Barefoot Races | Kite Making and Flying | A little help | New Water Filter | Staff and Students from the English Department at Dnyanprass | Visit by Karve Institute of Social Services

As a little distraction from studies (not that they really need a distraction). We took the children down the road to have a few races and a bit of fun, The children are really competitive and it was great to see the boy and girls racing against each other.

They seem to prefer to run barefoot, which just seems like it would be painful to me!

Several of the children had a day off school this morning so to keep them busy we got out the kite making materials.

The kids strung up a few kites, which were made from basic materials but brought smiles to their faces. We headed out just down the road to fly them, sadly there was very little breeze so the children had to run up and down the road to create a little more lift for the paper kites. But I think that added to the fun a little.

One of our neighbours told us about two girls who needed a little assistance and on Sunday we took a drive out to meet the family, two girls and their mother who were living in a small sectioned off part of someone´s balcony, with just plastic sheeting hung up as walls. The two girls were shy and very nervous, but thankfully during our second visit they were more relaxed and happy, probably as we brought them two bags of goodies.

We spoke to the girls and their mother and asked if they needed help with school items, they said they had everything for this year but help for the new school year would be welcomed. So anyway we brought books, and all the pencils, colours and pens they would need for the remaining of this year and sweetened the deal with some clothes, health care items and a badminton set to share and a football to kick around. We will keep checking up on them and see what else can be done to help them out and ensure nothing keeps them out of school.

Thank you to Amina who came in on her day off and Savita, who joined me to give the presents on our second trip.

Christmas was very chaotic and I forgot to say a thank you to "The Bennet & Bernard Company" for donating us a new water filter. It arrived as an early Christmas Present for the children (on the 22nd December). Thank you to everyone involved who made this possible.

Thank you!

Thank you to Staff and Students from the English Department at Dnyanprassarak Mandal's College & Research Centre who came and spent some time with our kids today. As well as chatting with the kids they also kindly donated 100 A4 notebooks!

Thank you!

P.S. Thanks to Hasan for taking the photo!

It was wonderful to meet students and staff from Karve Institute of Social Services today who dropped in and spent the afternoon talking and playing games with the children. The afternoon was came to an end with a few songs played on guitar, including one in Marathi (which I hope never finds its way onto the Internet as they made me *try* to sing with them - it didn't go well!). It was fun though

Thank you to everyone involved