Another lovely email for you all you will be pleased to hear! today is monday afternoon, 10 to 3, sitting in the wee internet cafe again. We are all loving India so much! Although today I think it is about 42 degrees, which is so so boiling and sticky!
Had our first morning at school today! The kids are absolutely gorgeous, i wanted to take them all home! They are like little monkeys climbing all over us! they are all street kids or kids living in a slum home, and there is a bus that picks them all up from the streets to take them to school. When they get to the school (Hatibangal) they all get a wash and put the 'uniform' on which is a blue shirt. The age range is huge, from babies to about 11. They are such lovely kids, so happy and they love you so much, but its so sad that they have to live on the streets, really emotional actually. They are so tiny too! We then split into 2 groups of 4 and the other lot went to Tangra, another school not too far away which works in a similar way. They are run by a couple who set up the Good News Childrens Education Mission, and they have set up a number of schools and hostels around Kolkata.
We were SO dirty when we got back it was so funny, and also had to nit comb our hair! got my first mozzie bite this afternoon, they really havent been around which is really good.
Yesterday we went to the church of Anu the guesthouse hostess, it was in English, and very Americanised! Most of the songs we knew, quite traditional ones. In the evening we went to Park Street, which is a huge street with market sellers and restaurants and we had lots of fun buying and bargaining! (i was the bargaining queen haha) We got ourselves a fan club following, and some guy fell in love with Christine and gave her his number, the same guy told Catherine she was 'breaking his heart' (its ok dad it was only because she wouldnt go in his shop) oh and someone wants to marry off her sons to me and Hana...!
On a more serious note, the poverty here is horrendous as you can imagine and we are finding it hard to deal with because you feel so helpless, we have so so much! there are so many people that have to live and sleep out on the streets and little kids begging you for 10 rupees or drinking water bottles that they can sell.
We are off to do more shopping this afternoon (!) and register at the Mother Teresa home for the dying and destitute so we can work there.
Prayer requests:
good health
pray for all the kids out on the street
the work at the Mother Teresa hospital that we will go to
Thanks!
Hope you are still awake at the end of this haha, lots of love and thanks for all your replies, sorry that i cant reply to all of them! good to hear from you though.
Lots of love, Kirsty and co. xxxx