I haven't been able to access the site for a few days so I now have some catching up to do it seems!! Yes it is true that the mozzies seem to love me more than most here but that just goes to show its only the good ones that get bitten!!
Firstly it came as a shock to us all that Mother Theresa had stayed in Derbyshire a lot, according to Carl and when asked several times if this was really true he insisted yes it was....or was it indeed Florence Nightingale that had stayed in Derbyshire...Hmm, turns out it was the latter!!
Moving swiftly on, I am being cared for by my hosts with such generosity it is unbelievable (Muthu & Kamala). They have been so accommodating and kind - this is the first time they have had a GSE visitor so lets hope its not their last - their children too have been very interested in me after some initial reservations (can't blame them!!). They do seem somewhat obsessed however with feeding me!
As the rest have said its been pretty non stop since we got here and I have seen a mixture of things with the group and with my hosts - yesterday's Chennai City Tour was very interesting and we learned a lot about the buildings and the culture - we saw the big influence the British had here. My hosts too have taken me to a women's centre that allows different women's groups/cooperatives to have stalls in the building free of charge and even pays some of their bus fare into the City to work on the stalls - we don't have things like that really in the UK so it was amazing to walk round and speak with the women - so much I wanted to buy but couldn't due to space, which was very frustrating!!
Today also I had my first vocational visit with the American team leader Chris. It was to a day centre for young people with learning disabilities that has been going for 22 years and has three centres in the area - I was amazed at how much smaller the space is they have to do their work, but just how dedicated everyone is to the organisation, given they get only a very small amount of funding from the Government. I found it really insightful. Tonight we have our first presentation so it was maybe that thought that gave me my first bout of delli belly (not bad day 5 in!!) - thank goodness for Boots!!
I leave my hosts on Sunday to change to another and will be sharing with Marianne, which I am looking forward too, but shall also miss my first host family - I cannot express enough just how very kind they have been to me. Tomorrow we head off to see our first temple which I am intrigued to see. We have also been able to spend a lot of time with the American team and got to know them really well so again, that's been a good learning experience for me.
Oh, and did I mention just how fantastic the weather has been????
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