Illam life

Every morning the girls draw a kolam outside of the illam using rice flour.  The kolams are supposed to bring prosperity to the household and when I walk down the street I see them in front of almost every household.

The streets are covered in trash.  This job of trash collector is a new addition to Nilakottai.  The trash is generally collected and then burned.

The children are off from school on Sundays. They spend the day washing their clothes, studying, doing a thorough cleaning of the illam, and have free time as well.  I spent the morning playing 'duck duck, goose' with several of the younger girls and chatting with the older ones as they braided each other's hair.  

Jean led the girls in a drawing class.  I was surprised to see that many of the girls brought in scraps of newspaper or textbooks so that they could copy pictures out of them.  They didn't seem to want to make up pictures.

This man works right outside the illam.  He's ironing clothes on a street cart with an iron heated by a small stove.

The boys relax on Sundays as well.  I went to the garden to watch them playing volleyball and then joined them in a dance class.  (I don't think I'll be going to Bollywood anytime soon.)

Today I finished up an art project for children's day at the school to display the children's art work.

There is a housekeeper and cook at the illam but the girls help out with food preparation and other chores.  This is there version of a knife that she is using to cut a melon.

I really love the food.  Today we had quite a spread, all fantastic!

I went with Jean and the film crew to a hospital in Madurai this afternoon to visit Ganeshani, a girl who used to live at the illam and is now finishing up school to be a laboratory technician.  DHAN helps the children with college and technical school after they leave the illam.  It was great to be able to see a girl who is doing so well thanks to the help of the illam.

It started to rain!  Torrential downpour in fact.  Although unfortunately it was only in the city, Nilakottai didn't get much rain at all.  Everyone is hoping for rain next week.  As we were driving to Madurai we could se all of the brown fields.  The farmers are suffering because of the drought.

Jean taught the girls a spoken English class tonight, perhaps I'll do one soon!