In India, Responsibility Comes Quickly

So, on the second day of teaching (Thursday), I was invited to serve as principal for the time that I would be here at the Rising Star school. The person who has been doing this since March is leaving tonight, and the regular principal has had her visa denied several times so, until further notice, she cannot come. In the end, I felt that I did not know the school, the teachers, or the students well enough to do this job, but I will be taking on a number of "curriculum specialist" type responsibilities - training teachers, working with teachers, helping with behavior management plans for some students, and even working with teacher evaluation - in addition to my teaching responsibilities. I will work closely with the education volunteer coordinator and, together, we will help the school to run as smoothly as possible. It strikes me that in India, especially here in rural India, the knowledge and skills that you possess are put to use quite quickly. There is plenty to do. I am really enjoying working with the children, but it is definitely a challenge. For example, in my 1st standard class, the students really struggle with English, and giving directions requires a lot of acting out or drawing pictures and checking with students regularly for understanding. Sometimes, an Indian "housemother" is there with me, and that is quite helpful. She can translate into Tamil. However, the housemothers are not great at English either, so communicating with them can take work, too.

Yesterday I got to see the Life Dance group at Rising Star (a group of about 20 students) perform a piece. It was beautiful. It was about how one person can touch and help another, and this is magnified. There is a portion of the piece where the students were assigned to watch their parents and family members at home who have leprosy, and turn some of the movements that they observe into choreography. This was very moving and a reminder of the situations that these children come from. I was also able to see a number of my 7th and 8th standard students perform in this piece. One of my 8th standard boys, Joseph, had a dance solo. He was quite remarkable. His performance was powerful.

Today, a major highlight was a visit from the Marriot hotel staff. They come once every three months, serve food to the children (and volunteers - it was wonderful!), and do fun activities with the children. They danced with balloons and music from a DJ, and it was a blast. We got to dance with them. They were so excited and having so much fun! It also rained several times today. I never appreciated rain until I arrived here. It is wonderful to stand in the rain. It is cool, but not cold, and feels wonderful in the heat. It is really hot here. But I am so glad to be here, to interact with the children and the teachers and the other volunteers. It is beautiful where we are, in the middle of a mango grove and a coconut grove, and it is wonderful.

Playtime with the Rising Star kids

Dinner: Traditional Indian food on the roof on a banana leaf

The last few days

We've had some Internet trouble (it is rural India), but I'm on now and I want to share an update of my first few days in India, hopefully before I lose power. I arrived in the middle of the night on Sunday and took a shower, since I felt like I needed one after 30 hours of travel time. I was staying in the Marriot, so they had a western-style shower. Also, I wanted to savor my last real shower. On Monday morning, I ate at the Marriot breakfast buffet. I had Indian breakfast, and it was good, especially a stuffed bread called a Paratha. It is made to order with things mixed into the dough and then baked on a stone in a brick oven. Then, at 11 am, we left in a bumpy bus through the city of Chennai for Rising Star. It was fun to see the interesting sights out the window, especially the cows wandering on the side of the city streets. When we arrived at Rising Star, I got to see the exciting Indian toilets and bucket showers, as well as the room where I'll be staying, the courtyard, the grove of mango trees, and so on. Then we all headed over to play with the Rising Star children during "playtime." Playtime was exhausting! That evening I learned that in addition to teacher training, I would be taking over four classes starting the next day - 1st grade phonics, 1st grade writing, 7th grade English, and 8th grade English. They call grades "standards" here. On Tuesday, I observed the teachers of these classes to find out what was going on, as well as running a teacher training on lesson planning. The training went really well. Although I only had a half an hour, and I could have talked much more about lesson planning, the teachers responded really well. I've since had a number of teachers tell me that they thought that what I taught was really useful and they plan to use it. Also, it allowed me to get to know the teachers a little bit better. I told them that it was really hot here (it is - I think I'm melting), and they laughed. I told them that it snowed not that long ago in Cody, and one looked at the other with a confused expression and said "snow?". The other one explained that it was cold from the sky. Today I taught for the first time. Mostly, it went really well, but my first class with the third grade group (phonics) was tough. It is clear that the young kids think that Americans are playmates, and so when I showed up to teach, they figured it was playtime. This made managing the class difficult, but I got through it, and when I came back to teach the same group writing after lunch, I was better prepared and the class went much, much better. I have high hopes that tomorrow will go well. One of the wonderful things that is happening is that the children are starting to know my name. They call me "ma'am" or "auntie" or "Heather ma'am." They run up to me and climb on me like kittens. I have a couple of boys in my "family" - I'm assigned to a group at the boy's hostel - who find me in school and remind me to come during "family time" and help them with their maths. They tell me about what they're doing and are excited for me to get there. I have to say, kids are pretty similar all over the world, whether they are in class or playing, whether they are teasing, or getting into trouble, or showing love. These kids absolutely love cameras - they want to take pictures and have their pictures taken all day. They like to dance in front of the camera and make funny faces. They also love to tease their "auntie" and "uncle" volunteers. Today, some boys made a lasso with a rope and covered it with sand and then tried to get volunteers to stand in the middle of it so that they could pull it tight and catch them. They are a good group of kids - some are better, more motivated students and others are more challenging, but they all have great potential. I am enjoying my time here and I am excited to see what the next weeks will bring.
I miss you all, and I hope to be able to tell you more soon. Hopefully the Internet, and the power, will hold out. We have quite a few power outages every day, but they usually don't last too long. I hope that all is well with you!

Watching "The Story of India" from PBS

Packing in progress...

Fundraising ... we did it!

Thank you so much to everyone who donated to Rising Star Outreach in my name! I have reached my commitment, and even slightly exceeded it. I am honored to be surrounded by such kind and generous people! I am taking the final steps to getting ready - final shopping trips for those important last (I hope) things, packing my suitcase, trying to figure out how I'm going to make it through 30 hours of travel time, reconfirming my reservations, starting my anti-malaria medication, and on and on. I can't believe that I leave in only a day. Thank you all, and I promise that I will post more exciting photos as soon as I have them.