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Hello!
So just going to update on our last day working with the kids, we only worked the afternoon as in the morning we went for a 3 hour walk around Old Delhi.
We woke up very early, 8am! that was a struggle (even though in England would be a nice lie in) we met Nick who volunteers for Salaam Balaak and he took Rachel, Mia and me to where we needed to meet our guide. We got the metro again to Chandni Chowk and then got a rickshaw (Mia and I were very apprehensive after our last journey bin a rickshaw!) to Gate number 3 which is where one of the largest Mosques in India is, called Jama Masjid, the courtyard of the mosque can hold up to 25,000 muslims at one time, we didn't go inside as we had to pay and none of us were overly interested to see a large courtyard plus we could just poke are head through and we saw most of it. It was very impressive though!
We then made our way through the streets that we wouldn't find on our own, seeing some very interesting temples on the way, we went inside a Jain (a religion where they believe that no living being should be harmed so they don't kill anything even bugs! and they don't eat root vegtables because they believe that it comes from the ground and living creature would not survive or something) temple as well which was stunning, the detail of the artwork was amazing, it must have taken them a long time to do and they were re painting some of it. I thyink our guide was getting slightly annoyed with us as Mia and I were more interested when we walked past some puppies and spent about 10 minutes taking pictures of them! Then there were the monkeys...Mia got very excited but then as we walked underneath them (they were just loose around the street jumping over the telephone wires) we realised they didn't loook too friendly especially when my flash went off! So we moved swiftly on and past other temples that lay within thebuildings on the street like terraced houses type thing, which was interesting and we went past a very old looking tree which apparently was haunted as someone had killed themseleves by hanging.
We moved on and saw a place where they made clothes, part of a Haveli (a huge mansion where the rooms are rented to other people) and they contain a courtyards which is were there was a sewing room inside, very interesting and also a place of worship where you could take a picture of your god and then pray, so it didn't matter what religion you were.
Next stop was India's version of costa coffee, excpet they didn't sell coffee only tea, it wasn't indie it was a bench which was made out of the wall. Close as we can get though! We then went to one of the busiest markets which sold material and ribbon etc, was beautiful, the detail that went into all of it.
We also went to a small street with 9 houses on it that some of the richest people live, it was in the Jain area and there were shops as well it is very famous apparently.
We then went to the spice market, which I didn't realise it was the actual spice market until we got to the end, it smelt amazing but I though it would be much more colourful than it was so thought it was just a small market but we were told it was one of the largest. We went up on to the rooftop and could see Red Fort in the distance, an amazing view.
We then got a tuk tuk to the Children's home where the walk finished. Was a really good morning an we learnt a lot. We saw Alok and he kept saying to us 'gipt gipt' which meant gift but they can't pronounce their Fs (very funny!) and we thought they wanted a gift from us but Alok and his friend Methab who we started teaching in the afternoons grabbed Mia and me and took us outside, Alok had something hidden underneath his top and they made us sit on the step and close our eyes, we thought they were going to through a water balloon at us or something but they placed a present in each of our hands and told us to open our eyes, it was so cute they drew us a picture of all of us and inside the gift was a teddy scarf with some biscuits! (the pictures are uploaded) we gave them a hug and said thank you, we also had given them a game, a pack of cards and 2 yellow balls with smiley faces on them. We then got all of them and played Pictogram again, whilst we were playing they grabbed us individually and took us around the corner made us close our eyes again and gave us a necklace, it was so lovely the thought that had gone into it. We did however ask the teacher whether it was ok to accept the necklaces as we weren't sure where they got them from and so she asked the boys and they said that Methab had got it from a friend and they chose to give it to us, so lovely!
We played games for the rest of the afternoon and then said our goodbyes, it was quite sad really but the teacher has her email address' and said that she would update us and send us a picture of them in their school uniform when they start in April.
Had a relaxed evening, went for dinner with Franzi and Rachel and then headed home, took 2 hours to upload the photos on to the computer! Off to the Red Fort this afternoon after lunch, the Boss's son of the hotel, Pulkit is taking us all out for lunch to say goodbye and his brother is coming too, then tomorrow we are going to go to a couple of other monuments, we leave Delhi on tuesday morning to go to Agra which we are looking forward to as it is the next stage in our adventure!
Will write more soon
Lots of Love
Ellie xxxxx
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