We left the hotel this morning for an early start on our building project, and arrived at the work site keen to push hard to finish our cottage. On arrival we spent a little time catching up with the babies, then it was back to work on the cottage, finishing the undercoat of whitewash in some places, and putting the first coat of final paint on the roof.

The work went quickly, and after an hour or so we were all called down in front for a special ceremony as the door frame was ready to go in place. In India when a house is built, a special blessing ceremony is held when the door frame is erected, to bless the house and keep bad spirits away.

The steel frame was decorated with a garland of flowers and mango leaves, and dotted with special spices. Our foreman conducted the ceremony with offerings of coconuts, sweets and bananas. He split one of the coconuts with his trowel, and then we all took turns blessing the frame and the house three times each with the coconut juice and a mango leaf.

Finally five of us lifted the door frame into place and the ceremony was complete. It had to be either five or seven people to lift the frame, and seven wouldn't fit! To finish off we shared the sweets and bananas, and our fellow workers decorated our foreheads with dots of tumeric and red spice.

The cottage walls are built of solid brick on concrete foundations, and the walls are raised before the final cement floor is laid. There was about a one to two foot cavity to be filled in the floor before the final cement could go down.

On the outside of the cottage was a really big pile of dirt and rocks, and we spent the rest of our work morning filling steel pans with dirt and rocks, and passing them along the line to fill the cottage floor space. It was hard and dirty work, and we passed some of the time singing Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive!", much to the amusement of our fellow workers.

After lunch we caught up with our babies again. We have now gained the trust of some of the more timid ones, and they sat and played quite happily in our laps. Devi dropped in for a quick lunch, telling us she had to head in to town to the local hospital to pick up another baby that had just been born. It is sad to see so much need in the area for Children's Village, but it made us glad to know how much we have been able to help through building the cottages for them to go to.

Then we headed back to town and another little adventure for the afternoon - taking our salwar kameez sets into the local tailors to have them made to size. There is an ancient temple market just outside the East Gate of the Sri Meenakshi temple, with old stone halls the same style and age as the temple itself.

One whole aisle is full of tailors and craft stalls, another full of book merchants, another with jewelry and another with brass and steel temple and cooking goods.

Devi had told us the price we should pay - around 90 rupees ($3) to have our salwar kameez made to order, and we found a good tailor up front and negotiated him down to Rs100 from Rs150. At that stage we figured paying the extra Rs10 was worth not having to haggle another half hour!

Our salwar kameez will be ready for us to pick up on Friday. After placing our orders we had a quick look around the market, then back to the hotel for dinner.

All along the street there were flags in the colours of the ruling political party, with banana tree trunks and leaves tied to them. Our driver told us there was a big wedding around the corner, and one of the top politicians was attending - so the decorations were for him, not the happy couple! Sure enough, we saw huge billboards advertising the wedding, with a small picture of the bride and groom, and huge picture of the smiling politician.

Tomorrow will be our last work day at the Children's Village, and also our last day to meet with the children and visit projects.