Ev Star

It’s hard to believe, but we just have 1 week left at Shanti Bhavan school.  I’ve had a lot of fun there!  The kids are very cute and are also very outgoing.  They like to talk and ask questions all the time which makes it fun to be with them.  Every evening at dinner Mad and I go sit with another table in the dining hall.  It’s been neat to have a chance to talk to all the different students.  We’ve heard lots of stories about what they do for their birthdays (a favourite topic with the little kids!), their favourite books, movies and sports, about their families and all about the things they do at school. 

We did not go to Hosur last Saturday afternoon to use the internet because we discovered that there is no electricity every 3rd Saturday of the month in this area.  I had a couple of classes saturday morning, including environmental science.  It was fun because apparently in grade 3, environmental science means going on a nature walk and so I embarked on a journey with my 19 students.  They took me to ‘the rocks’ which are a couple of big rocks behind their dormitory which we climbed all over.  It was pretty fun!

 Saturday evening was the month end performance for students from preschool to grade 5.  Miss Berni had asked me if I could teach the students a dance, so Mad and I made up a line dance routine to the song ‘Man I Feel Like a Woman’ by Shania Twain.  We had rehersals throughout the week and then the kids performed Saturday night.  They did a great job!  The kids’ house mothers got jeans and plaid shirts for the boys and plaid skirts and white shirts for the girls which definitely added to the effect! 

On Sunday, Mad and I took a rickshaw from the school to Hosur and then caught a bus into Bangalore.  I didn’t have a chance to update my website because i went to the travel agent to book train tickets and flights for Mad and I.  I’m glad it is done!!  Trains seem to fill up really far in advance. 

This week at school the children have been preparing for sports day.  The actual event was this morning (it started at SIX THIRTY AM) and it was huge!  The kids marched in formations and then did routines with coloured pompoms (there were 4 house colours, red, blue, yellow and purple).  Then the races began!  The preschoolers and kindergarten kids did races where they had to do things like build a tower out of blocks and then run to the finish line, or put on a shirt (buttoning it up was very tough for them and a few kids started to cry) and then run to the finish line.  The older kids had running, cycling and skipping races.  It was all very thrilling especially as all the staff and volunteers were divided into the houses as well (i was in the purple group).  We all dressed up for the event in our colours and cheered loudly!  I am happy to report that my house won!  After the races were over we had breakfast and then the prize ceremony.  There were prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place for every event for every grade…needless to say it took awhile, but it was fun.  The kids were excited to get the prizes (notebooks, folders, pencil sharpeners, etc.). 

After all that, Maddy, Jacques, Micheline (the couple from montreal) and I had to give a presentation on Canada to the whole school.  They like to spring these presentations on you, usually at the end of assembly so that you have no choice but to go up and do some sort of a presentation on the spot.  This time we actually had 1 day of notice, so we prepared a presentation including lots of acting (canadian wildlife, dogsledding, flying by airplane and so on).  On top of that each one of us had a category: history, geography, arts and culture and industries & wildlife to talk about.  The presentation was successful and we ended it by handing out canadian flag pins and pennies to all the students and staff. 

Mad and I are spending the afternoon in Hosur while the kids get the rest of the day to relax and watch videos at the school.  We are at the internet place now, but we will probably go out and do a bit of shopping shortly.

 xoEv

I am currently sitting at Coffee.com, an internet cafe in Pondicherry.  5 volunteers, 1 teacher and maddy and I decided to rent a van for the weekend and come visit this French seaside town.  The ride was not the most comfortable (there were 3 of us squished in the very back seat with no leg room whatsoever, there were HUGE potholes all over the place that caused the VAN to bottom out a number of times, and there were buses driving in the wrong lane (aka head-on crash pending at all times).  We made it none-the-less.  We first dropped off the retired couple from Montreal (Jacques and Micheline) at their place and then the next stop was the place mad and I were to stay at.  Unfortunately, though we had reserved a room a week in advance and then called to confirm before embarking on our drive to Pondicherry, there was no room for us.  It was 10pm.  Our van had left, we were hot, tired and had all our stuff with us.  We argued for a while and finally got a single room and did not have to pay the extra fee they wanted to charge us to put a spare mattress on the floor (with no pillow or blanket).  It was stressful and irritating, so we think that next time we make a reservation we will ask what our room number is and maybe also ask for the name of the person who we are speaking with.  It’s really not fun to arrive in a new place at night time and not have a room to stay in.   

Anyway, today has been nice, we walked from our hostel to a restaurant for breakfast, then we walked through a few of the streets of Pondicherry and found this internet place and now we are about to embark on a heritage walk of the city.  I’m excited to walk on the beach!!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention.  At school I am co-teaching the 3rd grade with Bernadette (or Miss Berni as she is called).  The kids are super cute and VERY eager to learn!  They call mad and I Miss Maddy and Miss Evy.  It’s kind of funny!  Maddy is teaching classes in the 6th, 7th and 8th grades.  I have also been reading bedtime stories to the preschool kids.  They are very very cute! 

A funny story from my classroom, Miss Berni was teaching the students about renewable and non-renewable resources and how the school uses solar energy and that if we use up non-renewable resources there won’t be any left.  The kids thought about it for a while and then were like “but it’s ok, god will make more!”.  They were pretty pleased with their realization.  Ms. Berni, slightly flustered, told them, “well yes, god will make more, but it will still take him millions and millions of years”.  It was pretty funny.

That’s about it for now!

xo Ev

So two weeks in and i’ve already managed to get sick.  ew.  Well actually I think it was food poisoning, but it lead to having a fever and fainting and other unpleasant things.  Luckily Nimisha’s uncle who we were staying with is a doctor, so he gave me some medicine and i’m feeling fine now. 

Anyway, on the morning of January 31st, mad and I got driven to the train by Nimisha’s uncle and their driver.  We were in a two tier sleeper car.  It was kind of exciting to sleep on a train!  Actually, because I wasn’t feeling well I slept about 20 of the 25 hours of our journey (long trip!).  When I wasn’t sleeping though it was nice to look at the scenery and to talk to the woman sleeping on the bunk below me.  Her daughter lives in Kenya and she had just been there for a visit so she told us all about that.  She also asked us questions about Canada like how many climates are there?  which is kind of hard to describe as it is different all over.  She also wanted to know what a blueberry tastes like….umm sort of fruity?!  The train ride went well, and when we arrived at the Bangalore city junction we got picked up by Shanti Bhavan’s driver (Shanti Bhavan is the name of the school we are volunteering at for the next month).  It took about two hours to drive to the school.  The school is in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, pretty well in the middle of nowhere.  It has a huge campus with fields of palm trees and banana trees.  In fact our room in the volunteer house (we have our own room with ensuite bathroom which is very nice) looks out at palm trees. 

So far the kids seem great!  They call us aunties which is kind of funny, but it works.  The students are all from villages of “untouchables” and the aim is to educate them and give them an opportunity to change their situation and hopefully to spread what they learn to the other people in their villages.  We went to visit an untouchable village yesterday.  It was weird to have a group of foreigners troop around like looking at a zoo, but on the other hand i found it interesting to see where the kids come from (we met the parents and siblings of a couple of the students).

Mad and I don’t know our schedules yet, but it seems we will be teaching classes, doing some one on one work, reading bedtime stories (the youngest kids get 15 minutes of bedtime story in their dorms every night), sports and games and so on.  It should be lots of fun! 

We will only be able to use the internet on Saturdays as there is no access at the school. 

Bye for now!

xoxoEv