Day 3 - Wednesday 20th January

We awoke to a very foggy morning. We could hardly see 10 metres in front of us, except for the hazy bursts of orange from the streetlamps as we walked to Mass. St Alphonsa's Parish is a beautiful white stone Church - a 15-minute walk past the residences of the High Commissioners for Kenya, Algeria, and every other corrupt African nation you can think of.


After Mass we returned home to a breakfast of cornflakes and curry, before departure at 8am to our various destinations. One busload headed into the slum area of Okhla to visit one of the branches of Deepalaya School. We found ourselves welcomed/shoved into of a class of expectant faces, and asked what we were going to be teaching them. We started with introductions, then tried a couple of games, but language proved to be a significant barrier. It was challenging, and definitely an incentive to prepare well for our future classes - but we left a roomful of smiling faces so it wasn't all bad!


The second group made their way to Education on Wheels, also a Deepalaya School programme. This basically consisted of a bus-turned-classroom to reach the kids living in slum areas who can't make it to school any other way. Walking briskly, we followed one of the Deepalaya volunteers through the twists and turns of slum alleyways to the bus, already on location.


Around 10:30am, the first of about 20 kids began to arrive - tiny tots carrying plastic bags with their single exercise book. The two regular female teachers led the kids in a song of prayer before moving to the front of the bus and leaving us to it. We spent the next two hours teaching 'Heads, Shoulders Knees and Toes', revising 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' (which they already knew) with all the actions, and a game of 'Follow the Leader' to teach them new English words. It's more tiring than it sounds, but the continuous stream of giggles made it all worth it.


Group 3 went back to Cheshire Home for the Disabled to continue their physio and craft work. They told us many stories over dinner that night, such as about two brothers with good minds but who are constrained by Muscular Dystrophy, and an 8-year old who was the size of a 1-year old child. Their stories all seemed to convey the sense that their work had brought a ray of sunshine to the patients' day.

Tired out by a hard day's work and crazy car rides through peak-hour traffic, we all hit the sack early (after a delicious curry for dinner, just for a spot of variety in the menu).