HELLO!

This is the first entry of Kullu project volunteers Anja and Fiona. Sisters from France, British nationality.. 20 and 21. We’ve been here for just over a month now.. and haven’t been that efficient at updating the blog.. sorry about that! But we do therefore have lots to tell now!
We feel like we have settled in nicely to valley life, we enjoy our outings to all the different structures immensely!
Things aren’t perhaps as hectic for us as other volunteers, the two weeks to a month (depending on the school) summer holidays kicked in mid July. We are occupied most days, focusing on the orphanages who have plenty of free time for us to try and fill, but it must be less running around to all the different institutions than others have had it.
We went to the Blind school, GSSS, and Bahart Baharti before they broke up for holiday, a few times each. But if not our time has been spent in Kahlehi, Bashing, Vashist, and Manali (Mrs Sudershanas), the four orphanages.
We also had the fun experience of taking the Vashisht and Bashing guys to Sai Ropa, near the Great Himalayan National Park. That was on the 25th of July, for 3 days 2 nights. It was an extremely good weekend all round! Thanks to Ankit and his many ideas there was never a dull moment: absailing, hike, trout farm visiting, and swimming in a waterfall ( photos will be put up of that, it was so much fun). Ankit and his friends made the camp really brilliant by providing all that fun. The day we did the huge walk up an almost vertical hill, we admired the kids. None of them moaned once about the climb. Even though we were completely melting in the sun, and it got loooong towards the end, the older ones were carrying the little ones, and they just kept on marching...The waterfall at the top which we all dived under was enough of a reward to forget the tiresome effort... But we realised how independent, and easy to look after these guys are. They get on with stuff, stick together, and don’t make a fuss if it gets hard. We did evening activities, sketches were a hit, the older ones were funny, and a few team games. The last evening was campfire evening, people took it in turn to sing a song for everyone, some of the girls were amazing. Fiona played guitar and sang away in French. Then our cook for the weekend busted some moves, and got everyone dancing. EVERYONE! The food was amazing for the weekend we should add too! Huge Breakfast, tea and biscuits, lunch, tea and biscuits, macaroni for snacks, soup, evening meal. Plentiful.
As for what we have been doing with the children every week, we generally have been sticking to the classic team building, fun and games in English..with both of us having some experience in English teaching back in France.. we are able to plan some basic English lessons (verbs, adjectives, tenses, pronouns and all that jazz!) we prepare and then photocopy some work sheets for each visit to the orphanages ! (All the Kahleli and Kullu kids, and the elder ones from Manali and Vashist) At the moment our favourite activity is the memory game!! Where first everyone helps making the game by drawing two identical pictures (+ English word) on cards, coloring in and all and then lay all the cards out and in turn each reveal two cards and the aim is to find the matching pair! Classic, much loved! Honestly , they always ask to “play again play again” even if it may not sound that riveting... 
We have been dreaming up topics for discussion at Bharat Bharti too, and are hoping to start there again this week. Confidence building type things (with their English, and generally with speaking in front of scary amounts of people) : acting, improvisation (give them an object each and they have to try and “sell it to us”) , big quizzes in teams...
We are enjoying it all so much, and want to thank all the previous volunteers for paving the way for us! The kids at Kahlehi remember you guys Ance and Baiba really well, they have huge smiles when we ask about things you did with them, and taught us a game that you did with them the other day, with much enthusiasm (the secret action changing game!)!
As for friendships we’ve made with our neighbours, we get on really well with the daughters of the tailors next door, they remember you guys Nabila, Maya and Julianna very fondly! We’re really happy that we get on so well with them, they help us cook Indian food, and decorated our hands and feet with mandi the other day. They showed us the things you gave them, the atlas seemed to be a treasured gift.
Until next time! Au revoir , fil me lenge