Wednesday March 9th, 2011-2nd day in Erode

The second day in Erode was simply amazing.  We had an early start off to eat breakfast at some huge school where we would return later.  After a big breakfast, we went to an elementary school where we were the guests of an assembly in front of about 1300 kids.  Hardly what I expected to walk out to but we walked out onto their outdoor stage and were just shocked at the amount of little kids we saw in rows sitting in front of us.  It was so amazing and you could feel the excitement of all the kids out in the crowd.  I waved to them and a few hundred waved back.  Yes a few hundred.  When I saw how many reacted to just a little wave of my hand, I threw both of my hands in the air and waved them hard back and forth.  Again…you have to see these things for it to do justice but I would say more than 90% of the kids in the crowd followed and did exactly what I did.  It was soo funny to see.  We sat down and they sang songs all together to us.  It was such an amazing experience and I will be sure to update many pictures once I get to Hong Kong.  As we left when the assembly was over, I did the same thing and got it on video, although it was not nearly to the extent of the first one because kids were starting to leave.
Later on in the day we visited a blanket weaving factory. It was kinda cool.  Very cool to learn what they made in a day working there.  The men who have been working the longest and are the most skilled make only R250 for an entire 8 hour day of work.  The women make about R50…that’s a dollar…for a whole day.  Crazyness.  So we visited another school which gave us the opportunity to play cricket and other sports with the kids. It was pretty cool but super overwhelming because there were hundreds of kids there and every single one wanted to talk to us and get our autograph. 
Im moving through this day fast because I just got back from Vietnam/Cambodia and want to write about that before arriving in China tomorrow already…Keeping up is super hard because there are so many days in port and none at sea anymore….so enjoyable and tiring.
I’m going to do a super abbreviated rest of day then explain when I get home.  Sorry but there is too much to do.
Assembly at school
Black Balloon kid
Disabled school
Ice cream for kids
Basketball game
Tell about Hans and Bonnie