While teaching in the slums this morning, one of the locals brought me and the lady from the volunteer organisation cups of tea. While it was a very nice gesture, I’d heard that it was best to avoid drinking tap water here and was a bit worried! Of all the places to drink tap water, the middle of the slums was probably the worst place to! She was standing there though waiting to see if we liked it! I knew it would be considered really rude if I didn’t drink it, so I drank some. It was actually really nice, but I was drinking it really slowly, as if that would make it any less likely to make me ill! She came back to collect the cups and I still hadn’t finished so I had to just down the rest and just prayed that the water had been boiled well and it wouldn’t make me ill!

After the weekend break, the projects started back up this week. I’m really enjoying it. I think the kids are getting more used to me. There is a girl at the project in the slums who I want to take back to London with me! She’s 15 and so bright! She has so much potential, and she’s just lovely! The children have requested that I bring in photos of my family in tomorrow, and chocolate for them! One of the girls told me “You’re really nice teacher!” and “You’re a good teacher, I always understand when you teach me”. So cute! I found out on Monday that they have 1,500 houses in the slum here and only 4 outside toilets which they all share. I really can’t imagine having to live like that.
At the orphanage, the scary nun was around again but with a stick this time! She started hitting one of the girls with the stick because she’s 11 and can’t read and telling me that I need to teach her to read! She gave the girl a book to read but she couldn’t read any of the words. I tried giving her really simple words but she still couldn’t read it. I spent the whole of my afternoon there with her going through letters and sounds and simple words. It was pretty frustrating. I left her with some words to learn for the next day. I went in today and when I saw her, I asked her if she had learnt the words and she said yes miss! And started reading them to me. She was so proud of herself! I told her well done that’s fantastic! It was so nice to see a little bit of progress. I spent the whole of today’s session with her again. I really want to be able to spend as much time helping her as I can before I leave. There are 98 children at the orphanage and only 3 nuns so its hard for the children to get individual attention if they’re struggling and I don’t understand how hitting the children because they can’t do the work helps.

We had 3 volunteers leave over the weekend, and we’ve had 5 new volunteers since then – 1 from Switzerland, 1 from Spain, and 3 from Australia. Its cool having a mix of people here now from all over. There are now 9 volunteers at the camp. Its nice having people around to chat to and we all eat together. After the projects, the staff here organise activities for us to do in the evening. Today we started learning a Goan folk dance which we will perform at a festival next week. Apart from that, there is a cooking workshop once a week, trips to the beach twice a week, language classes start up this week, and there is also a weekly saree workshop. All the other volunteers are away from home for shorter periods. They’re here in Goa for between 2-8 weeks, and then head back home afterwards whereas I’ll be away for 6 months!

The driving here amuses me! I think I’ve only seen 1 traffic light since I got here. Seems to just be a free for all! Things that would normally be considered bad practice back home like overtaking round a bend seem to just be normal here as long as you beep your horn while doing it to warn any oncoming traffic that you’re there! Cars have signs on the back saying ‘blow horn ok’ or ‘horn ok please’! The rules or lack of do seem to work here though strangely! The drive to the projects and back everyday is pretty fun. Such a bumpy ride while the driver blares out loud Indian music with the windows down! I have no idea what the words are, but some of the songs are pretty catchy. I think I actually have my favourites now!