It's been a crazy past couple of days. I flew from Dharamsala to Delhi on Thursday and had planned to sleep at the CCS (my program) flats Thursday and Friday night and check into a hotel for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday night. I was just going to spend a couple of days seeing the sights in Delhi, take a day trip to see the Taj on Monday, and fly back to Dallas on Tuesday night. Things have changed.
For the past week everyone in Dharamsala has been asking me why I'm not staying for the July 14th opening of the school I've been working on. As it is generally, the answer was lack of funds. Obviously I was dissapointed with not being able to see the school open, but I had come to terms with my reality. On Friday I was talking to the in-country director of my program and she asked me again why I wasn't staying and I told her again that I just could not afford it. And then she did the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. She offered to pay for me to stay. She and her brother who is the head honcho of the Dharamsala program are going to pay out of pocket for my transportation to and from Dharamsala and for my lodging and meals while I'm there. The only expense to me was the cost of changing my ticket back to the States, a not so staggering $100.
So, where that leaves me now is still in Delhi. I'm going to sleep in my un-air conditioned box of a room for the next four nights, take the rain to see the Taj on Monday, and take an over night bus to Dharamsala Wednesday night and be there by Thursday. Never before have things worked out this well for me before and in the wise words of The Rolling Stones, "Ain't felt this good since I don't know when, I might not feel this good again."
Thus far in my time in Delhi I've sweated, taken many an auto rickshaw, gone to the Ghandi museum, celebrated 4th of July with samosas, veggie burgers, and lychee flavored ice cream, and finalized all of the changes for the next couple of weeks. I'm sure I'll actually see some pretty cool stuff in the next couple of days, it's just taken some time to get into a groove. Being solo is actually really nice and inshallah my good luck won't run out before I'm back in the mountains!
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Things I have done in the many days since I have last posted:
1) Climbed a mountain
2) Not gotten sick
3) Almost finished my work at the Special School
4) Paid 6$ for two nights in a hotel
5) Gone paragliding (sorry mom and dad)
6) Gotten my photo taken with the biggest rabbit I've ever seen
7) Ridden a yak
8) Watched a man get stabbed with a wine glass in the nicest restaurant I've been to in India
9) Visited the homes of some of my kids
10) Started making plans for my time traveling post the end of my program (this one is kind of lame, but it's a list, so I figured a nice solid ten things was in order)
Now the elaborations:
1) Last Sunday another girl in the program and I hiked up to Triund, a 9,300 ft. peak that is used as a jumping off point for treks to snowline. Another 30 minutes and we could have seen snow, and another two hours we could have touched snow, but weather and time were not on our side. The view is apparently gorgeous, you're supposed to be able to see the next range of the Himalayas. However, thanks to monsoon season, we were basically sitting in a giant cloud. So, instead of continuing on, we ate omlettes, got sun burned, and watched cave dwelling German hippies do acrobatic yoga. No joke.
2) Hooray stable health! I can even eat Indian food again. For a while it was peanut butter, roti, and boiled eggs. Inshallah I am permanently healthy.
3) I leave Dharamsala Thursday and am one day's worth of work from finishing all of the plans I made for the school. Pictures to come when I have better internet. I might be biased, but I personally think it looks pretty good. Go to harmonythrougheducation.org to find out more about the school I've been working to help open and the kids I've been working with. If you're looking for a cause to support, look no further. There is not even a hint of a special education system in India and this school is the only opportunity these kids have to receive an education. The grand opening is July 14th which I am sad to be missing. However, I will be doing my part by purchasing a Harmony Through Education beer stein. You should too.
4) This past weekend five of us went to Manali, an old British hill station turned Himalayan ski town, about an inch east on the map, but 6 hours by car. We stayed in Vashist, the backpacker part of Manali and stayed in the super classy Dharma Guest House. We secretly slept three to a double room so for the whole weekend I shelled out $6 for my sleeping accomodations. Awesome.
5) It was AWESOME. We tried to go Saturday but it was rainy. Fortunately God smiled down on us and Sunday was a beautiful, sunny, clear day. We drove up into a ski resort and then hiked for about half hour to our jump off point. The flight was about 30 minutes and we were each able to go one after the other. The guy I was strapped to (tandem paragliding) kept asking me if the flight was "good enjoy" and it absolutely was.
