The next morning we were given pancakes for breakfast! You honestly have no idea how excited we got about this :)

That day was set aside to visit all the diferent projects we would be volunteering at. In the morning, we went to lots of different day care centres. The kids were unbelievably cute and the facilities really quite awful. We finished the morning by visiting the slum school, Monte Hill, where the children were became very over-excited at our arrival demanding we take pictures of them! One even told me I was beautiful! After lunch we went to look at the old age homes and to see their plight was really quite harrowing. They had a complete lack of privacy and stimulation and I was deeply affected by the stories that they were completely unwanted by their relatives. I would really have loved to help them, but just felt that it would have been too much for me to deal with. I was torn between feeling that if that was my grandmother, I would want someone to help them and talk to them and make them feel like they were living for something other than death and my desire to attempt to help the young children before they became part of some poverty. In the end, I chose to do what I had set out to, but I was very pleased that others chose to help them.

We ended the day in Margao (the second largest city in Goa), where we desperately searched for appropriate clothing to wear during our placements. Obviously the clothes I had brought with me were considered hideously inappropriate, God forbid one should show one's ankles!

The next day after many boring talks on Goa and the education system, we were allocated our projects. I am working in the Suarolin Day Care Centre in the mornings and teaching English and computing to 10-11 year old girls 3 afternoons a week. We wanted to go into Colva that evening to search for more clothes, but were told we had to remain behind and meet the other volunteers who were doing longer projects. Surprisingly this ended up being more fun than expected as we played musical chairs and learnt everyone's names. After the staff sang us some local songs (this was cringey to say the least), we were invited to stand up and sing our national anthems... Well, the Brits were clearly the worst as we did not have a clue as to the words after 'God save our gracious Queen...' Thus we attempted to say that our intention was to give an impression of English footballers when they sing it...

So today was my first day of volunteering. God, those little kids are bad!!! We turned up for an 'observation day', but were thrust to the forefront when it became apparent that the teacher was at a 'meeting' all day and only the non-english speaking helper was there! Some how we muddled through the next 2 and a half hours in the baking hot classroom by teaching the kids 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' (they stared at us in wonder) and getting confused by their renditions of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' and 'Jack and Jill', which were clearly meant to be in English, but no English I had ever heard...

After lunch, Stella and I made our way to Monte Hill, having no idea what it was we were meant to be doing. The jeep was met by a crowd of young girls who grabbed our hands and directed us through the slum. Eventually we reached the room we were supposed to use (after stepping over multiple puppies and chickens), which contained one computer working off a generator. These overexcited girls were keen to show off their English and asked us many questions about ourselves and kept touching my hair! After about half an hour, a teacher turned up and said we were to teach them about computers. All girls crowded round this computer (which gave everyone an electric shock if they touched it) and were completely delighted by the joys of Paint! I really wished we could have had a printer and printed out their pictures, but sadly the facilities are truely awful. At one point the generator even started beeping as it was about to cut out!

I'm looking forward to making progress over the next few weeks with these children and hoping helping them out as much as possible!

Miss you all xxxxxxxxx