The Sister of Mercy Orphanage- Gurgaon (1 hour form Delhi) I Arrived in Delhi Indina Gandhi Airport after a smooth flight over from London Heathrow. When stepping out of Delhi airport it was like walking into a huge sauna, the heat was immense! The journey from the airport to Rajan's was extraordinary, I couldn't believe how congested and how busy the road systems of Delhi were. Everywhere you could see cars, autoricksaws, push bikes, lorries, cows, donkey, dogs and beggars. There was autoricksaws with up to 12 people crammed into them and old men pulling wooden rickety carts of grass and fruits along the roadside. People were sat by the roadside selling sweetcorns and huge trays of eggs. All you could hear was the beeping of car horns as people narrowly missed crossing cows and oncoming traffic. I had arrived in India- wow! Next day we made our way to The Sister of Mercy Children's Village. The village contained an orphanage of 20 children aswell as a school for 80 local children. It was a Catholic School run by 4 Nuns and 2 older women known as "Auntie" and "Big Mumma". Alot of the orphans had been found roaming the streets of Delhi because they had run away from bad conditions at home, some had had parents die and some had been slaves.-It was sad as alot of the children were as young as 3 years old. The orphanage was bright and colourful and looked out onto a building site where Indian men and women worked long days to build a new orphanage site. The children were lovely and so happy. They greeted Shelia and I with "Dee Dee" which in Hindu means Older Sister. Within minutes of arriving the children were literally hanging off us and intrigued to know what our huge backpacks contained. They were so excited to see us and pulled on our clothes and arms. They seemed fascinated by the clothes and shoes we were wearing. We unpacked our stuff and began our fun and games with the children... After a few days at the Orphanage we were becoming familiar with the children's daily routines. The children would get up at 5.30 am and would and shower (all together!) and then comb through each others hair, add talcum powder to each others necks and then dress one another. After this huge fiasco the children would be called to breakfast which consisted of porridge or if they were lucky rice pudding! The meal times were well ordered by "Auntie" who made the children sit in a neat circle to eat and kept them in line with a small bamboo stick! Every morsel of food was eaten and of course we quickly adapted to eating our food with our right hand! After a morning of school, spellings and playtime the children had a hearty lunch of rice and Dahl. We were lucky to sample many types of Dahl and also helped bake the chapatti and roti breads. On a few occasions (when local Doctors visited the orphanage) we were given luxuries such as chicken, fish and even bananas. The village where the orphanage was located was called Gurgaon. After a half hour bumpy drive you came to the town centre of Gurgaon which was largely made up of markets and small shops. The market was busy and full of life! Everywhere you turned you would try to be sold anything from an old kitchen mop to pineapple slices. It amazed me just how desperate people were to sell random items and just how poor this country really was. I found the atmosphere amazing and the market was buzzing. You could smell fresh breads being cooked, spices, flowers and of course cow poo! Groups of men filled their day sat around old upturned cardboard boxes playing cards and rolling dice. Occasionally you would hear the unattractive spitting/hawking of one of the Indian men- not a habit I d like to listen to often! It was apparent that these people had not seen many westerns before as every person we passed stared and looked us up and down. The majority of the people were men and they were more than keen to look at our legs and arms and call out "Hello" or "Hay" to us....My immediate thought was "I wish I got this much attention in England!"