6-7) These two can be combined. Apparently certain parts of Manali are really, really touristy. So, when it was raining and we asked our driver to take us somewhere interesting in Manali, he took us to the most touristy place I've ever been. Technically there is a temple there, which we had gone to see, but the main attractions included an amusement park, TONS of women holding huge angora bunnies suckering idiots like myself in to paying to take a picture with one of them, and yak rides. The yak ride was fun for approximately a minute and a half until I felt like a huge ass hole and opted out of the second half of my ride. At this point the yak and owner ran me down to collect their payment. Having a yak run at you is kind of a scary thing.
8) Saturday night we met the other group who had gone to Manali for the weekend, a family from Arizona, for dinner at the nicest restaurant I've been to in India (thank you Dr. Durham). About four hours into our great five hour dinner, a fight breaks out. These three guys flipped their table over, one proceeded to kick in three windows, and then the same guy broke the stem off of a wine glass and proceeds to repeatedly stab the manager of the restaurant in the back. Apparently these three guys came in already plastered and were unhappy with the wine the waited had brought them. They start yelling, the manager is called over, the scene escalates, the manager asks the men to leave and then bam, brawl. John, the dad of the family we were with, happens to be a doctor so he checked the manager out and deemed him pretty much fine. Tons of scratches on his pack but nothing serious. Crazy.
9) Yesterday I visited Ravi's house and then this afternoon I went to Mithu's. Night and day living situations. Ravi lives in a more rural area, about 30 minutes away, in one room that he shares with his mom, dad, and two sisters. The room was immaculate and his mother seems to really love Ravi and is open to whatever it takes to make sure he leads a happy life. Mithu lives in a bigger house about a two minute walk from where I've been staying with his mom, dad, and younger brother. Mithu's mother obviously loves her sons very much and as a result has made a lot of sacrifices for them. Mithu's father wants nothing to do with Mithu and as a result is physically and verbally abusive towards his whole family. At one point when tensions were really high Mithu's mother took him to her parents house for five or six months to escape her husband. When they returned they found out that Mithu's father had been locking his little brother up in a room every day when he went to work. Mithu's mother has gone to the police repeatedly, but all it takes is for Mithu's father to deny her allegation for the police to discontinue looking into the abuse. Mithu's mother has been chronically ill for a long time (with what was lost in translation) and as a result is unable to find work. Therefore, the only way for Mithu and his brother and mom to escape their living situation is for Mithu to find a job and make enough money to support his family. Needless to say, that is an extremely lofty, time consuming goal. How long this goal will take to reach is what is most alarming, because the older Mithu gets (he's 18 now) the less willing his father is to let him live at home and more anxious he is to see him leave. Not only is divorce extremely rare in this part of the world, but for Mithu's family it's not an option. Each parent would get custody of one child, Mithu with his mom and his younger brother with his dad. The same guy who locked the little brother up for six months. Mithu's mother kept using the word "sacrifice", a word that has officially taken on a whole new meaning.
10) Well like I said I leave Thursday to head back to Delhi and then have until the following Wednesday to see as much as I can. The original plan was to go to Agra (where the Taj is) and Chandigarh (capitol of Punjab and Haryana) with my friend Mike. But, such is life, plans have changed and it looks like I'll be doing a little bit of solo traveling. Will spend all of my nights in Delhi and do alot of sight seeing in the city and take a day trip at some point, probably Sunday, down to Agra. No worries about the solo travels, I'll be in Dallas safe and sound on Wednesday as planned.
More updates next week!
