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Published: February 7th 2010
HI everyone!!
I have passed another wonderfully eventful week here. I have taken on another sort of volunteer position that I think I am learning more from than the people I'm working with... in the town of Mavelikara, about a 45-minute bus ride away, there's an English language institute where Indians with degrees can study to write their IELTS (Engilsh proficiency) test so they can travel abroad for work. Most are engineers, nurses or in the IT field. My job is basically to stand in front of them for 3 hours and talk about cultural differences, in English, so they get used to the language being spoken and can learn more about how the countries they will be travelling to work. On Thursday I went and talked about the health care system in Canada, about how we have part time jobs from pretty much the age of 14 onwards, and about co-habitation before marriage and inter-racial dating... all REALLY fascinating stuff to talk about with people my age in India and I am getting a really interesting picture of their lives too! So for the next month while I'm here I'll spend Thursday mornings there, and Thursday afternoons at a school for special needs kids... pretty much to do the same thing I do with the kids here, which is colouring, simple crafts and songs, stuff like that. I can't even begin to imaging the patience and determination that it takes to run a special needs school in India, where there is so much tied up in caste and class and appearances, but somehow there are people doing it and with limited funds and resources. I am so humbled by their motivation to provide a decent education for these kids...
In exchange for this extra work, the owner of the language institute (called B-Ghud, pronounced "Be Good" which makes me giggle), John Sir (who is hilarious, he told me after my first class that the students couldn't believe I was actually intelligent because I was such a "small girl", which I am choosing to take as a compliment) takes me and the other volunteers (from the UK) on mini-field trips. This week we went to a government hospital (I don't want to write about what that was like right now, but I may some other time) and a monkey temple, which was SO MUCH FUN!!!!! I got to feed little monkeys bananas and they were jumping at me and doing it with each other and climbing trees and it was just a riot!!! I am going to see if John will take us to this ashram where there is a female guru who hugs all her disciples in marathon all-night hugging sessions. A few people I know have been there and said it's totally weird but worth going to see.
The school where I am volunteering is a hoot, I am greeted every morning by kids who call me "Teacher" (again hilarious) and who are just so happy I'm there to bring some fun into their days! There's a lot of structure and strictness within the school system here, and the classrooms are all very bare and boring so I'm glad I get to come in and do crafts and things and allow them to just be free, and be kids for an hour a week. We've been singing songs like The Hokey Pokey and the Itsy-Bitsy Spider, and I've played BINGO with them and stuff like that which they love.. if anyone has any more suggestions for simple games for kids please let me know! It's so bizarre being back in the school atmosphere again... especially the grade 6/7 class where there is a little clique of girls who call themselves the "Five Fingers". They're quite like the girls from the Mean Girls movie, and it actually gives me anxiety to be there. I'm reminded so much of when I was that age, wanting to fit in and just never being able to do it, being all awkward and clumsy with my glasses and braces and frizzy hair, and how much I wanted to be part of the "cool" group... Anyways so yes I am revisiting some ancient locked away hidden feelings of insecurity but coping pretty well hahahaha!!
As for me personally, I am still growing and learning every day! I do all my laundry by hand, take rattly old buses where the women and men sit separately, cook with a gas stove only, frequently go without power and have no oven (sigh... the only thing I really miss is baking 3 times a week!). I have also become quite a friend to nature - to start with, there are little armies of well-organized ants who march through my kitchen incessantly, which you just have to get used to as there are cracks in the wall and not much I can do about it! Secondly, there are lizards everywhere. I freaked out the other morning because there was a lizard in my kitchen sink who had gotten in there but couldn't climb out, I tried to help him but he kept running away from him, I nearly had a fit at the thought of the poor little thing dying a slow death of starvation in my sink and was seriously contemplating making a little home for him there and doing my dishes outside but when I went back in later he was gone. I was relieved.
There are 2 new volunteers arriving on the 13th, so I won't be on my own any longer (I can't remember if I wrote that the other volunteer had left - she wasn't down) and I will write about them next time I make a post! Till then, much love and warmth from the subcontinent for everyone!!
XO
Shannon
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Thomas Nietmann
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fulfillment
Thank you again for your wonderful comments. I am blown away by your heart and head comments. Thanks for writing them!