Entry #2 Hello again: I am in my 6th day of the tour.  We have done and seen some extraordinary things.  We have visited two sites in Mumbai that assist women in financial gains.  One was WiT - Women's India Trust and the other was Marketplace/Share.  Both support women through the textile production and offer children some schooling.  Upon visiting these two organizations we met some incredible people that are so dedicated to building these people up.  The flow of positive energy is so simplistic, yet organic and beautiful.  Such genuine presence these people offer.  While at Wit, I was able to communicate with some of the children and see their learnings.  They took great pride in sharing their books and showing their numbers and letters.  3 and 4 year old children were sitting on rice mats with a simple composition book and pencil working on basics.  They were so excited to have visitors to share their good work.  The women also took such pride in their work.  They wanted to demonstrate each step of their trade.  Their work is labor intensive and full of many steps, but you could see the confidence rising in them as they shared the fruits of their labor. Next, we went into the villages surrounding Kolhapur - the rural areas.  We visited the school and 'satellite' projects that will be brought into the Sunanda Memorial School - this is the project that the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute is focusing on first.  We visited Brick Kiln camps - where the families migrate to live in hovels while they work to make bricks.  Each family is only able to earn about 100 Rupees per day for their heavy labor.  (This translates to about $2.00 a day).  The more people in each family that work, the more money that can be made.  Children are often forced to work too, since the payment does not offer a living wage.  The school projects that are in this area  are trying to teach the parents the value of having the kids be with the school.  The two groups we were with had about 20 & 30 children ranging from 4 - 15 in age.  They were all in the same room or tent for their learning.  They used hand me down books to work out of.  The volunteer teachers were 19 or 20 years old.  They are young women that are interested in becoming teachers and gaining experience through this project.  We joined in with these children to sing songs and share writing.  The more I interacted with them the more they opened up to me.  Their eyes met mine and we entered each others' souls.  The more I connected the more I understood them.  They WANT to come to school  They CRAVE new information. So much of how they are learning is 'old school' - skill & drill and memorization - but it's SCHOOL!  They want to come and they want to learn.  Even if it means being on a dirt floor in a space of 10 x 10 with up to 30 others in arid, hot, fly buzzing conditions.  They want to share their learnings and show off what they have accomplished so far.  They raise up their "hand-me-down" scruffy bound books with such pride.  They show their arithmetic on slates as old as Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Oh what joy they had in their faces.  Oh what joy they brought to me! Later that same afternoon we visited the site of the children who are in the small established school of AVANI.  These children have been rescued from situations like the one above. This is a residential school, but is a very small facility and cannot take on more children. 1/3 of them are orphans, the others come during the week and return home on weekends or break periods. The Sunanda Memorial School will replace this school and take on the above satellites as well.  They created a great celebration for us and honored us.  The children sang, danced and gave speeches.  We walked around their facility to see that what they were learning, their organic gardening and played a bit of cricket.  There is a man on the tour with us who used to play for the Texas Rangers.  He played with the kids and popped a ball on a high fly - OH! what squeals of joy and excitement this  created.  He also taught them a fun hand shake game.  The children adopted us all and blessed us with this hand shake game for about an hour.  It was so precious.  The simplicity and pure elation was a blessing. Next, we went to see the land that has been purchased.  5 acres out in country near beautiful sugar cane farms.  The children were their to greet us.  When we arrived they all dispersed and ran out to the boundary lines of the new land.  Oh their pride and excitement were so contagious!  I sat and played with them for 2 hours on the hill - letting them play with my camera and iPhone to look at pictures of my family and pictures I had taken of them.  There was no fighting.  They all made sure each got a turn and that others could see as they took their own turn.  Such love and care was so apparent between them.  Well, today we are off to the Mahatma Gandhi Museum.  I will pick up there next.  Thank you again for your continued prayers and support. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti Namaste, Joanna Amaral