1st day

2/09/09

Me, Kylie and Katsuko visited the site where me and Kylie will be working at today. The creche is actually on the building site and is about 10m away from the building work in the picture. The creche is a single room building which has a partition at one end forming a small kitchen area. Along one of the walls there are small hammocks in which the babies are put in for naps. The creche looks after a varied number of children each day but there was about 60 there yesterday. Ages vary from less than a year old to about 10 years old. In the morning the girls are at school and in the afternoon the boys go to school, this also means the creche's numbers vary from morning to afternoon. The children are usually split into different groups and sit in different areas of the room depending on their age. We didn't do any work yesterday, just had a look around and observed what usually happens. Many of the children can't speak Hindi so it's going to be challenging but they are eager to learn had have fun so I know the experience will enjoyable. I loved finally going to the sit as it felt like my journey had really begun. I realised early on that when looking after the babies I need to constantly be on my guard as they don't wear nappies - the baby Katsuko was holding had a little accident though :S Some of the younger children weren't sure what to make of us at first with our pale skin being unfamiliar and foreign but they slowly got use to us and then became interested in the new people :) I managed to start a craze with some of the older kids, as once I drew around one of the boys hands everyone started to draw a hand, which was nice. One girl even drew Mahindi on hers. When I moved to be with the younger children some of the older ones followed me with their chalk and boards so that they could have my attention for a little bit longer, they seemed eager to befriend the new person :) When I was with the youngest children one girl seemed to become fascinated with my finger nails and their length and once she started examining my hands all of the others wanted to as well, which was rather amusing as my arms were pulled in all directions. Whilst we were there the younger children were weighed to check they were healthy. All of the children were also given lunch which was brilliant as I'm not sure how much food they get at home. For the babies their mum's popped in on their lunch break (they worked on the building site) to feed them - only thing was the crying started when the mum went to leave but it quickly stops when another child comes over to entertain them. One little girl was so tired that she kept on nodding off whilst she was sitting up, and then was jolted awake when she nearly toppled over - sweet really, so determined not to go to sleep but eventually she had to give in and go and lie down.

When we got back we found that our uniforms had arrived!!! I have to admit that we do kind of look like nurses but it feels nice to have a uniform. I also went and topped up my mobile, which was a bit of a challenge, but a nice customer in the shop helped us. He also guessed me and Linnea were from Sangam because apparently you only find foreigners in 2 places - Sangam or at Osho, the ashram.