Monday, June 4, 2012

June 2nd: Last day at Youth Touch

Hi! Today was our last day at camp. We couldn't work because the mason was still with his wife at the hospital! She had surgery to remove her appendix. We hope she has a quick recovery!

We're so happy to have completed as much as we have on the boarding house this month. The foundation is almost complete. Madan said that everyone thought the Westerners couldn't do the construction work (we're the first group to do so) in the heat, but we proved them wrong! Yay! We know this boarding house is going to change many lives of the children of Banjara Basti. The first floor will be finished in two years if we come back next May and three years if we do not. Past Swedish volunteers have been collecting funds to support the house as well! Donations are accepted if you want to help speed up the process of building the boarding house. Your support is much appreciated. You can email Madan (madan_jpr@rediffmail.com) or myself (torry@developingworldconnections.org) if you have questions.

Today we all did laundry, packed, did chores, and hung out. We had mangoes for lunch and dinner (you jelly Vic, Elma, Rebecca, and Jess?!). All the laundry we did today was clothes we are donating to the Banjara kids. We also gave our toiletries (hand sanitizers, shampoo, medicines etc) to help with Youth Touch's Health Project. The last time we went to visit the children we took pictures and took names for kids we would like to sponsor (to pay to go to school for one year). It's about $340 US a year. We plan on holding fundraisers throughout the year so we can support kids we connected with and would love your help.

The lessons I've learned this month are invaluable and I am so grateful for this experience. I hope I can come back next May and work here again :). As you can tell by how much I gush in this blog, I love it here.

Stay tuned for our travels to Pushkar, Ranthambore, and Delhi! As always, thanks for reading.

Torry Harris 
DWC Team Leader
India, May 2012

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