The Orphanage

नमस्ते! Sunday I volunteered at an orphanage in Hyderabad with several other SIP students. It was an amazing experience. I am going to continue to go for the rest of the semester every Sunday that I stay in Hyderabad. The orphanage houses 250 boys and girls. The girls range in age from 5 to 18. The oldest boy, however, is 12 because once they reach 12, the boys move across the city to a different orphanage. There are 6 Indian women in charge of taking care of the children. The children speak a mixture of Telugu, Hindi, and English. I had a blast counting with them in English and in Hindi (great practice for me!). When we got there, the kids immediately swarmed us. Sundays are their free play time so we played with them in the yard of the orphanage where there is an old playground. Every five seconds one of the little kids was yelling "Didi, Didi!", which means 'older sister'. They all wanted us to watch everything they were doing. They are so strong, they climbed all over the jungle gym and swung from all the poles. We played circle games - Duck Duck Goose, The Hokey Pokey, Head Shoulders Knees & Toes, etc. - with them too because the ladies in charge really want them to learn English. Mostly they just wanted to hold our hands or climb all over us. Really, there was only so much that we could do with them due to the language barriers. I was surprised by how happy the children all seemed. I know that it was play time and that they were excited because they had 'strange white people' to play with, but they seemed generally happy. They were so tiny though, which I am sure is a side effect of improper nutrition. Their clothes were so old and worn - holes everywhere. None of them had shoes. I absolutely fell in love with two little 5 year old girls. They were beautiful, with big expressive eyes. They were more shy than some of the other kids, but they walked around holding my hands and showed me how they could hang from the jungle gym bars. I'm so excited that I'm going to be able to continue to volunteer there every weekend. It makes the children feel good and it makes me feel good too.

Hindi Lesson for the Day: Numbers, so you can count with the orphans too!
1 एक ek
2 दो do
3 तीन teen
4 चार char
5 पंच panch
6 चह chey
7 सात sat
8 आठ ath
9 नौ nau
10 दस das