Cynthia

Here is Cynthia looking super cute drinking (or not drinking) her milk. Cynthia came to the orphanage having been abandoned by her mother, she was extremely malnourished and had problems with her legs. After lots of hardwork and love from the staff, you can see, she's doing really well!

Just after I left Cynthia was burnt quite badly, thank goodness she is apparently recovering well.

Tea time

Everyday at 10 and 4 all the family, volunteers and some of the staff of the farm get together and have tea, or juice. I only drank tea if the fans were on! A bit hot for that sort of caper. Sometimes there are a few extras sharing...

Skip-Bo

I took my game of Skip-Bo along and the small boys really loved playing and beating me usually. Not how I usually play.. Not a wine in sight!

Year 10 girls

Even though it was school holidays, the girls were keen to get a kick start on their Year 10 studies. Their English is excellent but the Business Studies text book is quite a challenge, so we spent every afternoon reading and learning about business in India.

Looking after baby

So everyone that is able takes turns in looking after the babies over night to take the pressure off. They usually sleep seperately as they fuss and wake each other up. For some unknown reason I volunteered my, ermm, services...

Here I am set up ready to go... With Saloni thinking 'I hope this woman knows what she is doing!!!' Anyways, all went fine. Saloni slept fine but i barely slept cause I felt bad about putting my earplugs in (lots of girls sleeping nearby). I looked after Shivani over night later on, slapped my plugs in and slept like a baby, mostly!

Bookworm - Just too cute

Mangos

There are many, many mango trees on the farm. I think it's something like 30 trees with 12 different varieties (may have made that up...) Lucky me I arrived just as mango season started! I ate a lot of delicious, juicy mangos fallen straight from the tree. Here are the Nursery kids enjoying their daily dose. They are wearing their 'swimsuits' and are about to go in the pool, someone thought that one through!!!!

Bada rongadonga badaronggadong

This tractor...

Should not really have bothered carrrying this warning...

When 9 of us.....

Gladly hitched a lift back to the farm from the jungle plot.

My heart is beating like a jungle drum...

As I have mentioned, the orphanage is on a farm, which provides some of the vast amount of food that is consumed by about 150 people every day. The farm backs on to jungle. At the moment the mission is leasing a 'jungle plot' where they have been growing extra crops. It's not quite jungle as i expected but they do often see elephants and not so often tigers on and near the plot. We set out one Sunday afternoon to see what we could see.
Lorraine bravely strides into the jungle....

The jungle plot... Looks a bit dismal at the moment as all the crops have been harvested and they were wiaitng for the monsoon before planting could begin (I believe the monsoon has since arrived).

The only wildlife we saw...

Not that suprising as there were about 15 of us making a terrible racket and we ended up leaving before twilight!

DVD room

So if the power manages to stay on for long enough the kids love watching DVDs. It was summer holidays during my stay so if the chores are done and the chorus of 'lights came on' rings out everyone heads for the tv room. Here are the Nursery kids and some of the girls watching. Anything goes, cartoons (english or dubbed in Hindi), and the older girls love romantic comedys and Hindi movies. everything is watched 100 times, some of the girls know all the lines to their favourites (and all the dance routines aswell!)