
Today, April 18th, it was my great joy to see the difference since this time. The work of the program, coupled with more acceptance of the program in the community may have contributed to the improvement in behavior including everyone being more respectful and listening to directions.
The summer is actually late arriving this year. Although the temperatures are in the 39 C / 102 F range, the intense summer heat has not fully arrived. However in this community, there are no large shade trees to cook under or lay out the mats for feeding. It has to be done in the sparseness of whatever shade comes from the buildings during the noon time sun. As you can imagine, it gets blistering hot very quickly. It is so hot that I cannot take off my sandals to walk on the stone walkways.
There are 300 children in attendance. The menu of puris and vegetable curry served as an appetizer for their favorite part of the meal, the banana. The children are much friendlier this time as well, wanting to shake and hold hands. As always, they want to be in the middle of everything that is going on and this Just One feeding serves as their 'festival' of the week.