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Par For the Course
Well, believe it or not there is just not anything exciting going on in this part of the world. That is actually a blatant lie, there is tons of exciting stuff going on in this part of the world, just not my particular sub-section of it. Last week was good, extremely average. Ate some good meals up in McLeod, finished a full room at the Special School (that was actually really exciting), and said goodbye to the first group of three-week volunteers which was very, very sad. Thursday night after everyone left the remaining four of us went to dinner in McLeod at a restaurant that's basically the epicenter of western travelers in the area and it was really fun. Nothing exciting, just a bunch of hippie-type folks sitting around on cushions drinking beer (tea if you're broke), playing scrabble, and talking about everyone's various travels. At one point someone even busted out an acoustic guitar. I talked to one woman who left home when she was 19 and traveled the world for 9 years and is now back at it with her husband. They've been in India for five months and soon they're going on the ultimate journey: Cairo to Cape Town. If I'd been bit by the travel bug before, it has officially taken up full time residence in my body.
Along with some other type of bug, apparently. Back to the hospital I went over the weekend, which is never fun but not earth shatteringly awful anymore either. Again, lots of fluids, antibiotics, and TV before I was discharged. Already feel tons better, just have to be tons more cautious about what I'm eating and how I'm treating my body.
The new group of volunteers came in Monday afternoon and its nice to have a house full of people again. No big plans yet for this weekend, but its only Tuesday. Shabash (that actually means "very good" in Hindi, and probably should not be used as my sign-off, but I like the way it sounds anyway)!
Along with some other type of bug, apparently. Back to the hospital I went over the weekend, which is never fun but not earth shatteringly awful anymore either. Again, lots of fluids, antibiotics, and TV before I was discharged. Already feel tons better, just have to be tons more cautious about what I'm eating and how I'm treating my body.
The new group of volunteers came in Monday afternoon and its nice to have a house full of people again. No big plans yet for this weekend, but its only Tuesday. Shabash (that actually means "very good" in Hindi, and probably should not be used as my sign-off, but I like the way it sounds anyway)!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Amritsar
A truly stellar weekend. It started early on Friday when we got up to see if we could catch up with the Dalai Lama one more time, and we were finally successful. He was speaking at the Tibetan Children's Village, a school that offers free education and I think housing to Tibetan refugee children. It's a really beautiful place right on the side of a mountain and covered with pine trees. It's a little above McLeod, which is a little above Dharamsala, and a lot more remote. We were able to see him drive in and could listen to the English translation of his speech on a radio outside, but only Tibetan children were allowed an actual audience. It was very cool to see how eager all of the Tibetans were to see him, the second he drove in everyone was on their feet.
After work on Friday four of us piled in a car with our trusty driver Rinku and headed for Amritsar. On Saturday we got up a 3:00 to head to the Golden Temple. The temple itself opens at 4:00 and there is a ceremony at 4:30 to "wake up" the Guru Granth Sahib, the original copy of the Sikh holy book. It is then "put to sleep" at 10:30 every night. We caught the tail end of the ceremony and then got in line to go into the temple. The temple itself sits in the middle of a rectangular pool of holy water, which is in the middle of a rectangular compund of buildings (museum, living quarters, kitchen, etc.). There is a bridge leading to the temple about 30 feet wide and a little less than a football field long and the line to get inside literally fills up the whole bridge. Shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other people, at 4:45 in the morning, we waited an hour to get in the temple and got there five feet at a time. The whole time I was just so struck by the devotion of all of these hundreds, probably thousands in the whole compuond, of people, who were up well before dawn on an ordinary day. What extraordinary faith the Sikhs have. They're beautiful people too. They don't cut their hair, so all of the men have these great turbans and long beards and look exceptionally cool. The little boys don't wear turbans yet, so instead they wear their hair in a bun right on top of their forehead and put what looks like a tiny shower cap over it. The temple guards all wear royal blue turbans, orange salwars (long shirts), white pants, and carry legitimate spears. And the women, just like all Indian women, are just beautiful.
Once we got inside the temple, which is pretty small all things considered, we were ushered out within two minutes so that all of the hundreds behind us could have their turn. The floor was all of marble but literally the rest of the temple is made of pure gold. There were men inside chanting from Guru Granth Sahib and others were playing music. Either all of the men were wearing royal blue or there were royal blue tapestries hanging from the walls, but either way, it was truly stunning. After you exit the temple (to the left) you wind back around clockwise to receive holy water and get off the island. Afterwards we wandered around the compound until about 7:00 and decided to call it a morning and go back to sleep.
