After another day at school, the younger girls meet to get their daily bathes and head wash, and afterwards they are busy hand washing their laundry and hanging it out to dry in the warm Indian sun.

While most of the girls are bathing, Chinju, who is usually off on her own getting into or doing who knows what (the sister’s are still trying to figure out what in the world she is doing while everyone else is praying and studying 🙂 and today she has gone to pick mylanchi leaves to create a paste that she will mix with turmeric powder to make an Indian medicinal remedy
for cuts. It is also used for making henna designs.

She had a cylinder pestle which she was rolling vigorously over the mylanchi leaves on the concrete slab, where they do their laundry, to form paste to mix with the turmeric powder… aaawww, our little ‘forest child’ who always seems to amaze us!! It’s incredible to see how they utilize all of their resources!! One of my favorites, is when Chinju used coconut husks for her “washcloth!” It’s so amazing and so simplistic and natural–I love it!!!

At 5:30 pm all of the girls from Auxillium and Annex meet Tara and Kristin on the terrace for Tara to teach them their first yoga class. All in all there were about 40 girls who lined up anxiously and excitedly. Sister Annie John was my translator and with her help we were able to begin; during our first round of Om’s some of the girls got the giggles 🙂 then we set our intention.

We practiced a few rounds of Surya Namaskar for their first practice, and will continue tomorrow evening. What a humbling experience and what an honor is was to witness seeing their big, beautiful, brown eyes that are so filled with amazing shakti and love. All the girls were really focused and proud at how good they were. It was really beautiful and so much fun!!!