Community Projects (01/08/2014)

Today was an early start for the girls in the Green Tara group and the Tara Mobile Crêche group-having to wake up at half seven in the morning; to have their breakfast at eight o'clock and having to leave at half past eight in Indian time, while some are still getting used to the time difference- and even though it was a rough morning, it was obvious today would be a good day, due to the fact that for the first time blue sky was visible with the sun smiling down and the clouds slowly pacing by. For the other groups it was a later start with flag at twenty-five minutes past eight; breakfast at half past and leaving for their destinations at nine o'clock or later.
  Once arrived  at Tara Mobile Crêche the girls got started straight away, Chloe; Ellie and a few others teaching the kids the Macarena;  Happy; parachute games and how to make their very own symmetrical butterfly, while the rest started to paint the second coating so that the pebble-dash wall can be bone dry for the next time any of us go back to our community project on Monday 4th August.  By  one o'clock the paint had almost run out and still there was quite a vast amount of wall still in need of the second layer... Thirty minutes into painting the second layer the children were excited to see what was going on and having only caught a glimpse of all the girls painting the primer yesterday they picked up some spare paintbrushes and started to help paint the second layer. After a few minutes, the children went back inside where they got to see the girls' amazing dance moves to Happy and the Macarena, which the all enjoyed very much though they got bored rather quickly when having to repeat the lyrics to Head Shoulders Knees & Toes over and over again.
  Having arrived at The Green Tara Foundation headquarters in Pune, Lydia, Olivia, Beth, Daisy and Sarah C got off to a great start. The pupils in the class were all very excited to learn more about the water cycle using a different method to learn from what they are used to. It  was an enjoyable experience for all the girls, apart from their arrival back to Sangam, where Sarah C thought she gad lost Lydia and two of the older girls in their group. When Olivia turned around in breezeway, not  knowing that they were in fact sitting down drinking a nice beverage, she saw three girls with the  same smug look on their face holding their beverages in their hand. After having found the girls whom were right under their noses, it was a big relief. (Note from leaders - we are doing everything we can to make sure girls are in rickshaws with adults and that we know where they are and the rickshaw knows where it's going).
  Annabel, Lara, Emilia, Sarah A and Leah had an unbelievable time at the Indian Sponsorship Committee: Sarah and Emilia were able to pull off a pretty good version of Happy despite Sarah getting confused on some of the lyrics. Not quite the X Factor standard yet, but with practice, who knows,... Beyoncé might even lose her crown to one of those girls. Lara taught the pupils at the school how to make paper people, Annabel and Emilia taught some songs and Leah did an amazing job at teaching the students and the teachers how to make loom bracelets, and little did Leah know that doing such an amazing job would make her the shining star of the day, though there is no denying that Leah is a star who definitely knows how to shine and make her friends laugh.

Lorna