off to khopoli...

i can't believe we have been here over 3 weeks already! the team is heading out to khopoli tomorrow afternoon where we will be living at the orphanage for the following two weeks. i don't know if i will have internet access there, so i might not be able to contact anyone, unless you are one of the lucky few i like enough to send a text message to. just kidding.

our team has really gotten attatched to the house and community we are living at in mumbai. at first, it was rather difficult at times because the indian people are very impersonal. it is hard to establish relationships with people who, initially, seemed like they didn't really want to talk to us. now we are really starting to form friendships with a few of the younger people and we taught them some card games and it was like we were old friends. it was a really nice change. also, we have become pretty good friends with a couple of the pastors. they are beginning to get our humor and joke around with us a lot. one of the woman pastors even does a dead-on impression of reverand wankhede.
the same thing has been going on in the slums. the children were hesitant towards us at first and it was hard to get even a smile out of some of them. now they are very comfortable around us and even let us hold them sometimes.
the church is really running low on funding over there. at one time they had a hot meal to serve the children at the school each day, and there would be a program to give pregnant woman vitamins and a meal everyday as well. there is no money there now for these things, and they are essential. it would cost only $400 a month to get the meal program back on. also, most of the kids come to school wearing the same tattered clothing everyday, some with no underwear on...and this is one of the "better" slums in mumbai.
i don't know if i mentioned earlier that there is very much still a caste system here in india. the people living in the slums (which is half of mumbai...9 million people) are known as the "dilits" and are politically and socially oppressed. a lot of times they are considered unclean because they are the people that handle dead cows and trash, etc. it is just astonishing that this is still going on. but my team and i have discussed it and we feel the most comfortable in the slums. the people are the most friendly there and we have never had anyone beg us for money (We go downtown or to the mall and children will literally hit us and tug/open our purses).

it's just a really hard situation to see and experience. if it's hard for us, imagine what it is like for the people living in it.


on a lighter note...

funny story- reverand wankhede's wife, ujwalla (We call her "auntie"..that's what they call older women here) had her birthday a couple of weeks ago. she was showing allie and i her ring that she got. her ring was placed on her middle finger, and apparently flipping the bird here means nothing, because she was holding up only her middle finger to show off this ring. it was all we could do to not burst out in laughter as she was parading her middle finger around saying "see? isn't this nice? very expensive ring. nice ring". haha.

ok. here are pictures from our ESL classes that we have been doing:



view from our classroom








HENNA!