Rabekha and Alice Mary Update

You may have noticed some different spellings in this blog. That is because Rabekha and Alice Mary are not quite sure how to spell their names in English (Tamil has a completely different lettering system). We asked a few times, and got a few different answers. Reabekha, Reabekah, Alise Mary, Allish Mary, etc. The final spellings? Rabekha and Alice Mary. This is what they each decided on, and how their names will be spelled on the tags that should be ready by Friday.

Rabekha and Alice Mary are sewing quite well now, and are proud of their work. They are both super methodical about everything, and obsessed with stitching the skirts correctly. Rabekha told me that if she makes a mistake then she will undo the whole side of the skirt and do it again so she can learn to do it right. The first skirts made took about four to five hours per skirt. They are getting faster and better now though. Alice Mary and Rabekha have been taking lessons from Rabekha's sweet little grandma who is a "master tailor". The skirts are looking great and they are sewing much faster than they were before. And I think they are having a great time doing it.

One of the main goals Rabekha has in working with Nivi Empowerment Initiative is to send her son Daniel back to a good school. Right now he is at a public school. Public schools aren't so bad though, right? Well, in some areas they are. My friends that are Indian have told me that many public schools don't do a good job educating students. Teachers might not even show up for class. I didn't know if I should believe that.

A couple days ago though, Nickesh and I were checking up on how the sewing was going and Daniel came home from school. I asked him how school was and he told me that it was really good. I asked him what he learned and he replied, "Nothing! The teacher did not come! We played all day!"