En peerudaan Callie.

Just another day at school.  Arun is studying by the window. This is the 7th Standard class just about to start after their 10:30 AM break.

The kids have gotten used to me being at school with the camera.  They love to make funny faces and have their pictures taken.

Kristraj is writing his name in the book for his school picture. 

 Others are making sure their name is still in the book. 

Getting ready for another class.

Today we were lucky and got some jasmine for our hair.  Danielle was nice enough to braid our hair too.  We got a lot of compliments on our fish-tail braids. 

Sometimes when you walk through campus you see a bunch of boys huddled together.  If you see this you know what you will find.  WWE trading cards.  They play this game where they shuffle up the cards, divide between two and then they select a stat on the trading card.  If your number is bigger on the card you win the other persons card.  This keeps going until one has all the cards. Hari here is the ringleader in this game.

I thought today I would take some pictures at lunch.  Sometimes my ideas aren't so great.  I'm just not sure where this one falls.  

These are the boys I ate lunch with today.   Left to right: Satish, Kristraj, K. Vignesh, Naveen, Peter and Sarathy.

 Here is Carl (Construction Coordinator Volunteer) with Vimal

At one point this little man (below) wanted to take a picture.  This is S. Vinnarasan (photo taken by R. Kishore).  Absolutly adorable right?  I gave him my camera and showed him how to point, zoom, focus and take pictures.  

                                                      Here are some of the ones he got:

This is Amy (Medical Coordinator), Danielle (master braider, jack of all trades coordinator) and Julie ( Volunteer Director)

Then R. Kishore took our picture.  Most of them were of just my shirt or our legs and feet... that was kind of a disaster :o)

Here is Veera playing in the water.  Adorable!

Then its off to school again!

Aadu

What does your lawn mower look like?

This is mine- meet Lola.

Lola loves to smile.  The only time she isn't is when I catch here going up the stairs in the school at night.  Caught by the beam of my flashlight.

When she is startled she strikes this pose (below).

She apparently didn't do a good job yesterday because she was put back to the same section of lawn two days in a row.  Come on Lola- get it together!

Aasiriyar

I loved the first day of school when I was a kid.  You got new school supplies and got to see all your friends again... the only thing was you were going back to school and had to work.  Today was the best first day of school because for me I get to go, just not have to be in class!  I got to document the first day and here are some of the shots I got.  I also am taking all the kids school pictures.  I am about 1/3 of the way done (because of Julie's help) so I have the rest of the week to finish. I seriously have the best job ever!  

This first picture was my favorite of the day.  I love their smiles and when they happen to be because of me it just gets sweeter. 

They love to salute and they love it even more when Rudy does it back.

Some of the kids had some shots today and got their fingers pricked for tests.  Gokey was a champ and didn't cry.

Vignesh was one of my first kids to photograph for school pictures.  This was his self portrait when he got a hold of the camera on the tripod. These children are so beautiful.

This is Vinnarasan in class.  He's my little buddy. We read Green Eggs and Ham 3 times last night.  In total last night i read that book 6 times.  When you don't really have a voice that's a lot!

The word today is aasiriyar or teacher.  Good job today Berlyn on being an roomba super aasiriyar!!!

Yaani

I selected the word yaani (meaning elephant) because we went to Ponducherry which is a French city about 2 hours south and east and here in this place they have an elephant that does blessings in a Temple.  The sad thing was we missed this elephant while we were there because it went on its break durring the times we were there.  On the way we made a stop off at Auroville.

Auroville is a little place in Ponducherry that is a " univeral tow where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities.  The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity. "

Basically we went there to see the giant gold golf ball....  which is NOT a tourist attraction.

When we got there we passed the tourist office and went straight on to the golden ball.  We walked down this lovely path and then got to a road with a guard that made us walk all the way back for a FREE ticket to walk across the road.  Yes you read that right, a free ticket and we had to walk all the way back.

Then after we left there- kinda running cause it was a little on the weird side.... we went into Ponducherry.

Our meeting place was on the beach at the giant Gandhi

Because we got here a little later we missed the elephant blessing so we went straight to dinner.  And when I say straight I mean we walked around the city looking for Don Geovanis' Italian Restaurant that we heard about.  We basically walked around it and by it for about 30 min before we finally found it.  But when we got there it was amazing.  The owner is from Italy and his name is Max.  He has lived in India for the past 30 years and he is amazing.   At one point he even sat down and shared my lunch with me. First things first  though- beverages.  By the end I think I had three beverages.  The best was the house lemonade that you make yourself with soda water, lemon juice and simple syrup.

This was Julie's amazing dish.  They tasted like perogies with a alfredo sauce.

Beach by the Gandhi statue.

Because this was a French town it was a treat to have some pastries.  Julie had some cookies and I had a chocolate croissant in honor of my Mamma. 

Ohdu

Ohdu means "RUN" in Tamil and this week we had sports day.  This is a day where the kids compete and showcase their physical abilities.  Sally the President of Rising Star was here to witness the festivities.

The kids spent the first part of the week preparing the field and all the decorations for Sports Day . They worked so hard and everything looked so good.   Below is Mohan Raj adding in the chalk line.

Mona Vie was the sponsor of the day so the kids all had new t-shirts.  Below is a fun group of boys.

This is Moorthy, Gokul and Vishva. 

The kids are so cute her at Rising Star. They have a few new students starting.  This is Gokie.

Viralakshmi (at least I think that's what she says....)  She is so sweet and loves to pinch my cheeks and give me kisses.

This is her brother.

We had a traditional Indian greeting where you get jasmine sprinkled on your head,  the orange on your forehead and then you get to take one of the sweet treats (sugar cube).

Here is Julie with my sponsor kid Satish.

They started the program with their marches. 

Then they had the races.  The best one is where the boys would blow up balloons and when it would pop they had to run 50 yards to the finish line.  We thought some of them were going to pass out in the heat with all that hot air.

Then they showed off their pyramids.

The kids do Yoga every Friday afternoon.

Wand Exercise

Here is Satish with his prize he won. He is very shy so for him to be ready for a picture like this is pretty rare.

Here is Julie and her Sponsor kid Hari. 

He was posing for me.  

Here is Julie and Vanilia Marry one of the rumba (very) awesome house mothers.