Hello again.

I'm sorry that I haven't updated you all in a good few days but getting onto a computer is proving harder than I thought. As I write from the office I can hear the call for Musilim afternoon prayer from the nearby Mosque. As well as that the constant beeping of vehicle horns. It seems that the car horn is used to warn everyone around that you are there. This is crazy because there are so many car on one round at a time, there is constant noise!!!

The volunteering is going well. All the children are great. Sometimes they are a little challenging but that's because they're not used to structure and find it hard to concentrate because they have never been required to be. All of the children I'm working with come from seriously underpriviledged backgrounds where they have never been given the chance to be creative. This makes my challenge as a creative art volunteer difficult. Imagination seems to be limited. Only by being here can I appreciate how important the work is that Dream a Dream do.

Me and India are starting to get along well. I am feeling a little homesick but that is only because everything here is so strange. Yesterday I went to see the Black Eyed Peas in concert. They were really really good. Not my usual type of band but good all the same. In India Its take it or leave it, because there won't be another thing like it whilst I'm here.

Over the weekend I travelled to Mysore. It was great to get out of the city as the pollution here is fairly bad. The hotel we stayed in had a swimming pool but none of us had our swim wear! It was so annoying because we had been travelling for 4 hours in a jeep with no air con, I may I add was it the back (as in the boot). A swim would have been so good. (Oh well I'm going to the beech on Saturday :P)

The weekend was organised by Gap Guru (the company who organised my gap year) and Simon my UK representative came along with us. Luckily our trip coincided with Eid which is the ending of Ramadam, so we got to see special celebrations. It's not everyday you see a precetion of painted elephants. The Palace itself was lit with some 90,000 lights bulbs! It was a great sight.

On the way to and from Mysore our tour guide stopped us at small villages where they produce special crafts. In the first village we were introduced to a wood craft, it was amazing how they are able to produce items that are so finely deatailed by using only their arm to motor a peice of wood, a sharp tool and a natural stick of colour. My attempt at making the simpliest of things turned out badly. It was meant to be a bead but looked more like a block of wood. On the return journey we vistited a village where they make Saris by using old fashiond handlooms. It was so amazingly difficult! The detail that goes into a sari is incredible, and the concentration it takes from start to finish is immense. Between me, Amy, Nathan, Zoe and Simon i think we totally ruined a piece of fabric.

The people we met were so lovely and welcoming it's such a shame that they do so much beautiful work for paractically nothing. The tour guide told us that they make 100 rupes a day which works out as a little over a pound.

Ps sorry for the spelling mistakes, I know they're there but I'm in a rush at the moment. I promise to take spelling lesson as an extra module at Uni :P xxxxx