Day 2: WORLDS BIGGEST SPIDER!

We are staying in the Parakeet room.

Holy crap we all woke up SOAKING WET in our beds!! It felt like 100000 degrees!! Apparently the power went off in the night so the AC turned off and none of us noticed. OMG. I think I lost 10lbs last night. Hahah the whole house was making fun of us because we each woke up atleast 10 times throughout the night noticing that it was HOTTER THAN H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS!!! ..but were too lazy to get out of bed and see if the AC was running…. LESSON LEARNED!

I got the top bunk!

Ok so we have decided to begin each day with a workout. (Neil you would be so proud) There is a small track for the school that we are able to use.  We get up at 6am every morning and get our workout in!! woo! I will post pictures of the track soon.  It’s hard to remember to grab the cam at 6 am.  I hope the workouts last the whole three weeks lol.  The other volunteers have asked if they can join us so we might start some type of a morning bootcamp group!! Wahoo!! I knew someone would let me kick their butts while I was out here!

For breakfast we just eat cereal, I had to bring boxed soy milk from home.  Buuut anyone who knows me, knows that cereal is pretty much my favorite food ever, so this is a highlight.  I also ate a mango (or two, or three) for breakfast.  I’m pretty sure I will have one (or two, or five) every morning!! The mango’s seriously are DIVINE!!! It’s cool to be surrounded with mango, papaya, coconut, and banana trees!! I think I could survivie in Hawaii after all, Jordan…hint hint.

After breakfast we do the “morning conclave” it’s kind of like devotional, we say a prayer, read a quote for the day, and talk about the days’ tasks and meeting times.  I have to say I am super bummed that Sam, Krissy, and I got put into 3 separate groups .(there are only three groups)  I wish we could share these experiences together while we are out here and it kind of sucks coming home each night and telling each other all of these AMAZING stories we have from the day and wishing we would have been there with each other.  It just seems like some of them would mean so much more if we had all experienced them together.  We asked if after the first set of rotations we can be moved to the same group so that we will be able to go into the colonies, do construction, and tutor together a few times.  It’s not all bad being without them.  I have made lots of new friends, I just want to share some of these moments with my best friends while I am on the other side of the world and not have it feel like even though we are here together we are always apart… ya know?

Anyways… My first rotation was construction!! 

Carl the construction advisor heading out for the day.

Our first task of the day: Maintenance Shed.

We got stolen away for a minute to deliver chairs to the school.

I thought this pic was cool.  One of the house mothers carrying water back to campus, on her head!

Still workin on the maitenance shed.

Finished!! Its beautifully organized, and a nice big garbage pile to pick up.

They have not nailed down a large project yet in the colonies so we are mainly doing service within the school area and with the grounds keepers.  Normally the rising star would help build homes in the colonies, or give small loans to those in need to help them start their own business and be more self-sufficient and then build them a workplace (i.e. market, barber shop, small store, etc.)  However; since we are the first group out this summer they are still fine tuning the details of this summers project.  No worries though, we will have this campus clean as a whistle by the time we’re done with it.  We were able to clean out several sheds, organize all of the closets/garages, and get all of the appliances in the kitchen back to silver!! (they started out with a thick film of black orange grease.)  It was a long day, but I feel like we accomplished a lot.  All of the staff here on campus seemed very appreciative of the hard work we put in and it feels good to be able to serve these people who do so much for the leprosy afflicted and their children. While cleaning and reorganizing the bike hut we decided to tackle some of the many termite mounds surrounding the buildings and attacking the trees.  It was disgusting, but fun to demolish them.  We also saw, literally, the biggest spider I have ever seen in real life.  It was like the size of a lemon.  Of course I was screaming and crying like a baby when I saw it so I missed my golden opportunity to get a pic! Dang.

Next Mission: Tool shed!

This is gonna be a BIG job.

So much CRAP!! As I was carrying that big green roll of whatever that is back inside the garage, a little gecko landed on my hand! I hope it wasn't poisonous.  I'm still alive so that's a good sign.

