Rampur

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We left Chitwan National Park this morning to go start our volunteer work! We're still in the Chitwan region, but about an hour away from the national park. We're living with families in pairs. Very basic, but still nice. Our family even had mosquito nets set up for us! The toilets of course are just a hole in the ground and we have tried out the shower yet, but I think it's a real one, not just buckets of water.
Our family has a grandma, mom, dad, and 3 kids, 2 girls and one boy. One girl is 17 and she speaks english pretty well which is really helpful!
This afternoon we had an orientation of sorts for our work. We're going to be alternating between conservation work (weeding, planting, etc.) and orphanage work (teaching and playing). We work from 7-10 then have a break from 10-3 during the hot part of the day and then work again from 3-6. Today we met the kids and then played with them for a couple hours. Some of them are pretty good at english, but still the tickling and chasing is the best way to go. They basically just need us to play with them, to show them some love. A couple of us also helped in the kitchen. We peeled cooked potatoes and broke them up into pieces. We also cut cucumber and peeled garlic and ginger. It smelled delicious!
For dinner we of course had dhaal bhaat. Rice, a lentil soup that we put over the rice, and a little bit of curried vegetables. It's actually really good! And they give us tons! But it's rude to leave some so we try to eat it all.
Electricity was out last night from 7-9, right when we were going to sleep. After dinner they kind of shut us in our room and told us to go to bed and since we couldn't read or anything without light we did. With no electricity though the fan didn't work and honestly I though we were going to suffocate from the heat! It was insane! I don't know how we ever went to sleep!
I think we're permanently damp and musty for the rest of the trip. The monsoon has officially started and it pours pretty often. I have a whole new concept of smell. We have to wear clothes multiple times and then we're scared to wash them because if they don't dry quickly enough they smell even worse from the mustiness! Saturday is our day off and we're going into the bigger town and hoping that they have laundry! I'm sure none of you really care about how everything smells but that's too bad. You can skip this part. 😊
Now I'm pretty much all caught up! It's the 18th today but I'll write about today later. I have to go back to work... Miss you all!

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