A Blessing through Balloons

I've been struggling to connect with the teachers. I feel like I can't read them. This part of India is really reserved, so they don't seem very warm. I always feel like I'm intruding when I come to their classrooms, so its made me feel timid on some level. Today was a breakthrough!

My Aunt Susan set me up with balloon art lessons before I came here. Its very clever because deflated balloons are super easy to travel with and enchanting to kids. So I attained the skill of making fun little animals and other objects before I came here. For the next two weeks, the kids take tests in the mornings and just study in the afternoon. I asked the principal if I could go to classrooms in the afternoon and make balloons. She said ok, but wanted me to make her some first. So I whipped out a monkey and a heart for her.

I started out with the kindergarten classes today. It wore my fingers out, but I managed to make balloons for probably 50 of them. The part that surprised me was how the teachers reacted. Several of them kept coming in and out of the classroom to ask me questions, teach me words in Tamil, comment about my "muku", which is nose in Tamil (for some reason Indians really like my nose. haha). I made balloons for several of them, and I think they liked them more than the kids. The principal even kept sending orders for more. I think I made her alone ten flowers. haha.

By the end of the day, I was pouring sweat, one teacher was fanning me, one was pumping the balloons, and one was using a balloon as a microphone as she sang a Tamil song. These are my kind of ladies, even if we don't communicate too well. I laughed so much. When I left a couple of them hugged me, which most definitely has not happened before now. I feel so much more connected and way more comfortable to drop by their classrooms. And of course I have like 20 more classrooms to hit-up, so hopefully things will continue to progress!

Update:

I have no clue why I blog about spiders so much, but here we go...

Last night there was another huge spider in my house, which I killed myself. I tried to hit it with a broom and it started scampering up the wall. I freaked out a little, but went for another swing. I smacked the mess out of it. That was an overcoming moment. :) I left it until the morning. When I woke up and went into the room, there were a bazillion ants moving it under the door to get it outside. Disgusting to me. A Christmas blessing for them.