Day 17 - Wednesday/Budhwar - Left Holding The Babies

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I got up at the usual time, had breakfast, showered, then went to the angarwadi - this time by myself for the first time! I was a little nervous on the walk there, wondering how I'd cope without Krishan, who spoke good English and Hindi so was very handy to have around in case of communications failure! I arrived, and was greeted by just the assistant worker - once again there was no teacher, which immediately posed something of a problem as the assistant spoke rather broken English, and my Kolkani is completely nonexistent!

I got settled and played with some of the children, wrote some ABC's and numbers for others to copy, and had bit of a chat with the assistant. She was a bit pissed off at the teacher, apparently her no-shows are a bit of a regular occurrence, partly because she has occasional training or meetings and there is never any cover provided. But sometimes - as she suspected today - she's just running late and decides not to bother. All of which seems really unfair on the kids!

The morning went by pretty fast, got bit hairy when I had to watch the kids by myself while she made lunch, but was generally OK and did a lot for my confidence with the kids. Although they speak very little English, they understood me when I told them to stop fighting or do something for me. I left at 12:30 feeling a lot more upbeat!

The rest of the day was pretty much like previous ones. I headed to the beach with Keith, Julie and Caroline, and met the two Aussies in Boomerang later for a couple of beers. They, Caroline, Julie and I met up again in the evening for more drinking and laughs, but I came home a tad earlier (it is a School Night!) having had a great time!

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