​Today is Saturday the 30th of July and once again I enter the gates of the Shiva Ji Mission School in Lakshmanpur Varanasi.  As I walk through the gates I am met with the familiar sight of the children studying in their open classrooms.   Over the past week there has been unusually heavy monsoonal rains and even though the drainage in the playground has been repaired today there are still puddles and the surface is muddy.  even so, this is now fresh mud rather than the stagnant water and green slime present before Sai Maa Vishnu Shakti Trust installed drainage in the play area.

Just One held a special feast (‘bandhara’) today, 18th July, 2016 at the Sai Maa Moksha Dham in Varanasi.   This program marked the beginning of the Guru Purnima celebrations to be held in the Ashram on the following day.   Guru Purnima is a festival to acknowledge and celebrate our teachers – originally it was our spiritual teacher or Guru - and traditionally blessed food is served by the Gurus in their Ashrams at this time.   
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This year Sai Maa and Just One have together offered meals to 220 people at the Ashram.   Potato chickpea and vegetable curry was accompanied by fresh ‘poori’ (fried Indian bread) and warm ‘khir’(milk and rice pudding with dried fruits and lotus seeds).   The food was warmly received over a 90 minute period with a steady stream of people arriving until the food was complete.   

​The monsoon rains have continued daily over the past week and this morning is no exception.  Even getting to the Shiva Ji Mission School requires gumboots and I see rickshaws and motorcycles stalled in the deep puddles of water on the roads as I sit in the rickshaw.  In fact the access roads to the school have become so muddy and dangerous to walk that the teachers call me  en-route and offer to pick me up at a safe place on their motor scooter.   They are concerned I will slip on the thick, sludgy mud when walking the access roads
 
With this in mind, I am not surprised that the number of children remains low. The teachers tell me that today the student numbers are about 50-60 short of the enrolled numbers. 

​On Saturday 9th July Just One recommenced its school food program at Shiva Ji Mission School.   The school was closed over the hot summer months, and has just resumed classes on July 1st, so I am entering the gates with anticipation to see what the new year offers.  
 
Most of the children at this school come from extremely poor families, and contributing to family income is considered essential.  This means the first three grades are very large classes as families willingly send their children for education at this age.   ​Some of these children in Lower Kindergarten are as young as 3 years old. However at age 6 or 7 there is a significant drop-out rate each year as children begin to fulfill the expectation to contribute to the family income.  However now enrollments are underway and the staff expect the full complement of students to be reached by the beginning of August.