbelieveable. Also, they are so so eager to learn, its incredible.

Thanks for reading this rant, just had to be done! Jxx