The didis, Naima and Lila

Anjali and Laxmi, head and deputy head girl at the orphanage. Such lovely girls.

Hot and bothered

Tuesday 30th April
Currently sitting in the dark, yes, another power cut.  This means that the aircon is off as well.  It has been 33 degrees today and steam has been rising from my head.  At the orphanage, we had the top brass in again, in particular Mrs Gandhi who was totally objectionable.  We have all paid £150 each to Saga as a contribution to the orphanage, with the understanding that we get to be in on the decision as to how it will be spent. What we didn't know was that we would be lobbied by various factions.  So far I have been asked to pay for an operation for a boy with hearing problems.  The next lobbier said that the money had already been raised for that and said new raincoats and umbrellas were essential before the monsoon started.  The next hard sell was for new text books for school and today I was asked to pay the school fees as the orphanage had been unable to pay them and the children could not get their progress report until the fees were paid.  I told Mrs Gandhi that, if the boy's operation was taken care of, I would like my  donation to go towards buying fruit for the children every day.  We give them the fruit from our packed lunch everyday and they love it.  They don't get any otherwise.  Mrs Gandhi said they get carrots and cucumbers, one egg a week and chicken once a week.  Otherwise they get, noodles, rice, dhal and such like.  With much head waggling, she said well perhaps I would like to pay the school fees out of my own money.  I don't know whether I was more annoyed or embarrassed.
Naima, the head didi, is unmarried, lives in, loves every single child, in fact they call her mama, was treated to a real telling off in front of us.  The ancient sewing machine had a broken needle and it somehow was all her fault.  They have a strong caste system and I think Naima may be from a lower caste than the others, so it's a case of kicking the dog.  She was on the verge of tears so we had a group hug and pulled faces at Mrs Gandhi as she sailed off.
The good news is that the tickets for our jungle weekend have come through.  Really looking forward to that.