The painting begins...

Today has been fantastic - cold, but fantastic!

We headed straight to the slums this morning in our full Indian dress, we were greeted at the van again by lots of happy smiling children who are always very eager to say hi to us!

We were shown around the slums and invited into some of their houses. As we walked past, the small streets seemed to line with people wanting to see who we were. The children followed us diligently and kept shouting 'Didi' (i think) at us - which seemed to mean 'photo'. They cheered and laughed when we showed them the pictures we had taken, it was all so exciting for them! It took us hours to walk around the entire slum; we saw people cooking, cleaning, sweeping, playing games with chalk on the floor, nursing their sick children, working in their shops and just spending time enjoying each others company. One older lady was shouting something at us as we walked past and when i asked our translator what she was saying he told me that she was shouting blessings on us. I walked over to her and she put her hands on my head and blessed me, her eyes were filled with such gratitude towards me, it was astonishing. She didn't who we were or why we were here or even for how long, justt the fact that we were there was enough, it seemed to bring such joy. In their eyes we were doing so much for them...what they couldnt see was how much they were blessing us and teaching us.

After lunch we started painting two of the ASHA clinics. We're doing a farm yard scene with lots of animals, scarecrows, tractors and other such thing! They love bright colours so we're going to have a lot of fun bringing life and light into the room. We had a tea break mid afternoon and took the opportunity to play with some of the children who had been hanging around us (and on us) all day. We played hand slapping games until our hands were red raw, we danced and sang, and of course took a million or two more photos.

It's hard to convey the scene to you all; it's like nothing you'll see in our Western bubble; there is a sewage river that runs through the middle of the slum with pigs feeding off their rubbish, they cram lots of people into the smallest houses, they rarely have electricity, they live off very little, it's dirty and it smells. Yet they delight in what they have and in each other, there is always laughter and joy, they share what they have and look out for each other - and when you get wrapped up in that it's easy to forget the things that materially surround you.

We're all off now to get something to eat, we hope that you are all well at home.

Every blessing to you all.