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Published: February 16th 2007
Hi all.
I've got a lot of things to write today, and plenty of time on my side to do it with!
This week has had my sides splitting on multiple occasions, it's been great fun. I was very down on Friday after my 7th Standard after school class didn't turn up, but it's all picked up. The day after Me, Colin and Rose went into Kanji because Colin wanted to buy a kind of male skirt thing (I wasn't that interested - and he's since discovered that there can be difficult practicalities sitting down - and all the students and staff have had something to say about it!) Rose wanted to see the hostel again to see the kids, I think her and Kim miss them quite a lot, they were quite resentful about moving out for us. Anyway, on the walk back we saw one of our 7th standard students, Moham, (aged 11 or 12) on a full size and very powerful motorbike! Not only this, he was the last student you would expect to see on it. He's a good boy who struggles a little bit but sits at the front with his glasses listening, and see him on a motorbike was really funny. I'm not quite sure he understood why we found it funny, quite a lot of kids have bikes around here, but they're normally only low power mopeds, where as this was closer to a Harley Davidson!
Anyway, we had a good weekend but the week in school has mainly been dominated by mid-term exams. There were a couple of of revision lessons on Monday, then on Tuesday we had to invidualate the English exams. The word has a different meaning over here, it's not standing around watching, it's writing the entire exam on the board, and it's a struggle to find space. You have to ask students if they've finished certain questions and so on. Gemma's handwriting is neater so she had to do most of the work, but I was never expecting to have to tell kids to shut up in an exam (Only once or twice admittedly). It was actually pretty draining, probably because I went until 11am without anything to eat or drink. I'd got up at half 7!
Oh, we kind of destroyed the whole point of Valentine's day this week when we all asked each other to get presents and cards. Me and Colin had great fun thinking up the cheesiest lines we could, and we ended up with 2 cards each saying the some of the funniest stuff. "Fudge is divine but I'd rather have you" was the line written in Colin's (A bit of an in joke.) In mine we ended up with "With a smile on your face the world seems a bright place", but there were many more suggestions and we still spend time thinking up the funniest possible poems now, with some brilliant references to Kim's 'natural' legs (I bet she'll drop it the moment she gets back home) and Rose peeling dead skin off her toes. And I got a really nice jar of jam out of it, which was good.
Since then the week has revolved around marking. The majority of mine and Gemma's slow learners passed, which was very rewarding. It was particularly good to see Barathon pass, because he works very hard and is also very fun when we're playing basketball after school. There has also been a ridiculous incident with regards to copying. We picked up on a few copied answers from some of the slower students, and we saw they'd copied from Mohamram (not sure if that's spelt right - but he's bright and it would make sense to copy his work). It turned out he had made a list of people who had copied (there isn't a pupil fellowship over here, people want teachers on their side. Indeed there was one incident the other week where Raghul put his hand up to tell me the pupils behind him were speaking in Tamil. I gave a few words, at which he turned around to mock them in Tamil! It's rather strange, you'd never do it in England.). Anyway, when we asked Mohamram to bring up the list, him and his friend had simply written the names of all the girls in the class, and none of the boys! Rose found it hard to keep a straight face when she asked "Who on earth could Geetha of copied? She's the cleverest girl in the class." I felt a bit sorry for him because he didn't really understand why we found it funny, and we barely waiting for him to leave the room before we all exploded with laughter. Still, they're at the age where girls have developed more than boys, so they need to find some way to beat them!
Marking has been pretty tedious, but you get a few bright moments, such as many of Kim's 6th Standard students saying that the antonym of 'depressed' is 'pressed'. This is funny because it's actually quite a clever answer to give, but it's completely wrong. Then there's been Raghul write that his best friend has red eyes and green hair in an essay, I think he was getting him confused with a monster from Sindbad, anyway now whenever I see Mohamram I find it hard not to laugh because I imagine him with red eyes and green hair! Someone else wrote about Gemma for this essay, and tried to be nice by saying that she is like a boy! It is a compliment over here.
In our spare time this week we've been playing bridge, me & Kim v Colin & Rose. Rose taught us all and it's quite addictive. Me & Kim are currently about 25 points behind, but we can make that up in a couple of hands. Anyway, today we're going to Annual Day in the evening at the government school in Namyendal. It's the school where most of the kids from the hostel go, with the exception of Prem, Saraswaly and Munymayll. (All spelt wrong no doubt). We may struggle to follow what's going on, as this school is a Tamil medium school, meaning that all subjects other than English are taught in Tamil. St. Antony's is an English medium school, where all subjects other than Tamil are taught in English. The difference is very apparent, the 3 at the hostel who come to St. Antony's quite often play the role of translator for kids 4 or 5 years older than them. Anyway, I think there will be good food and dancing etc. which should be fun, but it goes on till 9pm.
This is where everything gets a bit complicated! Gemma is going to Kerela for a week and has a flight from Chennai at about 3 in the morning. We came up with a spontaneous plan in about 30 minutes to get the late bus into Chennai with her, and when she gets another bus to the airport, we'll get a bus to Mamallapuram again and arrive there in the early morning. We're planning to take some cards and Rose's iPod speakers and stay in Chennai bus station for a couple of hours and then spend the early morning on he beach so that we only have to buy a room for one night! I'll be knackered. Claire from Chennai and her Australian GAP partner who we haven't met yet will also meet us there, although they'll have had sleep on Firday night! It's our last weekend together before Rose goes to work with street kids in Dehli, and there are a couple of leaving parties for her on Monday and Tuesday, one at the school, one at the hostel. She'll be missed. She can be quite sensitive and short tempered, but she's so much fun and the only real positive I can think of is that she won't distract us when we're trying to mark.
One more thing, the heat has become a lot more intense now. Throughout the day and night we feel it. Anyway, I hope you're all well at home.
Rob.
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Rosie
non-member comment
Hello!
Wow Rob, it all sounds so much fun. And I like the new picture of you! Can you get any more up? xx