My first day of school all over again.

So yesterday we started working at GNCEM school. It was an interesting experience!! The children are so beautiful, they have dark hair and big bright brown eyes. They're street kids so they are covered in scars and wounds, their clothes are dirty and torn, but their beauty and happiness shines through. 

Yesterday we only sung and played with them, but today we had an hour to teach the youngest group,. Their ages range between 3-10 we think. We are going through the childrens bible with them, teaching them a story a day. So, obviously, today we told the creation story. It was good fun, but we know to plan more for next time as we ran out of things to do! I underestimated how long an hour is. I have a new found respect for teachers- A lot of effort goes into this teaching business! 

The school day begins with prayers and songs, then breakfast, which is 2 biscuits and a cup of milk each.

Then its a brief play time before the lessons begin. 

The shirts they wear are old and unwashed, they put them on every morning then take them off again before they go home. You can tell how much they love school though, and its great to be a part of that. 

Teaching the alphabet.

Josh teaching.

Teaching the numbers.

Being climbed on by the kids. 

The kids don't know a lot of English, so it makes it quite hard to make conversation with them, but the majority of the time they're just climbing all over you anyway so there isn't much communication going on! After lesson there's more play time,

The kids hanging off Naomi.

Gorgeous.

After play time its dinner time, curry of course!

Saying grace before the meal.

Serving the food.

They are pretty talented in the way they eat their food. They have perfected the 'roll, squash together, stuff as much in your mouth as possible' technique!

When dinner was over they have a small amount of play time before getting back on the bus and dropped off at their various "homes", or should I say parts of the street. Its amazing to see the beautiful smiles on their faces as they run back to where they're going to sleep for the night. Like the real world doesn't matter, its just one huge playground.

They literally loved the camera, both being in front and behind it!!

So thats school! 4 mornings a week. Its been 2 days and I'm already tired!! 

This afternoon we went out to buy some more Salwar Kamiz's, as we find they get really dirty very fast at the school, so we need one a day. But whilst we were out we also visited a fabric shop.. OH..MY..DAYS. It was amazing. Every colour of fabric you could image. Plus gorgeous patterned ones of all different textures.

That would be the fabric I bought, and the pink one underneath it for trousers, I went a bit crazy with the colours but I don't careee :)

Naomi, Me and Ellen in the material shop.

Us girls each bought some materials to be tailored into Salwar's. I decided on getting some more vibrant colours this time, you cant go to India and only buy greens and browns!! I'm very excited about these ones, I'm sure photos will be up when they're made so watch this space!

The new shop keepers! 

We were invited round the back! I felt like part of the Indian fabric family.

Proper selling it!

So thats just one day! How about that. I bet you fell inlove with the children as soon as you saw them didn't you? 

Its Diwali tomorrow which is the festival of light. Looking forward to dressing up and going on the terrace with candles and sparklers and watching everything happen. No doubt there will be photos to follow that also. This blog post has taken about 12 years to write so I'm going to go to bed before I fall asleep on the keyboard and making the rest of the blog look a bit like :

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Good night lovely people x