Day 9: Tutoring!!

Today was my tutoring day! I got some fun footage of me tutoring at the school, and the kids braiding my hair at playtime!! I love these kids so much! It's fun to watch them learn 

and get to know their little personalities.

The kids LOOOVE to take my camera. 

They love to take pictures and see the photo after. 

At interval (recess) I always let a kid take my camera because they get such fun pics of everything going on at recess, and I'm in some of them which is fun haha, and they are SOOO honest. They always return my camera in great condition and are super careful with it.  I have a ton of pics from interval today. This blog post is mainly about the kids.  

I figured out her name. It is Ahnew.

She has leprosy.  

You can see it starting to eat away the soft tissue around the corners of her lips.

I love this lil munchkin.

Her name is Veralakshmi.

I am so in love with her and her little brother Veera, he is in my house for family time.

Veera, Krissy, Chenelle, Veralakshmi

Veralakshmi running to be first in line at lunch. 

She is seriously such a doll.

She has the cutest lilttle personality. 

Veran and Veralakshmi are from the village just outside the school walls.

One of the girls who took my camera at lunch time got this perfect picture of Veralakshmi.

In India they sometimes shave their head for religious reasons.

In the Hindu religion they shave their child's head on certain birthdays as an offering to the Gods or something like that.  If you know more about this I would love to hear the correct version lol.

They also shave their heads for lice.

Not sure which reason she got her head shaved lol, but either way I think it is ADORABLE.

The girl who has my camera.

This girl is in life dance.  I am not sure of a lot of their names, but these are the adorable little faces I get to play with every day.

The girl with my camera must know how much I LOVE RUTHISH.

She snapped this cute little photo of him sitting down to eat lunch.

He was sooo good in tutoring today. I had him for math.  It is so fun to see how smart he is.  He is at the top of his class and LOVES to work out the problems on his own and show me that he can do them.  He is such a smart boy, so well behaved, and absolutely perfect in every way.

So beautiful.

I just love these kids.

Ruthish and Me.

That smile melts my heart.

He is perfect.

Basha!!! 

I would give up EVERYTHING I had to bring these boys back to America with me.

After lunch it was Basha's tutoring time.  He kept letting kids go ahead of him in the line so that he could be partnered with me.  I just love him.  He is becoming such a good little reader.  His assignment is to read to me for 20 minutes and then color the picture, but he ALWAYS reads until the chapter is done, no matter how long it takes. I love that.

I see this little figure in the door during EVERY hour of tutoring. 

Hahah, it's Basha.  In between every class he runs through the school to find which room I am in and say "hello." It literally makes my day.  I love him.

Next I tutored these two little cuties in writing.

They have to keep a journal, which I think is awesome.

Every day they have a new topic. 

 Today it was "What is your favorite thing to do with the volunteers?"

I loved listening to them tell me stories of their favorite memories with the volunteers. (Play soccer, braid their hair, eat lunch, tutoring.)  Then I was able to help them write these memories into words, it is fun to see so many people have a positive impact on these small children's lives.  They remember it, and cherish it.  I love knowing that they have the opportunity to be in the Rising Star Outreach program. By being here they don't have to beg on the streets in the village like the other children, who are literally minutes outside of the school walls.

This little boys name is Joshua, he is in my house for family time.

Him and his sister are the newest students at the rising star.  

Joshua was crying today (he is 5) and his sister came and grabbed his hand and walked with him down this pathway.  We asked Anund what they were talking about. He told us that Joshua missed his father and that his big sister was telling him all about how fun the school was and she would help him make new friends.  This moment is so precious.  I am so glad I could capture a cute little picture.

So at the Rising Star the volunteers are not allowed to bring the kids gifts because they want them to be able to earn things and learn to save up for things.  They have what is called "The Star Store," where volunteers can put their small gifts. (beads, string, paint, toys, etc.) Well Basha had been saving his stars up for a few weeks and he bought ME a bracelet in the star store.  I just think this is the sweetest thing, that he would use his hard earned stars (for good behavior) to buy me a gift.  I seriously love this little boy.  I wish I could sponsor him so bad but him and Ruthish both have 4 sponsors.  It's no wonder, they are the sweetest most perfect boys in the world.

p.s. These are the elephant genie pants I got at Spencer's. I'm obsessed with them. I am pretty sure I will be wearing them ALL the time at home!

Basha wanted to take a picture of me wearing my new bracelet.

Anund picked us these baby mango's. 

Basha got a picture of me eating it.

Ummmm... can you tell how much I savor ANYTHING that tastes good here, there is not much haha.

Basha snapping photo's of us goofing off.

This is our roommate Taylor.

I LOVE HER.

Ruthish, Basha and two sweet girls braiding my hair at play time.

Haha I love how they are SOOO fascinated with red hair here.

They don't understand why it would look like this.

They just stare at it and touch it all the time.

I'm loving this.

Untiiiil they won't stop haha.

Tonight at family time Kala taught we how to pin and wrap a Saree. 

Yay!! They are so beautiful. All of the women here wear them every day.

I seriously am coming home with a few of these. I think they are so beautiful, I would love to wear them to church with a shade shirt underneath or through the summer as a swimsuit wrap! SO BEAUTIFUL...umm ps. did I mention that I think they are soo beautiful?

Also, Kala sent her two sons to Phoenix, AZ 6 years ago with some volunteers that came out here. She wanted them to be educated in America and have a better chance at life.  That is love.  Kala is LDS and her sons were living with an LDS family.  They both ended up deciding to serve missions, and BOTH of them got called to serve in India. They are only 10mos. apart so they are both serving at the same time which I think is cool.  One is in North India and the other is in South India in Chennai. Kala had a whole box of Book of Mormons written in Tamil and some first vision pamphlets.  I thought these would be fun gifts to bring home to some of my family.  Kala has only seen her sons a few times in the last 7 years, and I just keep thinking it must be so hard for her to have a son only an hour and a half away from her but he is serving a mission so she doesn't go to see him.

Overall, family time was amazing.

After family time, we all decided that we needed to boycott our computers for a night. (hence the later blog post) and spend some quality time together since we don't have much time here!

We all went up to the roof and stargazed, talked and played games.  It was fun to just chill with everyone and get to know all of the volunteers a little better.

I have become great friends with all (or most) of these people, and I'm sure we will stay connected long after our stay here.  It has been such an amazing group!

Sam eating bananas and peanut butter with her flashlight haha.

I thought it was cute.

Umm, I will have some too please.

So it was PITCH BLACK outside, and I just kept snapping random photos and the flash of the cam would reveal everyone lol.  This pic revealed a massage train that had started haha.

Annnd once I showed the pic and started laughing, the train just got longer and longer.

While everyone else was in the massage train, Sam took over camera duty.

Umm.. yep I'm stargazing.

Caught me.

Anyone that knows me might appreciate this picture a little more.

Love you all, and goodnight.

Ohhh and interesting fact: The constellations are all the same over here in India, just in a different place in the sky.  All of the Northern Hemisphere see the same stars, and the Southern see the same stars. Fun fact.  Anyways, it was comforting to know that you guys were under the same stars as me. (cliche?)

"Soooomeewherrrre ouuuut theeerrrre...."

*singing*

Sweet Dreams.