It's blog time! Friday 13th, unlucky for some but I think this week I have had my fair share of unlucky incidents given the dogs, the bag incident, the ass hole at the travel agent and so on.... But time to move on!
Oh and I also saw picture of a very good friend on FB and because of the way she was standing and also I know that she would like to have a baby I thought she may be pregnant. So I emailed her to ask. I thought maybe because we are inIndia we had missed out on some exciting news-she's not and I honestly feel really bad. She also said that she would have told us which I should have known. Big woops, just hope the little present I bought for her makes up for it. I think she is okay about it.
Then one of the teachers at Daisy had asked me to help her find resources for pre writing skills so the children could take some work home. I found some and as I did not have her email address I mailed them to the lady who coordinates the curriculums at the school. She mailed me back to say that she had already told the teachers to just go to the market to buy some exercise books. I felt like I had got in the way a bit.
So yesterday I went to Bluebells to teach a lesson with the little ones. On the way I counted 21 temples. Some of them are tiny and they are kind of placed by main roads and dotted in quite remote places where there are just fields. I guess people walk to them although there were a lots of motorbikes parked outside one. I think Thursday is the day a lot of Hindus visit the temples as there were several that seemed really very busy especially the one with the motorbikes. Kumar told me that he had been to the temple yesterday when I asked him if he was going.
When I arrived at Bluebells it was all hectic, well from my perspective, because they are rehearsing for an Independence Day celebration dance. You can imagine trying to teach twenty 3 to 5 year olds to dance and keep them all under control! Some were thoroughly engaged but others were off in the classrooms playing and just running around, It was a little chaotic
We gathered the non performers in one of the classrooms and sat them all down on the mats. I was not entirely sure what I was going to do with them as my experience is not really with teaching very little ones but I thought as they had asked me to I would give it a go.
Once they were all quiet and the teacher had spoken to them in Kanada which is the local language here I took off my colorful scarf and asked them about the colors. They called out the colors and then we counted the colors. Next we gave them all a number card. They came up one by one and collected their number card and were told to keep it a secret.
Then they arranged themselves in rows from 1 to 5, 6 to 10 and so on up to 20. We called out the numbers and they had to stand and go to the correct place. After each series of 5 they sat down in their line. I am not sure I am explaining this very well.
Then each student had to say their number and we timed how long it took them. We did this maybe 4 times until we got it down to 18 seconds.
Next we gave them picture cards, one between two with the letters of the alphabet which is when it all went a little wrong! The children/students are not used to having to share or hold the cards so we ended up with a few arguments and a few torn pictures-woops! Eventually we got each pair to both hold the picture card. One said the letter and one said the picture.
We took all of the cards back in and it was toilet time. Lots of the children just hold up their little finger on their left hand as a sign that they want to go to the toilet. The teachers at most of the schools I have been to are trying to get them to ask to go to the bathroom/toilet in English.
When they returned , we played Simon says.... and that went far better than the picture activity. Then we did some clapping games sort of 3 claps to the right, 3 in the middle and 3 to the left. Its a sort of follow my lead but this seemed to work and go down fairly well.
Over an hour later it was time for lunch and I was quite glad. All of the children have to wash their hands so they all lined up and left the classroom one by one. as there is only one hand wash basin. Getting them to line up without pushing each other was a little challenging but we got there. At Daisy the children all sit on the benches to eat whereas at Bluebells they all sit in a large circle on the floor of the main room. They are all then served , its a military style operation.
I did not stay for lunch and we gave 2 of the teachers a ride up to Silkboard Junction where they could walk or get a bus home. It was a little odd because as they left it only left one teacher plus the lady who cooks to deal with all of the children for lunch.
I stopped off at the supermarket to get some water and then walked home. There were some stray puppy dogs on the way home, quite cute but I am rather wary of the dogs now although the ones on the main street remain quite docile and unchallenging. Also passed the Pani Puri man.
We have had some interesting discussion this week about standards of living and what is acceptable and what is not. Detlef pointed out that since Bangalore has developed and many companies have come here it has actually provided a lot of opportunities. Many people have benefited and their standard of life has improved. And yes I certainly acknowledge this and maybe if Bangalore does continue to develop maybe the slum areas will eventually disappear.
My concern is that it will make the divide between people even bigger. There will still be people who cannot get out of these areas and they will become poorer and poorer. Might be wrong, after all India has survived for this long and there is no sign of it slowing down so even if by some of our standards some things are not right then there are some things here that must be working.
Flying to New Delhi tonight and then going to see the Taj Mahal tomorrow.
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