day number two at the mango house (children walking tall) was great. the kids are all so cute. they are trying to learn my name which they have a hard time saying. some of the children speak english but very little. the children get excited about everything. when i walked into the house in the morning a little girl saw i had sunglasses on my head. she kept pointing to them and finally i gave them to her. she wore them the whole morning. there is an olympic size pool (only five min walk away) so we took the younger children over to see the pool. when they saw the pool they became very excited. next week they will probably start their lessons.

after we took them to the pool we had a story time and school time. there is a teacher who is volunteering at the moment from england who began to teach them their colors. these are children who are at the age where they should already know all of their colors. the teacher introduced the colors blue and red to them. some new which color was which but most did not.

once it became 12:30pm the older children started to come from public school. the kids go to school monday through sat from 8am until 12:30ish. 1 oclock starts shower time. boys shower on monday and friday and girls shower tues and thursday. i had the honor to supervise showers for the boys on friday. they love showers, shampoo, soap!!!!! they love styling their hair once they get out of the shower. they spend lots of time in front of the mirror putting all sorts of products in their hair. they never get nice showers like this so they are aloud take long showers if they want to. we are not aloud to rush them. showering usually takes the whole afternoon. they sing their indian songs in the shower. it is so funny.

around 2 oclock we break from showers so all the kids can eat their meal. i call it a meal because it is a combination of their breakfast lunch and dinner. these kids eat so much it is unbelievable.

back to showers for the next hour or so. i couldn't believe it when the kids where thanking me for their showers. they are all so polite. they know that if they are not good they get punished and can't come back the next day. none of these children want that.

there is one little girl who can't communicate with any of the other children because she comes from a part of india where they speak a completely different lang then they do in goa. every year her parents move to goa durning the summer to find work. they are brick layers. the parents are in the process of working on a building right in front of the mango house. where ever these families find work they make their home right next to it out of tarps and sticks. everyday this little girl would sit on a rock and watch all the kids at mango house playing outside. the volunteers started to notice the little girl watching. some how they were able to communicate to the parents what children walking tall was and the parents agreed for the little girl to go everyday. this is the same girl who wore my sunglasses all morning.

so the day was over and i got back monday.

the volunteers are all great. on thurdsay night allan and i met all the volunteers and the director out for dinner. we went to an area 30mins away from our hotel called calangute. it is a really a neat place. lots of shops and restaurants. on the way i noticed that they had a sign for subway. i never actually saw the subway so i will not believe it until i actually have a turkey sandwich in my hand.

anyhow we met everyone at a restaurant called souza lobo. it was right on the beach. i had my fourth cup of tomato soup in a row and allan had some type of indian dish which i did not try. i did try the naan bread which was sooooooooooooooooo good. anyhow we had a great time with everyone. in fact i think we are going to meet them all out again tonight. it is nice because they have all been here long enough to know the good restaurants.

last night we had dinner at the hotel where they made me my plan chicken, spinach salad and steamed veggies. i didn't even have to order they new exactly what i wanted. afterwards we went to the ozone which is a bar at the hotel. it was karaoke night so it was pretty fun to watch.

it is 11:30am and you all are probably sound asleep.
keep in touch
i think i gave my wrong number in the last blog 3122431637.

love abby and allan