Progress report

As of today the number of seats sold for the bus has reached 27. All of the passengers so far are from Perth. Thanks to everyone there who have put together more than 4500aud towards the purchasing of a second bus.

On the first of November 60 of the students went on tour for five days around Rajasthan visiting Udaipur and Mount Abu. We took our buses, a cook and his helpers and hit the road. The students had a ball, when you consider that some had never left their local area it was a pretty big adventure. The highlight was boating on paddleboats, when you live in the desert you don't have a lot of opportunities to go out on the water!!!

Sorry that there are no photos. Some of the teachers took photos but they haven't had them processed yet. It will come.

Thanks again and get your tickets for the bus.

Opening of the new school building

Finally the school is opened!!! It isn't really fully ready, some finishing will be done between classes but the time had come to take the plunge. The opening ceremony was attended by Swamiji and a lot of parents. There were some great performances of plays, singing, dancing, yoga and speeches. In short it was a lot of fun. The building is great, the classrooms are spacious, airy and light, the atmosphere is peaceful, pretty much a perfect place for learning.

Sports "stars"

Some of our students going for competition. The two girls are going to the state athletics tournament having between them won the district titles in triple jump, long jump and hurdles.


The second picture is some of the students with their trophies for athletics, judo and singing.
The third picture is the team that went to the state judo championships, 23 in total of which 13 were from our school. They had a great adventure, didn't win much but didn't lose in the first rounds either and one of our boys got a bronze medal in his division.

Morning prayers

It is so beautiful to hear the morning singing of prayer and the national anthem come floating across the breeze at 0830.

Congratulations

For all those who were a part of raising money for the purchase of the school bus congratulations as according to our calculations last week we past the amount required. Until date we have received 511, 250 rupees which is approxiamately 15492 aud or 9300 euros. The cost of the bus and it's initial repairing came to 505, 000 rupees.

Thanks to everyone for their support which when far beyond our expectations and hoping that you will enjoy being a part of our school in the future.

We are now continuing with raising money for another bus as enrollments have far exceeded our expectations and it is pushing the limits of how many people can fit in our current vehicles. So please share our site with others and keep in touch.

Once again thanks and congratulations to all particularly everyone at YIDL Perth, the friends of Gay and David McKinley in Sydney and those who helped from Luxembourg, Japan, Czech Republic and the US.

Yours
Swami Jasraj Puri

The Classroom

Our classrooms are simple. The teaching should be excellent.

Making the most of the opportunity

The new school building

It is well overdue but the final touches are being added to our new school building at least half of which should open by the end of September. It is simple, spacious, well ventilated and full of light. Although it is not an architectural marvel it is so practical that it will be heaven to teach there. We are so much looking forward to getting the students inside and out of the current building where they are literally sitting in the doorways.

It is planned that the building will have a double use, in the morning acting as a school and in the afternoon there will be College classes (Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science). In that way we can offer our students the chance to have quality education not just until Secondary level but right through until they have a degree.





There are 22 classrooms, 3 science labs (physics, chemistry and biology), a library, a computer lab and a multi purpose hall in the building.

Independence Day 2007

August 15th is Independence Day in India, the day when British Rule ended in 1945. It is celebrated in all schools throughout the country and ours is no exception. Always there is a march past, raising of the flag and speeches remembering the sacrifice of the freedom fighters. Our celebrations also include a yoga display, traditional dances and a volleyball match between the staff of the school and a team made up of our foreign volunteers (we count it as an "International Match"). It was a lot of fun and a great atmosphere all day.

Diksha

On the day of Gurupurnima some of the boys took the initiation of Gurukul Pravesh - entrance into the years of education. It is an ancient tradition going back thousands of years that when the boy reaches the age of seven they are sent to the Gurukul to study. The ceremony involves shaving of the head, fire ceremony and the giving of unsewn cloth to the new initiate. It is a beautiful ceremony that goes for the whole morning. At the end of it the freshly initiated student comes to their Guru and is given a mantra which they should use throughout their studies.
When the head is shaved a tuft of hair is left on the crown of the head which is tied in a knot. This is to stimulate the brain, help maintain concentration and improve memory.
It is not compulsory for the students to take the initiation and is given only with the wish of the parents and the student.
In the photo you can see the boys sitting at the fire during the ceremony.

School Function in Jadan 04th August

Function with Swamiji 04th August

Today Swamiji gave a lecture and the students were singing bhajans in Jadan.

Increasing enrollments

At the start of the new school year (which by some bizarre twist is in late April in Rajasthan - and they have end of year holidays one month after that) we had 280 students in the school. Something must be going right because as you can see below our present enrollments are quite a bit beyond that.

As we have a policy of not keeping more than 40 students in the class in 3rd class onwards and not more than 25 in KG - 2nd it means that we now have a lot of classes! ( In most schools here they will keep up to 70 students in the class before making two sections).

It's nice to see so many fresh faces and so much enthusiasm.

Heres the list

Class	Boys	Girls	Total
KG	37	24	61
1st	25	16	41
2nd	20	19	39
3rd	21	17	38
4th	19	18	37
5th	34	19	53
6th	34	15	49
7th	16	11	27
8th	18	09	27
9th	30	23	53
10th	28	06	34
11th	24	11	35
12th	04	07	11
Total	306	195	501

The new bus - fully loaded

This is the new school bus just as the students have arrived in the morning.

Who knows how but there are more than 100 students coming on the bus. We have started to refuse to take any more students from this route because any bigger load will get unsafe.

Thanks to all who have helped and are planning to help with buying this bus. You really don't know what difference it makes to the students from the villages.

At last count the collection of donations for the bus was reaching the 9000 dollar mark. If you count 1 thank you from each child in the photos then there are at least 300 thank yous coming your way.

Scenes after the big wet

Some scenes during and after the rains of 04th July 2007. We had 350mm of rain in 24 hours which is the most rain to fall in 37 years. It left the whole area flooded, roads broken, many houses destroyed. The main problems came from dams that hadn't had water for 15 years suddenly filling and then breaking sending torrents of water to the villages below. Our JCB excavator spent a nervous night plugging the hole in one dam 10km from the Ashram which, if it had broken, would have taken out three complete villages. However despite all the hassle everyone is happy to have the rain. It has been 5 years of drought and now mother earth is drinking her full.

The Arth

Tradition old and new

In the background is one of the residential buildings of the Ashram. In the foreground a traditional method of drawing water, the cups pulling up water by a system that is pulled by two bulls. The "Arth" as it is called, was built this year by some old craftsmen who still remember the rapidly dying method. Nowadays there are very few of these machines left in Pali District as they have been replaced by tube wells and electric pumps which have rapidly decreased the water level. The sound of this machine as it turns is so relaxing and peaceful it brings you to another era.

the dam full is a beautiful sight

Some scenes from wet Jadan

today we didn't get many of the children to school as we had 12 hours continuous rain. In the afternoon the water was coming in to our dam with quite some speed. When you live in the desert the sound of all this water rushing over a 10 metre drop is loud and beautiful.

The dam was excavated 5 years ago and is 120 metres long, 110 metres wide and 10.5 metres deep. It stores water that we can then use throughout the year. Today so much water has fallen that it should be pretty full by the morning.

The water level in this photo is 4 metres