We arrived early in the morning with the Patils. We got off on the side of the highway and a jeep took us the rest of the way through crater filled roads. The sun was coming up and there was a beautiful orange tint to the green all around. The air was clean and it was very soothing. As we went through a small town and rural areas there were people going about their mornings. Many people were defecating by the roadside. They do so because there is a lack of information regarding sanitation, but more than that people don't have and can't afford toilets. They go by the roadside because they don't have to be afraid of snakes by the side of the road, rather than in the brush. Besides this they don't have enough area to dig and and cover their feces. It's very humbling to see how much of the world lives, without the everyday amenities we all take for granted.We drove up down extremely bumpy, broken down roads and arrived at the BIRDS campus, where there is a social work college, school, nursery, fish farm, farming research lab, medicinal plants labs and so much more. That morning we visited each class and said hello to the children form grades 1 to 10. In each class Kristeen and I tried to engage the children in some conversation, with the teachers translating from English and Hindi to Kannada and back. The kids were really sweet and shy. They aren't really used to having class discussions, so it was tough to get them to ask questions about the United States or to tell us about their home. The questions that were asked were mostly regarding crops in the U.S. and some of the older ones asked about the climate and price of land, so we city folk did our best to answer what we could. Mostly, I found myself connecting similarities rather than differences.In one class I decided to make a contest out of it. Boys against Girls to see who would ask more questions. That helped a lot. We even had kids come up and draw on the board as did I. It was a lot of fun. There was one boy who could not hear or speak, and yet there he was in this class. I was told there were special needs teachers who worked with him. He seemed happy enough and when I asked what he likes to eat he told me and I drew those things on the board to show I understood and just to connect the whole class to it. It was all really simple, but fun. Shortly after we finished visiting classes, the bell rang and an army of children came running out to catch the BIRDS school bus to go back home.Walking around the campus that afternoon, was very quiet. In the distance we heard some activity and walked to it. In a room in the college (which is next to the school), we saw some people through the window. The girls invited us in and we sat down inside where the social work students were rehearsing street plays on social issues like alcohol abuse, hygiene and women's issues.That night we went to a celebration of Hanuman, the monkey god in Hinduism.