Tuesday, March 29, 2011

We have arrived safely and are in full swing!

Hello, everyone!

Finally, we have arrived safely in India and have started our work here at the orphanage. Let's rewind back in time, just a tad. We began our journey from home on Friday, March 25th and arrived here at the orphanage on Sunday, March 27th. The time here is about 9.5 hours ahead of the time at home. As we arrived in India, we were immediately met by 100 degrees of HEAT! We were expecting it to be hot but didn't realize the intensity until we arrived --- we've adjusted well. When we arrived at the orphanage on Sunday, we were greeted by an abundance of friendly faces that helped to create a very welcoming atmosphere for us. Monday was our first real day of interaction with the children and it was quite exciting, to say the least. The orphanage currently has about 76 children on-site, ranging from 1 day to 10 years. There's an additional 30 children placed in foster care through the orphanage, currently awaiting adoption.  We helped the children trace letters and numbers before drawing shapes for them to color --- They were quite excited to have some new faces and bodies to cling to. There are so many of them and they are all so unique in their own little ways; they truly are magnificent. We're still feeling our way around and are beginning to plan for the next couple days. Through our interaction with the children, we realized that the Indian culture is very much drill, drill, drill with educational skills. We're working to plan activities and lessons for the next few days to help the students become engaged with some sensory stimulating materials such as play-doh, uncooked rice, cotton balls, and things of that nature. It's certainly going to be a new experience for us, because most of the children speak little to no English --- it should be an exciting challenge for us. We recently learned that there are going to be 5 adoptions in the next two days, so I think we'll experience some heartache a little earlier than we anticipated, but it's certainly a wonderful time for the children. Because of the adoption regulations, there are very strict restrictions on photographs and, unfortunately, we aren't able to post photos or videos of the children to the web. We're still planning to post as regularly as possible to share our experiences with you.

The food here has been pretty fantastic - a little hit and miss, from time to time, but very good overall. We have internet here from 9am-5pm our time and we purchased a phone today, so we should be able to contact our loved ones soon.

Blessings!

1 comment:

  1. Awesome! - I'm certainly not surprised with you getting adjusted to the environment and loving those kiddies up. :) I know you are prepared and look forward to hearing how the kids are picking up the materials and learning your lessons. BSSK looks very nice I enjoyed what I've read about it. It's great and exciting to hear your excitement! Continue enjoying your time, I know you are and I (we) look forward to hearing how your lessons and activities go.

    :) !

    ReplyDelete