Around 4:00 that afternoon we headed out to Attari, a little town about 30 minutes away from Amritsar, right on the Pakistan border. Every single day there is a ceremony, celebration, block party, pep rally, riot, whatever you want to call it, celebrating the symbollic closing of the India-Pakistan border. We got there at 4:30 and realized that the ceremony doesn't start until 6:30 but that was ok, because the party starts early. There was grand stand seating leading up to the gate the separates India and Pakistan and it was PACKED. Fortunately, and oddly enough, there is VIP seating for westerners and we were able to sit right in the front. For the next two hours there was music, dancing in the street, cheering, and sweating. Lots and lots and lots of sweating. Sweatiest I've ever been. That's alright though, because it was exceptionally fun. The ceremony itself is basically just a bunch of pomp and circumstance, namely funny hats, loud yelling, stern looking men and high kicks. Both sides take their sweet time prancing around high kicking and lowering their respective flags and then close the gate for the night. As soon as they close the gate its a mad scene. People rush the gate for whatever reason and just carry on yelling for a really long time. What's wild about the whole things is that the Pakistan side is basically empty and extremely quiet. The men and women sat on opposite sides and the women's side had tops 10 people on it, all wearing burkhas.
That's it as far as weekend excitement goes. It was really great and a true blast but it's nice to be back where the air is cool and the sleeping hours normal.
After work on Friday four of us piled in a car with our trusty driver Rinku and headed for Amritsar. On Saturday we got up a 3:00 to head to the Golden Temple. The temple itself opens at 4:00 and there is a ceremony at 4:30 to "wake up" the Guru Granth Sahib, the original copy of the Sikh holy book. It is then "put to sleep" at 10:30 every night. We caught the tail end of the ceremony and then got in line to go into the temple. The temple itself sits in the middle of a rectangular pool of holy water, which is in the middle of a rectangular compund of buildings (museum, living quarters, kitchen, etc.). There is a bridge leading to the temple about 30 feet wide and a little less than a football field long and the line to get inside literally fills up the whole bridge. Shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other people, at 4:45 in the morning, we waited an hour to get in the temple and got there five feet at a time. The whole time I was just so struck by the devotion of all of these hundreds, probably thousands in the whole compuond, of people, who were up well before dawn on an ordinary day. What extraordinary faith the Sikhs have. They're beautiful people too. They don't cut their hair, so all of the men have these great turbans and long beards and look exceptionally cool. The little boys don't wear turbans yet, so instead they wear their hair in a bun right on top of their forehead and put what looks like a tiny shower cap over it. The temple guards all wear royal blue turbans, orange salwars (long shirts), white pants, and carry legitimate spears. And the women, just like all Indian women, are just beautiful.
Once we got inside the temple, which is pretty small all things considered, we were ushered out within two minutes so that all of the hundreds behind us could have their turn. The floor was all of marble but literally the rest of the temple is made of pure gold. There were men inside chanting from Guru Granth Sahib and others were playing music. Either all of the men were wearing royal blue or there were royal blue tapestries hanging from the walls, but either way, it was truly stunning. After you exit the temple (to the left) you wind back around clockwise to receive holy water and get off the island. Afterwards we wandered around the compound until about 7:00 and decided to call it a morning and go back to sleep.
Around 4:00 that afternoon we headed out to Attari, a little town about 30 minutes away from Amritsar, right on the Pakistan border. Every single day there is a ceremony, celebration, block party, pep rally, riot, whatever you want to call it, celebrating the symbollic closing of the India-Pakistan border. We got there at 4:30 and realized that the ceremony doesn't start until 6:30 but that was ok, because the party starts early. There was grand stand seating leading up to the gate the separates India and Pakistan and it was PACKED. Fortunately, and oddly enough, there is VIP seating for westerners and we were able to sit right in the front. For the next two hours there was music, dancing in the street, cheering, and sweating. Lots and lots and lots of sweating. Sweatiest I've ever been. That's alright though, because it was exceptionally fun. The ceremony itself is basically just a bunch of pomp and circumstance, namely funny hats, loud yelling, stern looking men and high kicks. Both sides take their sweet time prancing around high kicking and lowering their respective flags and then close the gate for the night. As soon as they close the gate its a mad scene. People rush the gate for whatever reason and just carry on yelling for a really long time. What's wild about the whole things is that the Pakistan side is basically empty and extremely quiet. The men and women sat on opposite sides and the women's side had tops 10 people on it, all wearing burkhas.
