Happy Christmas!

Hari Om,

Yesterday we journeyed to the Mangalagiri temple. Leaving early in the morning at seven, we left the girls to their regular class schedule for the temple. After returning, some of the volunteers went to study in the NRI College while others went back to the orphanage to take rest and plan for the rest of the day. At the college, the volunteers attended lectures and visited the causalities ward.

 The afternoon consisted of hectic classes and games. Because the evaluations were finished, we began teaching and speeding up math and English. Again, the girls are extremely intelligent, which made teaching exciting and easy. We played games outside, like Red Rover and Kabbadi, after the girls ran laps around the orphanage's field. They are extremely fit, but they play all their sports in sandals. Today we gifted them with socks, but shoes would be more effective for sports.

For Christmas, the girls slept in until six and received presents after breakfast. A local volunteer came dressed up as Santa and handed out the presents to each girl. After presents were dances. The girls performed amazing dances to recent Bollywood songs. For some more fun, the volunteers performed for the girls before their movie.

Christmas day came to a close with the distribution of the care packages that the volunteers brought. Each volunteer put a post card with their address in the care packages (along with other small gifts) so that the girls would be able to write back to us after we left.

Overall, the day was fun and the girls had a great time!