Beautiful.

On to the bike shed! For some reason there was a huge pile of old glass and lightbulbs out side of the hut.  TII=This is India.  That's all Carl kept saying. Which makes sense. There seem to be odd piles of garbage pretty much everywhere.

At lunch time we were able to go over and eat lunch with the kids.  I was able to hang out with Krissy a bit and she introduced me to her new little friends that she had made while tutoring.  Ahhh I just love these kids!  They eat with their hands here and sit on the floor. It’s nuts.  I will for sure have to give this a try before I leave, but as for now I will keep asking the lunch lady for a fork.

Lunch Time!

Cute kids!!

Lunch! Rice and pinapple curry with cilantro. Not bad, but not that good. lol.

And DONT eat the eggs!! They just leave them out on the hottttt counter all day/night. Im not even sure if they actually cook them, or if they just bake in the sun.

Walking over to the main gates to clean the next shed.

Cleaned EVERY shed around campus!

We scrubbed the kitchen!!

After lunch it was time to finish up construction.  I kindof already mentioned everything we did… just imagine us finishing it….now. ;)

The Rising Star School

The Mango/Banana/Papaya/Coconut field of trees.

The kids families as well as staff are able to harvest the fruit and sell for a profit.

We are not allowed to pick the fruit ourselves but they leave PLENTY for us every morning!

More of the campus grounds, still waiting to see those monkeys!

We get a short break from about 2pm-4:30.  This allowes us time to blog/nap/hang out and is pretty much our only personal time for the day.  At 4:30 it’s time to head back over to the school for playtime!  We decided to take Shawn’s dance class with the dance group today.  Umm… holy crap.  It was hard.  He is very strict on ballet technique which I LOVED!! We will for sure be doing this every other day!! One day to recover ;) one day to dance. Haha!! I am so glad I still get to dance while I am out here!! Shawn is the dance teacher, it has been great getting to know him better and here about all of the amazing projects he has started all over the world teaching underprivileged kids life skills through dance.  He is an amazing person and we are super excited to get to learn from him while we are here.

Walking over to play time!

LOVE wearing Genie pants!!!

They have a HUUUUGE community closet for us to pick our outfits from everyday. 

We have to wear the traditional indian clothing

 unless were in the Elephant House or doing construction.

Krissy stretching with some of the girls before dance class.

Dinner was served as soon as we got home and were able to change out of our now very sweaty chudidars (traditional Indian clothing)  We went up to the roof and had tonights concoction of curry , rice, and beets.  I liked tonights meal better than last nights, but still verrrry glad I brought food to supplement.

Dinner!

 At dinner we each go around and tell our “high’s and low’s” for the day.  My High:  Being able to get so much done during construction, and feeling like we were able to contribute to the school in a big way! My low: WORLDS BIGGEST SPIDER!!!

Termite mound that we demolished! ...and site of the worlds biggest spider.

DIE!

Finished!!

Okay let's play a game...

How many people do you think fit on this bike?

You can post your answers in the comments and I will post a picture on the next blog with the answer!!

After dinner it was story time back at the school.  I found out we are not allowed to bring our cameras to story time.  The kids get too wound up with the camera and want to play with it all the time.  So no pics. :(  I will try and sneak some before I leave though because the boys in our house are too adorable!! Tonight the boys were ROWDY!!! We sang songs, played a few games, and tried to read a story but the book we were given to read was just too difficult for a bedtime story so they couldn’t focus.  We eventually gave up on the story and the housemother Kala stepped in.  Thank goodness!! She is amazing.  We hear she is the best, so I am grateful for that too!  She put the kids to bed and we still had 30 min left at the school until we walked back to the Elephant House so Kala was so nice to spend time with us and teach us some Indian words!  I don’t have the paper I wrote them all down on at the moment and I know if I try to sound them out I will butcher them BADLY! So I will add those later tonight! 

Back home to bed! LOVE YOU ALL!! I’m still loving every second!! xoxo