Hello from India Romeo 10!

With enthusiasm is higher than ever have been determined to make the most of the last few weeks and we've been putting lots of new ideas into action.

We returned from fieldbase triumphant once again in winning chocolate cake and some mattresses due to our reenactment of the incident of the rat in the night and our interactive presentation. Our morning toothbrush club with the village children is now a regular occurrence

  with new children joining each day, and volunteers being woken in the morning with requests for the club to start!

We've also developed the club into a walk to school group to increase school attendance. Singing 'heads shoulders knees and toes' for twenty minutes is surely the best start to anyone's morning..

Construction is well underway: despite some minor problems with locating new masons, all the 19 vermi compost pits and azolla pits have been constructed and are currently being plastered. We're now focusing on building the cattle sheds, 1 of which is complete, with another two being built at the moment.

After the arrival of 28 unbelievably heavy cement poles on Monday the team held a group massage session. A cultural learning curve in itself for some of the Indian volunteers, who enjoyed their first  ever back massage. Our new mason yesterday is already a favorite of the group, teaching us how to lay bricks and fill in the cement, calling us all 'top masons', and finishing a cattle shed within just one day's work! A future as a mason is now an attractive career for many of the team...

We've also been interviewing the three women's Self Help Groups in the village and identifying the problems they have been having with leadership and loans. A major obstacle the groups face is the lack of basic literacy, preventing them from signing their names when they save money and from reading important letters from the bank. Some of us held a meeting with four of the young literate women in the village yesterday, with the vision of them teaching the SHG groups basic literacy. The suggestion was well received, and we plan on holding a large SHG meeting on Friday, and the first lesson on Monday evening. We've visited the local school, and the teachers are on board to support the young women in their role through providing literacy workbooks and guidance on how to teach the older women of the village.

Whilst at the school we also arranged three visits to the school: two of which will involve giving lessons on nutrition, rubbish and English culture, and the third of which will include a sports afternoon and a big goodbye from all of the team.

We've also been interviewing villagers about their family and history, with the aim of constructing a large family tree to paint on the wall of the community hall. The stories about forbidden love marriages, secret visits to the lake, and family connections have provided us with a fascinating and often amusing glimpse into the social structure and history of the village.

Linked to that, the group have been holding cultural exchange evenings with the villagers. In the evenings a bonfire is lit and volunteers and villagers share songs, dance and stories with each other. Undoubtedly the strongest performance so far has been Cinderella, in which a grubby sandal became a magic slipper, and Cinderella travelled to the ball in a cow-drawn cart. We're hoping to organise some home-stays with the villagers in the next few days to learn more about their daily lives.

Finally, the group is starting to turn their thoughts to the goodbye party we will hold in the village. We're not focusing too much on that yet though, too busy planning our final projects and enjoying our last few weeks as a team with the villagers.