Gem's first week

OK here goes- going to write up the last two weeks in sections so it hopefully doesn't get too long and boring, although I am far too good at waffling to keep it concise... anyway, so Gem got here very early in the morning on 16th April.  After a lie in we went to the beach for the afternoon and then in the evening we visited the night market, which was again fab.  Lots of crazy dancing!
Gem then managed to survive without me (just) for the majority of her first week as I was at work during the daytime.  During that week we gave out shoes to all of the children.  We had suitcases full of shoes which had been donated as we have to wait until we have enough so that every child gets a pair.  The process of giving out the shoes was quite hilarious- like Clarks in September but a million times crazier!  All of the children came to the mango house which was lovely as some of them have not visited before and were wide eyed with wonder as they saw where we were based.  The brilliant Indian teachers Ali and Bhakti got the children lined up in an amazingly orderly fashion and then they came through to the 'shoe room' one by one to be fitted with new shoes by the volunteers / Clarks assistants! (my friend Hannah took some photos of this so I will add these onto here when I have them) 

This was easy with the smaller ones as they were very compliant and accepted whichever shoes fitted them and were most suitable.  It was brilliant to see them walk out of the room without taking their eyes off their new shoes, how there were not more collisions I've no idea!  The older children then came in one by one to get their new shoes which was a lot trickier as, being teenagers, they have much more of an opinion on what shoes they want!  Any trainers with labels were quickly snapped up by the boys while the girls wanted pretty shoes, both were determined what they would not be seen dead in!
Later in the week, we took some of the children on a trip to the cinema to watch 'Rio' followed by a wander round Old Goa and then onto an adventure playground.  Gem came with us which was great as she got to visit the mango house and meet the other volunteers and the children.  The film was brilliant if anyone is wondering whether it is worth seeing!  It was in English but there was so much action that the kids had no problem following it, it was funny to see that kids the world over seem to find slapstick comedy hilarious!  We took all of the children round several old churches in Old Goa, I wondered whether they would get bored as they probably would in the UK but they seemed to really find it interesting and were keen to see every bit of each church.

 Curry in the park

We had some terrific thunderstorms during this week, on one evening we were sat at a beach shack and so we could just watch all of the lightning rip across the sky.  There was hardly any rain but the intensity of the thunder and lightning was like nothing I've ever seen before.  I think the weather may be gearing up ready for the monsoon......
To finish the week off we went to an amazing Greek restaurant called 'Thalassa' which is just up the coast in Little Vagator.  I had been before but wanted to take Gem as it's so beautiful, it's situated on the top of a cliff and so there are amazing views over the coastline.  We made sure we got there in time to watch the sunset as it's spectacular, I've included a few photos below.  Right that's the end of the first week so I'm halfway there!