Holy Cows

Today i dream of pools, airconditioning, cold weather, cold food...anything cold! My tolerance is low. Im sticky, sweaty and everything is uncomfortable. Mosquito bites are all over me, fortunately not itching me to death like they are Katja. The mozzies are relentless, even when we stopped into a hotel for a cool drink, the mozzies and fruit flies seem to follow us. I remember the heat and humidity in Bali, but there the water was close, the hotel room was airconditioned and there was always a cold beer on the little pub on the corner. I attempt to self soothe by buying a chocolate icecream on the walk back home from the markets, but even thats not enough to comfort my insatiable appetite for coldness. (the chocolate was pretty good though :) I guess this is ... read more

Its a special day today! Katja's birthday AND Indias National Independence Day (65th). Freedom from the Brits! We celebrated Katja's birthday with a delicious banana cake that Ingrid cooked this morning and then went off to the childrens school to see their singing and dancing performances for Independence Day. Our kids were a little shy and later we found out that none of the other children know they are from the orphange...so i think they didnt want us to create too much fuss over them....which is fair enough! We met the Principal of the school who reported the children were excellent behaved and couldnt praise them enough :) We have been so stoked to see the donations coming in from Australia!!!! Thank you to everyone for your generosity.... if we get enough we will be able ... read more

Its a special day today! Katja's birthday AND Indias National Independence Day (65th). Freedom from the Brits! We celebrated Katja's birthday with a delicious banana cake that Ingrid cooked this morning and then went off to the childrens school to see their singing and dancing performances for Independence Day. Our kids were a little shy and later we found out that none of the other children know they are from the orphange...so i think they didnt want us to create too much fuss over them....which is fair enough! We met the Principal of the school who reported the children were excellent behaved and couldnt praise them enough :) We have been so stoked to see the donations coming in from Australia!!!! Thank you to everyone for your generosity.... if we get enough we will be able ... read more

Tomorrow it will be a week since we arrived to the orphanage. A week to go and neither of us can predict what leaving the children will be like. We are slowly realising how emotionally taxing this work can be. Physically we do not do much, but we feel absolutely exhausted at the end of the day even though the children are at school until 4pm. They call us "akka" , meaning "sister" in Telgu, the mother tongue of most of the children at the orphanage. From the time children arrive from school to the time they go to bed, there's a chorus of "akka this" and "akka that", all of them wanting us to look at them, talk to them, sit with them, read to them, do homework with them ... and we don't want ... read more

We have now been at the orphanage for five days and are slowly, but surely settling into this very different way of living. To help you picture what an average day of a child here looks like, here is the the schedule, which is strictly adhered to (one has to right a tight ship here with so many children): 5am - wake up 5-7am - daily chores (sweep, wash their clothes, cooking, washing dishes, clean floors, bathrooms, etc) 7-8am - breakfast and prayer after 8am - walk to school 4pm - come back from school 4-5pm - more daily chores 5-6pm - go to park 6-7.30pm - homework 7.30-8.30pm - prayer 8.30-9pm - dinner 9pm - bed-time 38 children, boys and girls aged 4 to 16 live in a large rented house of a very unusual ... read more

Just a quick blog, as we dont have access to internet yet, so using Pradeeps computer. So we have been in the orgphanage for 3 days now. Here are a few insights to life here: Gorgeous children who are so needing affection and love. There are 38 of them. A lot of the have been sick and are hungry. They eat rice pretty much for breakfast lunch and dinner, as that is all the orphanage can afford. The go through 25kg of rice every 3 days and that cost $12. Their diet has no calcium, they dont drink milk because it is too expensive and therefore they are so small with thin bones :( They also cant afford many vegetables and meat. The kids only drink 1 cup of water a day! They sleep on a ... read more

After a brief stopover in Bangkok, where we attempted to log back into the comforts of our western world (ie. facebook) we boarded the plane and the staring began. I could tell what they were thinking, as we were 2 of 3 white people on the plane. The very camp check-in guy in Sydney had already asked "why on earth are you going to Hyderabad!?" and i guess the same thing was on the minds of the 100 Indian people on out flight. We knew why we were here, as ludicrous as it may seem to them... 2 women from Sydney to come to their city to work voluntarily in one of the 100's of Orphanages in Hyderabad. We jumped into a taxi, with 2 men in the front and us 2 in the back. A ... read more