Anandi’s India blog continued. Outing to the Lake

Today I took my girls out on an outing….first stop was the mountain.  I was shocked to hear that there is a special place famous for lovers committing suicide.  Apparently this is the place where lovers who are forbidden to marry commit suicide so that they can be together and don’t have to suffer being married to someone they don’t love….  Anyway this place was extremely high and the view from here was stupendous. The girls and I sat there eating ice cream and just hanging out together which was wonderful, these girls are my family and I am committed to making a difference in their life, making sure they get a good education, an opportunity to go to college and a chance to learn English.  English, I hear is paramount to them getting a good job in the future.  After the mountain top, we ventured over to the lake, probably the first time they had ever seen so much water, of course, none of them could swim, so getting into a boat was a little scary.  Sparkly Shuba was the first to say, yes, she wanted to go followed by Baby, then  Mangammal.  However, Anushya was still suffering a bit from the journey so, categorically declined!!!  It was fun, despite the fact that the girls were glad to get back on land.

On our journey up, Anushya was car sick, at that point I realised that this was the first time she had every been in a car, so that was really tough.  A great day was had by all, Anushya a bit less due to her car sickness, and I fell into bed, exhausted when we finally got back.

The girls slept at the hostel that night as we planned a shopping trip for the next day, the girls were all snuggled up in my room, but I understood that that was forbidden as one of the older girls came and shooed them out and hustled them over to the hostel.  The girls hostel is very large and seems so cold and bear to me, but I guess, if you have no roof over your head and food to eat, it must be heaven.  Far, far, from any home comforts we have in the West I can tell you.  No pyjama’s, bed or sheets, just a mat on the floor, and you go to bed in your clothes.  Tough….very tough.

Anyway, 7.30 in the morning, the following day, there was a knock on my bedroom door, ‘Auntie…Auntie’, everyone calls you auntie round here, even the grown ups!  Yes, it was my treasures, so after a rather rude awakening….the girls settled into my room playing with the computer, the iphone and the camera!!!  Photo’s are something they love….The objective of the shopping trip was to get them new dresses. Not sure if they have had a new dress in the last few years, probably not, so, I got them to choose the style colour and decoration of their new dress and  trousers…..Here you buy the dresses, with the sleeves pinned on, you have to get them stitched afterwards.  One would think that the reason they did  not put the sleeves on was to measure the arm in some way…..nope, no measure, just cut and stitch…luckily, they all fitted and they looked beautiful, all of them.

A wonderful few days which I will treasure…hopefully the girls will too!

Please contact me for any information on the orphanage.

Blessings

Anandi