First of all I'd like to send a message to the insect population of India- 'Please leave me alone! I'm flattered and everything but I don't want you flying at me in the middle of the night thank you very much!' I'm COVERED in mosquito bites and as you've probably seen last week I had a praying mantis drop in to say hi which scared the hell out of me! This week meet my new friend:
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The huge killer moth a) gave me a heart attack and then b) proceeded to lay eggs all over my clean washing! I was not a happy bunny! 
Rant over. So this week has been one of two halves! Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were just standard teaching days (apart from on Wednesday when a teacher came to the room and told us we had to cover 4th class, 'Is there a lesson plan?' 'Well it's meant to be a Telegu lesson'... Seeing as I can speak about six sentences of Telegu we decided to get Fidra's ukulele from the room and just have a sing along instead. The kids love listening to English songs and beg us to sing for them- hopefully after Christmas I'll be able to start some sort of drama/ signing programme for the kids here!
But Thursday was children's day! We don't celebrate either Children's day or Teacher's day in the UK much to the shock of the staff and children- but how do you show the children how much they mean to you? Good question. If I ever become a teacher (properly) I'm going to suggest it to my school. We had so much fun. A huge marque was erected in the main courtyard and everyone had a place under it out of the sun to enjoy the show.
 
The children were involved in a fancy dress competition and this is the line up! A green chilly, a baby doll, a policeman, an Indian woman, Chacha Neru, Gandhi, an angel, a giant rabbit (my favorite!), an Indian man and a doctor.
A green chilly and a baby doll! They're so cute!
Harika is in my LKG class and is four years old, she decided to be a baby doll for the event and looked absoloutley adorable!
The best outfit of all of them. This is Pondu from my LKG class being a capsicum!
How cute are my class? They've just been given their prizes by Andrew Macillster, the British High Commissioner and guest of honor.
Next came some dance performances from the older students! They were amazing! The costumes were absoloutley amazing.
The senior girls dance performance
 
Me and Fidra with the older girls (8th-10th class so 15-18). They're like friends to me now and teach me Telegu in the evenings. They call me 'Acka!' (older sister) and they're all my little sisters or 'Chaeleys'
Next Thursday we will be taking an overnight train to Maduri with the girls for a big dance competition- should be an experience!
The dancing
Then we were introduced to Mr. Macallister who was quite surprised to see us!
Children's day was also Fidra's 18th Birthday so she bought in cake for all of the staff and sweets for the children and we had fun dishing that out! HAPPY 18TH FIDRA!
 
CAKE!
 
Giving out sweets to the kids at dinner
I bought Fidra a new journal and made a mehindi style card for her birthday. I think she might have liked them!
Here is a selection of other photos taken on children's day!
 
My fellow staff in their finery!
Okay I love my white and gold sari but one of my Aunty's here (the name for women older than yourself) came over to me and said, 'Madam white sari no. Change the sari.' 'Yendoku Aunty? (Why Aunty?)' 'Indian girl, white sari good, white girl white sari no' and then she put her hands over her eyes as if she couldn't see me! Indians are not shy to tell you exactly how they feel about your dress!
 
I am way mature enough to be a teacher...
    
At the end of children's day we were approached by a journalist from the National Indian newspaper called 'The Hindu' wanting to write an article about us. We agreed and he came back the next day to take some photos and to ask us some questions! The article came out today (November 17th): http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/shedding-light-on-their-dark-days/article5359917.ece They've chosen the worst photo of me they possibly could have but still it's pretty exciting!
On Friday and Saturday we took bus loads of children to a local college for audio descriptive screenings of children's films for the International childrens film festival.
Getting 500 kids down the road and onto the bus was a challenge especially when the bus was built for 40! But that's India- you can always get one more person on the bus!
The children applied red Kum Kum powder to each others faces as a blessing.
Utter chaos!
The kids seemed to have a good time though even if we didn't understand a word as the film was in Hindi! It seemed to be some kind of Indian Harry Potter...
 
At the end of the film both me and Fidra were asked to stand and give a speech to the hall about the films ideas...now seeing as I'd been subtly having a nap for most of the film this was a challenge. Luckily I had Vijay next to me whispering the answers. Bad teacher- I really shouldn't encourage cheating but THANK YOU VIJAY!
On Saturday evening we got dressed in our saris and went to the local temple with Padma, our Aunties and lots of the students for a pooja. This was so interesting...to start with but it went on for three and a half hours in a mixture of Telegu and Sandscript and we weren't allowed to move from our spot sitting cross legged on the matts. I swear when we got up at the end I nearly fell flat on my face, my legs had just given up. 'Nako Ardam Arvadam Ledu!' I dont understand!
Today me and Fidra took an auto to a local cinema to see Ramleela which is basically a bollywood version of Romeo and Juliet and is fabulous!
We had the BEST time and the music is amazing! It's all set in Gujarat so I'm very excited to be heading up north in January! I'll be buying a copy to bring home for everyone to see! I'm in love with Indian cinema, it's such an event! A huge spectacle that I adore watching even if I don't understand a word which is often. It's magic it really is. Then to Pizza Hut for tea! Such a treat day.
Back to teaching tomorrow! This week is International Education week so we are going to try and teach the kids some Scottish ceileigh dancing in the evenings. I'll probably be no help to be honest! My dancing is not the best, especially in a sari! I'll be sure to let all of you lovely lot know how that works out!
DANYAVADALU! TA TA!
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