Hello all,

Well the Teej festival was lovely – all sorts of people dropped by and as it’s the “girls” festival we all got adorned with tons of glass bangles (I got 18 squeezed onto my wrists altogether), beaded necklaces, and put on heavy eyeliner and lipstick. I was tikka’d and had flowers thrown in my hair, and Aamaa insisted I wear a rather lurid pink sari. We sang traditional songs, and danced a lot, and then the boys danced and sang to entertain us.

Every day starts around 5am, when the kids are scrubbed and washed (mostly outside with the garden hose). Sajana hates it and her screams usually wake me up at about 6am!

Then it’s time for exercise and prayers, and the grand washing of clothes – quite a performance!

The clothes are passed from bucket to bucket, vigorously scrubbed with soap and rinsed by the boys. Aamaa presides over the whole affair, sitting regally on a stool in her nightgown in the courtyard, filling buckets with the hose, giving instructions and generally directing the whole operation. There seems to be mountains of laundry every morning (not suprising with 34 kids!), and although Aamaa let me wash my own clothes, the boys all scoffed at my poor technique and insisted on scrubbing my clothes “properly”!

I tried to help with the kids’ clothes a few times, but after scrubbing a token shirt, Aamaa smiles kindly at me and says rather firmly “Maya finished now, ok?”

Well, to answer the burning question, I did try a bit of goat in the end, as no-one else would, and that seemed like a real waste!

It was ok, but not brilliant.

This email is soooo long I’m going to split it into parts.

I arrived in the orphanage on Saturday afternoon, (25th August) and was welcomed with open arms.

Nirmaya, the house mother (who insists I call her Aamaa, which means mum) is a lovely, large, cuddly lady of about 50, who sold her land two years ago to set up this orphanage. She had found 4 kids on the streets and taken them to a government orphanage, but the conditions were awful and shortly afterwards the owner died, and the kids were scattered. She took the four kids back to her house to care for them, and then thought, if I can look after 4, why not 40?

Her oldest daughter, Priya (27) lives with her father and husband at their family home (Aamaa lives at the orphanage, but her husband doesn’t – something about men not being as loving with children!), but she comes in most days to help.

On Tuesday (21st) we woke up early to go on an elephant ride through the jungle. It was a bit bumpy going, but within 15 minutes we came across a wild rhino with her baby. They allowed us to get surprisingly close (on the elephants) so I got some great pictures before they munched their way into the undergrowth.