Visit to Nittur Government Home for Girls (Group 2)

“Sister, will u come back tomorrow?”

 I grinned at her and replied, “I’ll come again next Saturday”. Then I continued teaching her how to spell ‘Udupi’.

 She is one of the 60 orphans (age ranges from 6 to 17 years) who live at the Nittur Government Home for Girls and is from Shimoga. The other 2 girls who were slowly writing ‘d…u…p..’ are from Mangalore and Mysore.

 The date was 30^th May, 2009. 21 volunteers from Batch 20 & 24 arrived at the orphanage with the hope of improving the level of English of the girls and they wasted no time in doing so the moment they were seated down in a circle with the girls in a small class room. Given the time of an hour, the volunteers assessed the standard of English of the girls under their care before proceeding to helping build upon that foundation. Every girl was made to possess a small note book so that when a new group of volunteers teaches the girls, they’ll be able to refer to the note book that will have a record of what have been taught.

 “If you don’t answer correctly, you won’t get a banana”

 I chuckled to myself silently as I watch my friend told the other girls to not say a word while she poses a question to one of them. 

***

“No, sister….no”

 I tried taking the empty paper plates and cups on the floor to dispose them when the girls stopped me and quickly took them away from me. The attempt to take an empty cup lying not far away resulted in the same reaction from the girls.

 “Such well-mannered girls,” I thought to myself as they hastily cleared the floor.

 Some were greedy, some were shy and some were just delighted when biscuits and soft drinks were served during tea time.

 I looked at my watch. It showed 5.00 pm and it was time for games.

 ***

 Different set of games were planned for the younger and older girls.

 Older girls:

Game 1 :

“Hurry up! Hurry up!”

I imagined that was what the girls were shouting in Kannada as their friends ran towards a bucket full of water, filled their plastic bottle which has holes at the bottom with water and continued running towards their respective group’s bottle to fill it up.

 Game 2:

“Aaaah..!”

Another girl screamed when a water balloon burst at her feet because her friend failed to aim properly at the bucket placed in front of her.

 Game 3:

“Wa ha ha ha…!”

She tried to control her laughter as she placed the basketball between her knee joints, quickly made a turn around the bucket and returned to her group to pass the basketball to the next girl.

 

 

“Is it over?” asked Sunthari, the person in charge of the visit, when I stood beside her.

 “Yeah. How were the games for the younger ones?” I asked in return.

 She smiled and said, “It was very fun watching them”

***

“Chapatiiiiiiii!!!”

 A small light flickered and then everyone’s chapati smiles were captured by the pink camera.