At 7am I got up with Debi and Jo and we did some yoga downstairs. Anna joined in too. At 9 o'clock I left the house with the other appropriate volunteers – Jo, Segen, Janelle, Kris, Michelle, Lizi, Charlotte, Amber and Katy – and our Project Executive Rakesh. Sukeri is gorgeous with beautiful views from the school looking across miles of tree covered hills that fade into the distance.

Daycare consisted of 3 children today; Aarpit, Swastic and Kanu. Swastic is very smiley despite being paralysed from the waist down. Aarpit doesn't seem so carefree and Kanu is the most distracted although she seemed pretty good. Kris did say it's the best she's been so far.

The afternoon session saw us split into 2 groups: teaching and 'manual labour'. Thankfully I got my first choice, 'manual labour'. This consisted of watching Rakesh hack off tree branches with some kind of heavy sickle type tool and then us lugging the branches away. After he'd finished with the first tree we tried locating another that was suitable. I found one that I figured would be OK if it was climbed up again and thus volunteered to do the climbing. The tree wasn't hard to scramble into and once perched I began the hacking process. This was to be the highlight of my day, it was great fun.

That evening I spent mooching about fairly unproductively, although I was taught how to play Carram. Ian rang at about 10.20pm India time. It was great to hear his voice but it made me yearn to be with him. Needless to say it wasn't our most constructive conversation. An already quiet line is hard enough, but when one of you is crying and incoherent it makes it all the more difficult! I just hoped I'd sort my head out sooner rather than later.