Walking back from school at Nallasopara.Don't worry the dogs aren't dead.
As of yesterday I have officially been in India a month, it feels like forever. While some days everything is amazing others have been really taxing, but I think I'm gradually getting used to how this crazy country rolls. I've learnt to be grateful for the small things like regular bowel movements and water and things that I found insane when I first got here are now perfectly normal: I miss the cows if a day goes by without seeing one and yesterday I actively encouraged a rickshaw to dodge in and out of traffic (he actually stayed in his lane, madness!). I've also learnt that nothing is as you expect it: things that should be straightforward become ridiculously complicated, take away food is nothing like how the menu describes it, flats that go for days without water manage to get flooded and McDonalds has no breakfast menu.
This week is also our first full week of teaching. Its been completely exhausting and tonight is the first night when I haven't had to spend my entire evening cutting out the shapes of fruit and making worksheets, so it seemed like a good time to tell you about school.
One! International runs two schools in the Mumbai area: the original one in Khar where we live and another set up recently that's an hour away in Nallasopara. These were both set up by Tania, our incredible leader, who is the heart, soul and driving force behind everything here. She set up the first one when she was 21 after living in Mumbai for a year. (She was doing an aisoc (?) exchange thingy that Ben used to do). When it began the school ran for two hours, had about 8 kids and took place on a mat at the side of the road. Its amazing how much it has grown in the last 9 years.
Khar school is in a proper building down a little side street and it has an office, tons of resources and little classrooms. There are 10 grades that have about 4-8 kids in each depending on the day. I think officially over 100 kids are registered at the school. It runs roughly the same as a regular school with all the kids learning math, english, hindi, science, games, drawing, exercise, computer, music, drama and health. Most of these classes are taught by employed teachers. The volunteers (me!) are in charge of teaching English (grades 3-8), Math (grade 3), exercise, drawing/craft and computer. This was incredibly scary when we first got here. The communication system in place between the volunteers hadn't been used properly and we had no idea what they did and didn't know and what they're even suposed to be taught. Fortunatley we've got our hands on a curiculum now, so we've been frantically throwing together lesson plans and making teach aids (like fruit and worksheets) so we can come across like proper teachers and not 3 people who think the only qualification need for teaching english is an ability to speak it. Everyday we're learning about what the kids can and can't do and how much they understand when we talk to them. We're even picking up some basic hindi so we can tell them important things like shut up, sit down and write (we learnt to say very good too, we're not always so mean). The brilliant thing is that the kids have such a hunger for knowledge, they love coming to school and love learning things so it can be quite easy to disipline them. All you have to do is threaten to send them out and they're as good as gold, no one ever wants to leave class.
The children all live in temporary slums, one of the older girls is our cook/cleaner and her home got pulled down a week ago so she had to move away briefly, luckily they've decided to illeagally 'rebuild' it so shes back now. The school also acts as a community center for the famillies. When a child is registered they and their family are entitled to free medical help and can also get access to loans provided by One! International. Because of this there's an amazing sense of family about the whole place: lots of the parents work there, there's a pre-school so babies and toddlers roam about the place all day and in the afternoon the mums lie out breastfeeding on the floor. Everything about it is warm and loving. When you come in in the morning you can't get to the office without being hugged by at least 4 children and high fiving some of the older kids. It is a lifeline for the children and their family and its devestating to think what their world would be like if it wasn't there. For most of them lunch at the school is one meal a day they get and situations like our cooks (house being torn down) are common place.
The school at Nallasopara is a little different. Our responsibilities (and the frustrations that go with them) are the same but because of the schools location everything is ten times harder. I'm not sure if Nallasopara even counts as Mumbai. Its a little (but busy) town that I'm not sure I could find on the map and the school is located out in the sticks up in the surrounding hills. We go twice a week by train then rickshaw and get dropped off at the end of a dusty, bumpy, lumpy garbage ridden track full of animals and abandonded flip flops and general madness. Lining the track are buildings that look like garages: they're small and square and have a corrugated metal front that you pull up and down to get in and out. There used as homes, shops, doctors, nursing homes, restaurants, animal shelters, everything really and two of them are our school. We get to walk along the full length of the track (about 15 minutes walk) dodge boulders and piles of mud and massive puddles of mud and motorbikes and cows, turn right at the massive pile of trash in a field and hop over the open sewage system to get to school. There are no resources their becuase everything gets stolen, no water, the electricity kicks in at about 11am (we start st 9) and there's a mysterious toilet somewhere further down the path which luckily I haven't had to use. At lunch we have bananas and biscuits. Today I had six malted milks. Although the children and their famillies recieve the same support as Khar theres no sense of community about the place. The children are much more formal and you basically want to get out of there as soon as you arrive. But we're getting used to it. We're trying to teach the children to high five instead of shake our hands all the time!
So, thats how I've been spending the last couple of weeks and how I'll been spending the next couple of months. I still have no plans of getting in to teaching when I return, I just can't hack it! But my health is improving, I'm drinking lots of water and I've haven't thrown up for 6 days! And today I put on some western clothes (my jeans!), got mcdonalds for dinner and spent the evening in an air conditioned coffee shop with a cappuccino and donut so I'm feeling pretty perky!