That's it as far as weekend excitement goes. It was really great and a true blast but it's nice to be back where the air is cool and the sleeping hours normal.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
That'll Happen
Hello all! It's been a bit of a crazy week around here. Monday was stellar, had a good morning with the kids and then a few of us went over to the new school to do all of the preliminary planning for the various murals we're going to paint on the walls. Numbers, letters, fruits, vegetables, etc. Right before the school opens we're going to take the kids over and decorate the entrance with their hand prints. I think it's going to look really cool once we're done and I'm excited to get started on Monday!
Tuesday was slightly less stellar seeing as I spent all day and night in the hospital. I wish I could say it was for something legitimate like falling off a mountain. Alas, it was nothing nearly as cool. Monday night I was all sorts of violently ill so Tuesday morning I went to the doctor. Apparently my blood pressure was really low because I was so dehydrated. So, the doctor figured it was in my best interest to be admitted to the hospital so they could hook me up to an IV and pump me full of antibiotics and liquids. Therefore, Tuesday was spent watching cheesy Hindi music videos and even cheesier American movies and basically being pissed about being stuck in the hospital. As far as hospital visits go it was fine. All the nurses were really nice and kept telling me to stop weeping (for the record, I was not weeping. there may have been, however, a tear or two), I had my own room, and everything was clean, so I really couldn't have asked for more. At the time it was just really stressful not totally understanding everything that was going on around me, and to me, and feeling like shit on top of that. No worries though! I'm back in action and feeling tons better. One thing's for sure, it takes being really sick really far away to truly appreciate how nice and easy it is to be sick at home.
Today we were supposed to see the Dalai Lama give teachings but apparently that was not meant to be. Due to some sort of huge miscommunication and a general lack of knowledge of Hindi or Tibetan amongst our group we were under the impression he was speaking today, at 1:00, at his temple. Turns out he is speaking tomorrow, at 8:30, at the Tibetan Children's Village. Oh well! Guess we'll shoot to make that in the morning.
This weekend a group of us is going to Amritsar, the holy city of Sikhism and home to the Golden Temple, which is apparently supposed to rival the Taj Mahal in terms of beauty. I guess I'll find out. More about that next week!
Tuesday was slightly less stellar seeing as I spent all day and night in the hospital. I wish I could say it was for something legitimate like falling off a mountain. Alas, it was nothing nearly as cool. Monday night I was all sorts of violently ill so Tuesday morning I went to the doctor. Apparently my blood pressure was really low because I was so dehydrated. So, the doctor figured it was in my best interest to be admitted to the hospital so they could hook me up to an IV and pump me full of antibiotics and liquids. Therefore, Tuesday was spent watching cheesy Hindi music videos and even cheesier American movies and basically being pissed about being stuck in the hospital. As far as hospital visits go it was fine. All the nurses were really nice and kept telling me to stop weeping (for the record, I was not weeping. there may have been, however, a tear or two), I had my own room, and everything was clean, so I really couldn't have asked for more. At the time it was just really stressful not totally understanding everything that was going on around me, and to me, and feeling like shit on top of that. No worries though! I'm back in action and feeling tons better. One thing's for sure, it takes being really sick really far away to truly appreciate how nice and easy it is to be sick at home.
Today we were supposed to see the Dalai Lama give teachings but apparently that was not meant to be. Due to some sort of huge miscommunication and a general lack of knowledge of Hindi or Tibetan amongst our group we were under the impression he was speaking today, at 1:00, at his temple. Turns out he is speaking tomorrow, at 8:30, at the Tibetan Children's Village. Oh well! Guess we'll shoot to make that in the morning.
This weekend a group of us is going to Amritsar, the holy city of Sikhism and home to the Golden Temple, which is apparently supposed to rival the Taj Mahal in terms of beauty. I guess I'll find out. More about that next week!
