Hello all,

Since I last spoke to all of you a fair amount has happened. First, from 2 to 4 we all rested, which is common here. The power is turned off from 4 to 6 by the government as a way to save money, and without the fans it is way too hot to nap. The weather, though, isn't too bad. It is very breezy, and Kumari says that throughout the next couple is weeks the breeze will turn into all out gusts. Still, it is nice and makes it seem a little cooler.

When we woke up, the children soon started rolling in. They take auto-rickshaws to school, which is a considerable expense, however it is much too far to walk. The children come in in groups of 6 or 7 as different auto-rickshaws drop them off at the end of our narrow dirt road. Kumari and I got out the colored paper that I had brought with me, and who knew that children could get so excited over neons? We colored for over an hour, and when each child was finished they brought their pictures to me and we talked about them in a broken mixture of English and Tamil. When they would come up to get different colors they would point to the colors and I would name them in English, and some of the younger ones who only speak Tamil were able to pick the names of the colors up pretty quickly. With the older ones that speak a little English, I quickly learned that coffee means brown, and rose means pink. After coloring I worked on the kids names, and am starting to pick them up pretty well. When Ajith Kumar, the most outgoing of the boys, started playing hand games with me, I was soon flocked by the kids, all wanting to play and all wanting to be the one to teach me a new rhyme. It is funny that most of their rhymes are in Dutch, because the two other volunteers that had been here were from the Netherlands. A little more about Ajith; he is almost like a cartoon character with all of his dances and facial expressions. He is so well liked in town, that Kumari takes him to the market with her and he goes off on his own and comes back with bags and bags of food that merchants have given to him for free. If he doesn't go one week, all of the merchants ask where he is.

As it got darker Subala, Sangeetha, and Kasthuri tried to teach me Tamil. So far I have picked up the words for mountain, sun, moon, okay, no, yes, sit down, come, and go. Subala put a little gold plastic ring on my pinky finger, and it wouldn't go past the first knuckle. Throughout the night she kept coming up and checking to make sure that I had not taken it off. For dinner I had puri, and then the younger children went to bed. I was writing in my journal, and when the older children saw me writing with my left hand they thought I was pulling a prank, and insisted that I try and write with my right hand, because they did not believe that I couldn't. The six older boys that pay rent and have their own room were very interested in learning more about me and in showing off their English. They all wanted to arm wrestle me, and thank goodness I won, though the seventeen year old seemed pretty close. Then Prince wanted a turn and I let him win and he started dancing and laughing at the older boys, it was pretty funny.

The night got pretty cool, and I went on the terrace and watched the lightning in the distance. It rained a little during the night, and it was very comfortable sleeping weather.

For breakfast this morning I had puttu and semia. Then we went and visited the land that Kumari bought on a loan, and which a foundation in the Netherlands is going to build a large home for the kids, in the Dutch style. Getting to the land required a motor bike ride. I road on the back of Xavier's bike, and Prince sat in front of him. There were no helmets and nothing to hold on to. I had seen in passing that people riding on the back of a scooter do not hold on to the person in front, so instead I gripped the bottom of the seat the best I could. It was a ten minute ride, and when I wasn't worried about being hurled off, I was thinking about how dirty gasoline causes a lot of bikes in India to blow up. If I thought riding in a car in India was terrifying, riding a scooter is even more so. My leg came just inches from speeding buses and auto-rickshaws. I did, however, get to see more of Tiru, which was nice. It is such a lively and colorful place. All the steriotypical images that come to mind when thinking about India could be seen on this ride; I saw a vendor fighting two monkeys off of his fruit, I saw a naked toddler playing in a puddle, I saw holy men meditating in the lotus position, and I saw women carrying food in baskets on their heads. One thing, though, that you can't see in all of India is the famous temple of Tiru. It is incredibly tall and pristine and old. Just the outside was awe inspiring. I could have pointed my camera in any direction in Tiru and I would have gotten a good shot; it's too bad my hands were glued to the bottom of my seat.

As we neared the land, which is on the outside of Tiru, I got to see more of the rural farming areas, with lots of mud and palm frond huts, goats, cows, rice patties, and other kinds of fields. The farther from town we got, the bumpier and rougher the roads got. Luckily Xavier was nice enough to try and avoid the worst parts. When we got to the land I could tell that Kumari was very proud of it. She was glowing showing me where it started and began. Later she would show me the deeds to the land, which had her picture stapled to it. The land is nice and flat, and being an acre, there is plenty of room for her to have a garden and even a playground. It is surrounded on two sides by government land, which can be used for animals, or for the children to play. The neighbors are peanut and okra (which they call lady fingers) farmers, and they gave us sacks of raw peanuts, which are very strange to eat. While pealing off the dirt covered husks, I couldn't help but think of the fact that many farmers use human manure in their fields. However, the peanuts were gifts and it would have been rude to not eat them, so I kept popping them in my mouth with my dirty fingers.

On the way back, I rode on the back of Priya's friend's bike. He is well off, and had a very nice bike. I don't know if it was because he was showing off, or if it was just typical young man behavior, but he drove much faster than Xavier. He talked on his cell phone for a bit, his ring tone was classical Indian music, which I thought was a funny combination of the young and the old. An old woman stopped us and invited us inside for 'fresh sweet coconut from the tree' but I graciously declined because I was thirsty and out of water. I immediately regretted it though, because I probably won't ever get the chance again.

Back at home Kumari declared, "good, now you have seen the land. It is your land too now, because you are now part of the family." That basically sums up the way she has treated me so far.

The farmer by his well (which was very deep, and pretty dangerous looking)