Goodbye to the Orphanage.

We continued our time at the orphanage with a variety of lessons, ranging from jumping frogs to questions about song lyrics we wrote on the board. We spent one day upstairs with the really little ones - most are fully able kids but come in from the slums - they were both adorable and terrible at the same time, very excitable with short attention spans - we were pretty exhausted by the end of that day.

On our penultimate day a group of children came from a local public school to give a performance, there were comedy routines (in Hindi, but still funny), singing, and dancing, which the kids all clapped along to. Some kids from our class got up to give their own performances, with Kuldeep doing some awesome dancing and Suman playing the harmonium and singing. Somewhat inevitably we were summoned for a performance of our own. So, to the cracking bollywood music on the cassette we pulled out the 2 bangra moves we'd picked up, some 'running man' and some dosey does, to bring a round of applause and raise a few smiles. We were then invited to the public school for a look around (where we were treated incredibly well), it was a huge school with 4000 kids and some amazing facilities, quite a contrast to our little orphanage. We hitched a ride back on the school bus.

There have been ups and downs during our three weeks at the orphanage, but at the end of it we were sad to be leaving, purely down to the children who have been great, and we have got to know as individual personalities; Kuldeep the deaf dancer. Polite & friendly Susmita. Clever and cheeky (in a good way) Vikash - with one blue eye and one brown eye. Cheeky but sweet Praveen. Beautiful and adorable Seema. Power happy Mukesh. And Suman with his hand pedalled bicycle. In the younger class there is Deepak, the coolest kid in town. Ganga, the tomboyish boss of the class and the shy and quiet Sapna, amongst many others.

We will miss these and the rest of the kids and hope for the best possible future for them in what will no doubt be difficult lives. Despite everything that is against them they are tough, hard working and always have smiles on their faces. We are privileged to have spent time with them