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Higher and Higher
Greetings! With a full week under my belt at this point I've got a nice little routine going. Tea and yoga in the morning followed by a hike. Every day we've gone farther and higher so god only knows where I'll end up in six weeks. We work with the kids from 10:30 to 12:30 which is getting better because you get to know their personalities more and more, but it's still hard because I wish I could give them so much more than I'm able to. Thankfully the full time teacher that will be working with them in their new school will start on Monday, so she'll be able to provide us with a lot more guidance and we'll hopefully be a lot more productive.
We went to see their new school the other day and it's just beautiful. It's huge (by Dharamsala standards) and beautifully painted with all up-to-date fixtures. Apparently it used to belong to one of the Dalai Lama's sisters. It's seven rooms, two bathrooms, and they're paying $750 a month in rent (wildly expensive by Dharamsala standards). The landlord has agreed to let us paint murals on the walls, so that process begins Monday. Considering my artistic abilities are less than stellar we're hoping some of the more creative volunteers can get us started with stencils and sketches and then we can tackle the painting. I'm excited to get started. Seeing as I'm not able to work with these kids the same way a special ed. teacher will be able to, I feel like this is my chance to give these kids something truly lasting in the best way I know how.
Yesterday we went up to McLeod Ganj which is where the Dalai Lama lives and is considerably more touristy than Dharamsala. I probably saw two Indian people the entire time, the majority were Tibetans or western backpackers. A few of us were strolling along when we were approached by two Tibetan monks who asked if we taught English. We chatted with them for a bit and they asked us to come back and teach them, so they gave us their number (it's more common to see a monk texting or talking on a cell phone than not) and we said we'd call them next time we were around. Wild. There's also another really cool place in McLeod called the Hope Center, and it's a place where every day from 4:30 - 5:30 Tibetan monks and refugees come to work on their conversational English. Anyone can just show up to chat with however many Tibetans are there, so I'm really looking forward to that.
Everything is pretty par for the course, whatever that means while you're in India, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of my time here.
We went to see their new school the other day and it's just beautiful. It's huge (by Dharamsala standards) and beautifully painted with all up-to-date fixtures. Apparently it used to belong to one of the Dalai Lama's sisters. It's seven rooms, two bathrooms, and they're paying $750 a month in rent (wildly expensive by Dharamsala standards). The landlord has agreed to let us paint murals on the walls, so that process begins Monday. Considering my artistic abilities are less than stellar we're hoping some of the more creative volunteers can get us started with stencils and sketches and then we can tackle the painting. I'm excited to get started. Seeing as I'm not able to work with these kids the same way a special ed. teacher will be able to, I feel like this is my chance to give these kids something truly lasting in the best way I know how.
Yesterday we went up to McLeod Ganj which is where the Dalai Lama lives and is considerably more touristy than Dharamsala. I probably saw two Indian people the entire time, the majority were Tibetans or western backpackers. A few of us were strolling along when we were approached by two Tibetan monks who asked if we taught English. We chatted with them for a bit and they asked us to come back and teach them, so they gave us their number (it's more common to see a monk texting or talking on a cell phone than not) and we said we'd call them next time we were around. Wild. There's also another really cool place in McLeod called the Hope Center, and it's a place where every day from 4:30 - 5:30 Tibetan monks and refugees come to work on their conversational English. Anyone can just show up to chat with however many Tibetans are there, so I'm really looking forward to that.
Everything is pretty par for the course, whatever that means while you're in India, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of my time here.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Welcome to India
I made it! Delhi was kind of a hot, rainy blur thanks to jet lag. On Monday we flew out, after a five hour delay, and finally made it to the Himalayas. The airport is in the bottom of a valley so we slowly wound our way up to Dharamshala and it is absolutely beautiful. Dharamshala is in the foothills of the smallest range of the Himalayas and as a result is still quite jungle-y, monkeys and all. Where our flats are I look up to the mountains and down into the valley. Jet lag and exhaustion sill have me to bed at 9:00 and up at the latest by 7:00, so I've been doing a lot of hiking and yoga in the mornings.
