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Published: January 19th 2010
I've started doing a lot more proper work now we are all settled in at the orphanage. I've got all my pictures of everyone up on the wall and my room feels a lot more homely. I'm still doing the cricket coaching but only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Its almost all fitness and fielding practice that I do with them but surprisingly the boys just love to run about and are really well mannered so do whatever i tell them. Their favorite drills are the catching practice ones like the games I play with Charlie and Will in the garden. Also one of the coaches there was really impressed when i took them on a warm-up (I just copied the one we did for every sports lesson at school) but I think they never normally do anything like that here, He was really surprised I knew so many different stretches.
I've been spending more time with the boys at the orphanage as well and getting to know them. We had a big football match with them yesterday but the dutch volunteer is a bit better then me and his team won (I did beat him at badminton and cricket though). The boys at the orphanage work so hard and they have a really busy timetable. They get up at 4.30 and have to wash themselves and clean the houses. Then they do exercise from 5 til 6 and then they have to do an hours study before prayers then breakfast then they go to school at 8! We helped them with the study a bit, some of the 11 year olds were learning algebra and i think they understood what I was saying. Also its really hard to work out how much English they actually understand. They learn most of it by textbooks and so they can write and read just about ok but are really bad at speaking and understanding. A lot of the words they know just from copying and don't actually understand their meaning. The level they were at in the textbook said they should be learning about different tenses and superlatives but i found it alot more constructive to take them round the building telling them the names of things they could see as they didn't even know how to point to the floor or roof. I also did the names of body parts with them and sang "heads, shoulders, knees and toes" with them which they loved.
Teaching English like that was far more easy then i imagined and also really gratifying as the kids pick it up so quickly.
Luckily there is a high school about 15 minutes walk from the main projects abroad office and we have already met with the headmaster there so i will start being an assistant in their English lessons on monday. Its good cos it means i will have more to do during the day while the boys from the orphanage go to school (some of them are actually at that school anyway). At the moment we spend most of the time form about 9 til 3 either walking around the town or playing badminton and going to the gym at the boys home.
I'm really looking forward to the weekend because its Pongal festival here so we are getting really nice food (like fresh sugar cane in the morning and afternoon) and there are also big displays of flowers and things which look amazing in town. All the boys go home to any relatives they have and lots of us volunteers have arranged a trip to the beach at Kovallam which is quite a big tourist destination.
Tell Will and Nan the food I am most missing is fish and chips (especially as it is 5.30 on a thursday when I am writing this!!). Ossie's must be wondering where I have got to. But I would love any food containing meat, which is impossible to find here.
To Charlie I can't believe Liverpool actually lost to Reading! What is going on!?!?!?!
To Buff I was seriously considering growing a tash but i think 1 in the family is enough.
Miss you all lots,
Love Joe
xxx
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Kirst
non-member comment
Liverpool
At least we beat spurs this week! (poor Will, you know how he keeps changing, he'd just decided to go with spurs then we beat them!) Nan says she really misses you (and the fish and chips) too!ps one moustache in the family is DEFINATELY enough! Although if you ask heid I'm sure she would say some poor hair growth decisions are part of the experience!!! Miss you! Kirst xxxx