July already! I can hardly believe that it's been almost two weeks, but then Laura and Jana remind me that two weeks is nothing compared to the year they have spent here. I really can't imagine. It would be so amazing!

They returned from Bangalore last night, and took their normal places at the pre-vocational school today. It was project day, however, (every Friday) and they baked cookies with the children. Learning measurements and basic kitchen skills. Most people don't have ovens, though, so they used a microwave. They saved a cookie for me and it was actually pretty good for being cooked in a microwave.

For project day with the younger children we went to Karanji Lake, the same park where we took the older children last Friday. I went along to be an extra pair of hands and eyes, as it is much more difficult to go places with all of the younger children. They still enjoyed it, and it is nice to spend some time out of the school interacting with the "real" world which they will have to face soon.

Yesterday (Thursday) at the school we had a team of South Korean volunteers visiting. There were about 20 of them, and they are on a 1 week tour of the city going to all the different ministries and helping out for 1 day at each place. Although they greatly outnumbered the children, they were loving and eager to assist us with anything. In the afternoon they put on a puppet and music show for us, which the children really enjoyed.

After school I went with Laura, Jana, and Hannah to run some errands in Mysore City, and now I'm back at the apartment looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Sunita and I will most likely do some curriculum planning, and we will meet with Laura, Jana, and Ngaanba (the teachers at the pre-vocational school) about incorporating the new curriculum and what things will look like with a fourth teacher (me) there for the next month.

Another interesting anecdote:

There is a very strong and obvious bias in India against dark skin. All the Bollywood and tv stars are rather pale, and many commercials on television are advertising bleaching creams, whitening deodorants, and skin lightening moisturizers. This struck me as ironic since I just left an environment where all my friends are obsessed with being tan and laying out in the summer and sucking up as many UV rays as possible before school starts again. If they were here, they'd be buying the bleaching creams so they could find a husband. Oh perspective!

Happy (two days late) Birthday to my beautiful Mother! Sorry I always leave the country on your birthday :)

Prayer Requests:

-continued healing of the nasty bug bites. thanks to antibiotic cream, things have definitely cleared up. Blisters remain, but the pain is gone

-wise and careful planning of the curriculum for the language class at the pre-vocational school