Welcome to Vnsi

"Welcome to Vnsi" said the white lady at the train station, "one of you will be teaching in my class today." Surprise!

We followed our 2 hosts and loaded our bags into a ghetto van. We wondered what we would be teaching, to how many kids, at what age/grade? Once on the road, they handed us our schedule for the week. Yep, today(Friday) , and Tues-Fri at 8:30 am we were going to school. Too bad it was already 9:30am. We would be late to our first day of school...

Our train had been late arriving in Varanasi. Somehow our 22 hour ride, had turned into a 24 hour trip.

Thursday went like this: 6am - get on train, take tea and some crackers to dip, nap, wake up. 8am - get off train, and play "Dutch Blitz" at the train station. 9:30am get on next train, drink more chai (caffeine addiction), chat, eat lunch, spill dall on my sawari kamis (shirt) which leaked through onto my pants as well. (it looked like yellow vomit and took 6 tissues and 2 wipes to clean up), read, nap (sugar-low), wake-up, drink more chai (so I could stay awake till night time), play card game, eat a spicey dinner, read, go to bed at 10pm, sleep 2 hours, and then have really bad heart-burn, take tums, lay there till 2am, fall back to sleep till 8am, brush teeth, wash face, and get off the train.

Arriving in Vnis we hit the ground the running. We dropped our bags off at the "Training Center", where we will be staying, and then went straight to school...hungry, smelly, and still wearing my dall-stained shirt. Fortunately the school is in the same building as a bakery, so we got some cinnamon rolls for breakfast, before reporting to our classes.

I am helping with UKG. I think that is "Upper Kindergarten." We have 6 kids ages 6-8. They are fun, but the criticized me for being left handed, so I wrote with my right hand, and it looks as good as their hand-writing.

After school we ate lunch at the Widow's Home, and then went back to our "house", took showers, put on clean clothes, and felt less gross. Wonderful! Then I took my laundry back to the Widow's house, because we can pay them to wash it, and it will be so much cleaner than if I wash it by hand, especially considering it's current stained condition :)