Saturday, June 27, 2015

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Hey friends and fam! Today was another great day! I was woken up at 5am by the daily wake up call from the roosters, peacocks, and other strange birds. As we do everyday, we had breakfast at 8 am, followed by games. Then we had Rada, a storyteller, come talk to us about our experience in India. It was a really interesting convo and it made us think about what we're doing here. After, we continued our community projects. One group continued doing the 3D maze for the kids, while my group started a new one. We completely took out a brick stove from the school's kitchen. It was really fulfilling because we did all by ourselves without help from the Timbaktu workers. We then had lunch which included no surprise…rice! After, we had a really fun leadership activity and then discussed the Millennium Development goals. Susan told us to organize by importance the 8 goals, which is a lot harder than you think. We split into groups again and went on our excursions. One group went to the Timbaktu Women's Center and my group went on a forest drive. Before we left, we saw the cutest little puppy, but we couldn't play with him :( We got to drive up a mountain in these old jeeps and it was super windy. Maddy taught us about the windmills in the mountains and how the organization was started. Hayden and I spotted a black buck! We also saw some baby deer, lizard, jackal, and a wild boar. We stopped at one of the seed banks in the mountains and watched the gorgeous sunset from the balcony. It was weird seeing it because we knew it was the middle of the night for you guys in America. We made it back just in time for dinner, which they had… INDIAN FRENCH FRIES! As y'all probably know, they served us mashed potatoes last night, which was a blessing. I think the cooks are starting to realize we enjoy potatoes and hopefully we will have it again tomorrow night. Keep your fingers crossed for us :) We were escorted back to the dorms again by Maddy because of the possible leopard encounter.  To end the night, we had visit from a cute, little squirrel downstairs. Hayden got him out safely, he's ok. Hope things are going well back in the states! We are all having and making mems! Love you mom and dad <3

xoxo
Maggie Zerfoss 

Hi, everyone! Today most of us woke up around 7am and got ready for breakfast. As usual, the meal was mainly rice and some spicy sauce to mix it with. After breakfast, we went to the hexagon (where we usually meet) and played a game called "Mafia". Radha, a storyteller, came and asked us about our stay and what we thought of India so far. We also talked about our future in the world and present issues in America. We talked a little longer than we thought we would, so our groups were a little late for our community projects. The group that was building the bathrooms went to clear out a stove and cleaned a kitchen, and the other group continued to work on the 3D maze. The maze is really coming together and I think the kids here are really going to like it. When our time was up for the community project, we all went back to our rooms to rest a bit before lunch. If anyone couldn't guess, lunch was more rice. After lunch we did a leadership activity. Each of us got a notecard and wrote our leadership characteristics on it, after doing that we talked about the Millennium Development Goals and which ones seemed most important to us. Then we went back to the notecards and taped them on our backs so that the blank side of the card was facing away from us. We all went around and wrote a characteristic about a person on their card. Everyone seemed very uplifted by the nice things that were written about them. When we were done with the activity, we split up into our groups from the other day and went to the Women's Center or on the Forrest Drive. My group went to the Women's Center and everyone there was so nice. There were kids there that we had seen from the school, women working, and small animals like puppies and kittens. While at the Women's Center, we all bought some food, mostly nuts. I bought some peanut butter, peanut balls, and spicy peanuts to take home with me. Our group got back to the village a lot earlier than the other group, so we had free time to sit around and rest before dinner. At dinner, we were all very excited because there were french fries! The women cooking our food noticed how excited we were about the mashed potatoes the other night, so I guess they thought we would enjoy some fries and they were right! After dinner we did ANCHOR and one of my highlights was seeing Crosslin stick her head and arms out the window of the bus and get hit by a tree branch. All of us, including Crosslin, died laughing when that happened. When everyone was going to sleep, Crosslin had another exciting run in with nature. A chipmunk crawled up her shirt and she grabbed it and threw it against a wall. We found the little chipmunk sitting in the corner of the room and tried to trap it so we could get it into a basket to put outside. Our trap failed and the little animal scampered across the room into a shoe while all of us screamed. Hayden quickly grabbed the shoe and took it outside to let the chipmunk go! After that, we all tried to go to sleep, but people were still laughing about what had just happened. India has been so much fun, but please send some burgers or bacon for us to eat. I know that all of us are excited to eat american food when we get back. We all miss you and can't wait to get back even though India is amazing! I hope everything is good back at home! I love you lala and robbie! <3
See you soon, 

Audrey Sims

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