Week 3

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Namaste! I apologize to anyone I told about this for taking so long! I've been really busy and am just a huge procrastinator India has been absolutely amazing and surprisingly cold. I had been expecting delhi to be a disgusting, overcrowded smelly city and instead found it to be my favourite city. It is absolute chaos and a death sentence whenever you step onto the road. The cars don't stop for pedestrians even if there is the nearly unseen crosswalk. The traffic is just insane, if there are traffic laws I have yet to see a place that actually enforces them. My first experience on the road was driving in a cab for 45minutes from the airport. Driving down a road at 80km/h with no seatbelt on a two lane road with an average of 2-3 cars and 3-4 motorbikes all sharing those two lanes was honestly the best way to arrive in India. It was a blast! The horns never stopped blaring and the only warning that the car right beside you was going to cut infront of you is them holding down their horn. A common sight is a motorbike with a father wearing his helmet and then two children under 10 and their mother, none of the three having bothered with any form of protection. For all the chaos on the roads we have only come across one accident, honestly people in India must be the best drivers in the world because you have to be paying enormous amounts of attention to not get into an accident on these roads. Rickshaws are the most enjoyable way to get around as they keep you right in the action and you get the added fun of bartering and squishing as many people in them as you possibly can without falling out. Enough about the roads though. For all of the negative things out there about india and how dirty and depressing it is, India has a lot of things Canada doesnt. People are way friendlier here. People actually smile at you and stop and want to talk, and that is not just the guys who honestly act as though they have never seen a girl before by stopping and staring every time we walk down the street. When I say staring though I mean staring at an entirely different level, I honestly think their eyes bulge out of their head further, and theyre not even suddle about it, especially not when they all pull out their cameras to talk photos as though we are animals in a zoo.
The kids at the school are great and all of the other volunteers have been really nice to get to know. I came to India with two things in mind, one being I wouldnt gain any weight and the other being that the children would be little angels. Both were terribly wrong. I have honestly been eating so much food that I think I will have to get two seats on the plane ride home for myself. And the children, as adorable as they are and as wonderful some of them are they walk all over us, almost literally. They think that since we arent their normal teachers and are clearly very new at this that they can do whatever they want to in the class. Tegan (the other volunteer im with) and I have honestly had children jumping off their desks, kicking, punching, screaming, biting, and crying all at the same time. And then when you try to control them they just run more wild or begin to mimic you. Today I am proud to say we finally had success controling two of our classes which was really nice! Most of are classes are around 26 kids from 5 to 7 years old. I also work in the school's learing centre which focuses on helping children with learning disabilities. I help one boy and one girl with their reading, and also work with another little boy to develop his motor skills.
The weather has been all over the place, we've had days where it's boiling hot, pouring rain and freezing cold or huge thunder and lightning storms.
All in all I'm having a blast and don't know if I'll ever want to come home! I think im defeating the purpose of a blog by writing such a long message so I will leave off here and do my best to post again soon!
Bye!

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