India Trip- Day 6

Today I was outside in the yard when a man came up to the gate and called, "Aunty!, Aunty!". After I realized he was talking to me I went over to see what he needed. Turned out he was trying to sell shirts. I am not sure why he had ended up in this street, as it was a little hard to understand all he was saying, but my point of this is that, yes, I am fairly new to India, but I love being called Aunty here because it sounds so friendly.
We walked to the HOPE House and spent the day with the girls. We had brought crafts and played games with them. It really doesn't matter much that we don't know the same language because love transcends all of that. I can tell you that these girls have hearts of gold and I am so blessed to have met each one of them. Together we made bookmarks with rubber stamps, made bead necklaces, played beauty parlor by the girls giving us volunteers new hair styles(see mine above), blew bubbles, had a water balloon fight,and my girl,Sandhya, and I made a crossstitch of the HOPE House logo to hang on the wall. I only showed her a few times how to sew it and she caught on so fast and wanted to finish the whole thing by herself. I put a frame on it so it can up hung up there. I want her to see it hanging on the wall and to remember the time we had there together.
It is the second Saturday of the month, which means it is visitation day here. I was so hoping that Sandhya's mom could come today and that I could meet her. Well, she did! It was so nice to get to meet this wonderful little girl's mother! She stayed awhile and brought some things for her little girls to eat. I had to get a hug and pictures before she left. It was nice to see their family together like that. There was so much excitment and it was a good day there.
Some neighborhood kids came today to play with us, it was fun to see them too. The girls watched a movie I had sent to them awhile back, while us vounteers visited amongst ourselves for awhile and rested. We had supper and went home to clean up, it had been a fun, busy and hot day.
Another thing I love about this trip is that we are always being offered the afternoon tea or chai, even when we are out visiting another place we are still offered some. It is so GOOD. I don't always take some because mostly I am too hot already and only want water, but when I do take it I am always glad I did and then remember how much I like it. One sweet lady was kind enough to share her recipe with me, so when I was at a grocery there I made sure to get the ingredients to bring home with me so I can continue to enjoy it when I returned to the US.