Ev Star

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