That was a really long post, well done for getting through it or even bahoot atcha! (very good in hindi)
As of yesterday I have officially been in India a month, it feels like forever. While some days everything is amazing others have been really taxing, but I think I'm gradually getting used to how this crazy country rolls. I've learnt to be grateful for the small things like regular bowel movements and water and things that I found insane when I first got here are now perfectly normal: I miss the cows if a day goes by without seeing one and yesterday I actively encouraged a rickshaw to dodge in and out of traffic (he actually stayed in his lane, madness!). I've also learnt that nothing is as you expect it: things that should be straightforward become ridiculously complicated, take away food is nothing like how the menu describes it, flats that go for days without water manage to get flooded and McDonalds has no breakfast menu.
This week is also our first full week of teaching. Its been completely exhausting and tonight is the first night when I haven't had to spend my entire evening cutting out the shapes of fruit and making worksheets, so it seemed like a good time to tell you about school.
One! International runs two schools in the Mumbai area: the original one in Khar where we live and another set up recently that's an hour away in Nallasopara. These were both set up by Tania, our incredible leader, who is the heart, soul and driving force behind everything here. She set up the first one when she was 21 after living in Mumbai for a year. (She was doing an aisoc (?) exchange thingy that Ben used to do). When it began the school ran for two hours, had about 8 kids and took place on a mat at the side of the road. Its amazing how much it has grown in the last 9 years.
Khar school is in a proper building down a little side street and it has an office, tons of resources and little classrooms. There are 10 grades that have about 4-8 kids in each depending on the day. I think officially over 100 kids are registered at the school. It runs roughly the same as a regular school with all the kids learning math, english, hindi, science, games, drawing, exercise, computer, music, drama and health. Most of these classes are taught by employed teachers. The volunteers (me!) are in charge of teaching English (grades 3-8), Math (grade 3), exercise, drawing/craft and computer. This was incredibly scary when we first got here. The communication system in place between the volunteers hadn't been used properly and we had no idea what they did and didn't know and what they're even suposed to be taught. Fortunatley we've got our hands on a curiculum now, so we've been frantically throwing together lesson plans and making teach aids (like fruit and worksheets) so we can come across like proper teachers and not 3 people who think the only qualification need for teaching english is an ability to speak it. Everyday we're learning about what the kids can and can't do and how much they understand when we talk to them. We're even picking up some basic hindi so we can tell them important things like shut up, sit down and write (we learnt to say very good too, we're not always so mean). The brilliant thing is that the kids have such a hunger for knowledge, they love coming to school and love learning things so it can be quite easy to disipline them. All you have to do is threaten to send them out and they're as good as gold, no one ever wants to leave class.
The children all live in temporary slums, one of the older girls is our cook/cleaner and her home got pulled down a week ago so she had to move away briefly, luckily they've decided to illeagally 'rebuild' it so shes back now. The school also acts as a community center for the famillies. When a child is registered they and their family are entitled to free medical help and can also get access to loans provided by One! International. Because of this there's an amazing sense of family about the whole place: lots of the parents work there, there's a pre-school so babies and toddlers roam about the place all day and in the afternoon the mums lie out breastfeeding on the floor. Everything about it is warm and loving. When you come in in the morning you can't get to the office without being hugged by at least 4 children and high fiving some of the older kids. It is a lifeline for the children and their family and its devestating to think what their world would be like if it wasn't there. For most of them lunch at the school is one meal a day they get and situations like our cooks (house being torn down) are common place.
The school at Nallasopara is a little different. Our responsibilities (and the frustrations that go with them) are the same but because of the schools location everything is ten times harder. I'm not sure if Nallasopara even counts as Mumbai. Its a little (but busy) town that I'm not sure I could find on the map and the school is located out in the sticks up in the surrounding hills. We go twice a week by train then rickshaw and get dropped off at the end of a dusty, bumpy, lumpy garbage ridden track full of animals and abandonded flip flops and general madness. Lining the track are buildings that look like garages: they're small and square and have a corrugated metal front that you pull up and down to get in and out. There used as homes, shops, doctors, nursing homes, restaurants, animal shelters, everything really and two of them are our school. We get to walk along the full length of the track (about 15 minutes walk) dodge boulders and piles of mud and massive puddles of mud and motorbikes and cows, turn right at the massive pile of trash in a field and hop over the open sewage system to get to school. There are no resources their becuase everything gets stolen, no water, the electricity kicks in at about 11am (we start st 9) and there's a mysterious toilet somewhere further down the path which luckily I haven't had to use. At lunch we have bananas and biscuits. Today I had six malted milks. Although the children and their famillies recieve the same support as Khar theres no sense of community about the place. The children are much more formal and you basically want to get out of there as soon as you arrive. But we're getting used to it. We're trying to teach the children to high five instead of shake our hands all the time!
So, thats how I've been spending the last couple of weeks and how I'll been spending the next couple of months. I still have no plans of getting in to teaching when I return, I just can't hack it! But my health is improving, I'm drinking lots of water and I've haven't thrown up for 6 days! And today I put on some western clothes (my jeans!), got mcdonalds for dinner and spent the evening in an air conditioned coffee shop with a cappuccino and donut so I'm feeling pretty perky!
That was a really long post, well done for getting through it or even bahoot atcha! (very good in hindi)
Wowee! That's quite a routine you've got going there. So interesting. I'll definitely keep reading your blog.
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