For Good

 From making snowflakes to Christmas dance parties to being covered in glitter making decorations for the "Crib" aka the life-size-walk-in manger fully dubbed out with a disco ball and water fountain, Christmas was an extravaganza not to be missed in Deodurga. My favorite part was giving our 101 boarding children the gifts that we bought with the donation money we raised. In all, we raised over $4,000 with which we gave the gifts to the children and the community and used the rest to support the medical clinic. (We gave a little over $2,000 to the clinic, which will help it stay on its feet for the next 4 months). The Christmas Joy was tangible and affectionate; everyone had a grand time. Each of my girls received a water bottle, pens and pencils, colored markers and pencils, chalk, erasers, earrings, clips, chocolate, and more. I don't think I will ever be able to forget their faces when we pulled out that cardboard box that contained all of the presents. Perfect memory. Thank you to everyone who made that a

Santa? Is that you?

reality for the children. Side note, I was Santa Claus for the celebration. It was a bit scary.

After the celebration, Holly and I headed to Bangalore on Christmas Eve and celebrated the best way we knew: with pizza. (I might mention that during the more difficult times during the preparation for Christmas ~when we were covered in glitter at midnight making religious statues~ I made a motivational sign out of glitter that merely said PIZZA. It served its purpose and continues to hang on the wall alongside family photos.) We had a mellow Christmas full of pizza and movies with fellow volunteer Matt where we Skyped our families and played Bananagrams.

We decided to treat ourselves and go get haircuts. About a month before I had had a moment of pure horror when I found myself in the bathroom, after a particularly bad day, standing with a chunk of my hair in my hand that I had just cut off…still to this day I am not quite sure what happened but I ended up cutting off a good portion of my hair. So long hair that my kids liked, hello short hair that my kids hate. They have now come to accept it, but neededless to say I am by no means a good haircutter so on Christmas day we headed to a salon to right the wrong. Holly got a super cute hair cut that makes her look like Julia Roberts from Hook. The next day was Holly's birthday, and the day that the 4 SLM volunteers were reunited. However, I was counting down the days for when my dad arrived in Bangalore. He decided to come visit for the holidays which I am so thankful for because the holidays were proving to be tough away from all friends and family.

What Christmas looked like this year.

My Dad loved almost all that India had to offer and kept a list on his phone of what he liked and didn't like. From what I remember, India's driving skills were on the "cool" list while the lack of seat belts was not. I don't think my mom would like him bringing back the driving skills to America~basically you're playing a video game where driving laws are more like suggestions and you are swerving between not only other cars, but people, cows, pigs, goats…you name it basically. We got to go back to  the Elephant Palace in Mysore and around Bangalore a bit before coming to Deodurga. I am so glad he got to come to where I actually work so that he could meet the kids and community members and see where I live. The bus ride here was a whole other experience including a loose wire above my head that caught fire…but that story is for another time. Only in India.

Dad and the kids.

The kids loved my dad, how could you not? They especially loved his bald head. One of my first grade boys had just shaved his head completely so kept running up to my dad yelling "bola!" and running his hand over his imaginary hair. My dad caught on to this fast and got a kick out of doing the motion with Akash. However, what the highlight was was the Saturday night dance where my dad went wild on the dance floor with 39 boys. As you can imagine, I don't think I will forget what transpired on that dance floor even if I tried. It makes me excited for my eventual wedding to see what moves my dad still has! Another cool thing my dad and I got to do was go to the villages where my kids live and go to their fields where they work on holidays. It was very interesting to see where my kids come from and to go into their houses and experience their lives on a whole other level. A sad goodbye at the airport later left me on my own in Bangalore waiting for the night bus back. Obvious solution: pizza.

The weeks between then and now were full with illness (my body's favorite thing to do every two weeks is to get sick with various things). This time it was bronchitis and slight pneumonia. Having asthma really didn't help either. And after a quick trip to the hospital, which was rather nice, I was put on some strong meds and here we are today! I recovered enough to celebrate my birthday yesterday

, which was my 23rd. I think the kids were more excited than I was about it. The entire day before they kept coming up to me saying, "Miss tomorrow, TOMORROW is your feast!!" I love them. The day started out with a marching band in my room playing me to wake and ended with a feast that was SO good. In between, there was a balloon popped over my head that was full of confetti, lots of singing, a volleyball match, and many many kisses from my kids (some from the staff-whachaaaaa! Jk they were on the cheek from the sisters!). No Indian princes for me…yet ;). I'm just kidding Adam, I remember signing all those papers!

So now just lots of rest for me, as the doctor prescribed. I have been thinking about what I want to add next to my tattoo. For those of you who don't know, I have a tattoo of a dove on my foot with "teach" written in Khmer on the inside, symbolic of when I taught English in Cambodia two years ago. I knew when I first got my tattoo that it was never really going to be "finished," that I was going to keep adding to it with the more things I did. I have decided, almost, that the next addition is going to be "For Good" written in Kanada, the local language spoken here. You can guess at the meaning there, but I will give you a hint: I'm a musical buff. I am also going to add "Belle" from my time as a Loyola Marymount University Belle (my service organization in which I was the Vice President) and "No Day But Today" which is my personal motto.

Words for thought. Let me know if you have questions about anything! Love to all,
V