Where I'm working is a school developed by ccs (the NGOI'm here with) that caters to the mentally and physically disabled children of the area who otherwise would not otherwise be receiving any sort of education. I'm working with four kids, Muthil, Ravi, Dimple, and Anchal. Muthil and Ravi are both 17 year-old boys who have cerebral palsy and are moderately mentally retarded. Muthil is also hearing impaired. Dimple is a 14 year-old girl who is visually impaired and learns at a much slower pace, but seems to be the most with it of all the kids. Finally, Anchal is seven and has extreme facial deformations and is severely mentally retarded.
They come each day to the ccs base and we do exercises, sing songs, and learn english, math, and hindi. There are two staff members working with myself and another volunteer so each child generally receives one-on-one attention. A previous volunteer runs an NGO in DC and has taken it upon himself to develop an actual school for the children, which they will be moving to in July. There they will have more room as well as a speech and physical therapist. There will also be more students, but no more than 15 at any given time.
Our main initiavie while we are here is to try and be more creative with the kids. Indian education tends to rely solely on rote memorization, so while most children know the English alphabet and can read, write, and speak a fair amount of English, they have little concept of what they are actually reading, writing, or saying. The kids I'm working with are used to having a family of words, say the days of week, written down for them, and then copying them. They are very capable of writing the words, but they don't know what they mean. The staff we are working with also believe that the children are limited in their capabilities, and as a result do not challenge them. In reality, the children are all exceptionally bright and eager to learn, so Chiara (the other volunteer) and myself are hoping to introduce some new basic concepts rather than continually reviewing what they already know. While I can't learn Hindi fast enough to communicate with the kids, or anyone else for that matter, a previous volunteer has also taught them sign language which is really great. I received a crash course in sign language and am beginning to learn more signs that the kids don't know in hopes that we can expand their ability to communicate. None of them speak, so to be able to interact with them in sign language has proven to be the most effective means of communication. Working with these kids has been really, really hard, but each day it gets easier and I'm excited to see all that they can accomplish. Besides work, everything is great and I'm really happy to be here.
Where I'm working is a school developed by ccs (the NGOI'm here with) that caters to the mentally and physically disabled children of the area who otherwise would not otherwise be receiving any sort of education. I'm working with four kids, Muthil, Ravi, Dimple, and Anchal. Muthil and Ravi are both 17 year-old boys who have cerebral palsy and are moderately mentally retarded. Muthil is also hearing impaired. Dimple is a 14 year-old girl who is visually impaired and learns at a much slower pace, but seems to be the most with it of all the kids. Finally, Anchal is seven and has extreme facial deformations and is severely mentally retarded.
They come each day to the ccs base and we do exercises, sing songs, and learn english, math, and hindi. There are two staff members working with myself and another volunteer so each child generally receives one-on-one attention. A previous volunteer runs an NGO in DC and has taken it upon himself to develop an actual school for the children, which they will be moving to in July. There they will have more room as well as a speech and physical therapist. There will also be more students, but no more than 15 at any given time.
Our main initiavie while we are here is to try and be more creative with the kids. Indian education tends to rely solely on rote memorization, so while most children know the English alphabet and can read, write, and speak a fair amount of English, they have little concept of what they are actually reading, writing, or saying. The kids I'm working with are used to having a family of words, say the days of week, written down for them, and then copying them. They are very capable of writing the words, but they don't know what they mean. The staff we are working with also believe that the children are limited in their capabilities, and as a result do not challenge them. In reality, the children are all exceptionally bright and eager to learn, so Chiara (the other volunteer) and myself are hoping to introduce some new basic concepts rather than continually reviewing what they already know. While I can't learn Hindi fast enough to communicate with the kids, or anyone else for that matter, a previous volunteer has also taught them sign language which is really great. I received a crash course in sign language and am beginning to learn more signs that the kids don't know in hopes that we can expand their ability to communicate. None of them speak, so to be able to interact with them in sign language has proven to be the most effective means of communication. Working with these kids has been really, really hard, but each day it gets easier and I'm excited to see all that they can accomplish. Besides work, everything is great and I'm really happy to be here.
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