I have arrived safe and sound in Tikli Bottom; my home for the next 3 months.
I am living in a dormitory with 2 others girls and one boy who left today. It is a fairly basic dormitory but it does the job - although the showers are pretty rubbish. Every evening we head up to Annie and Martin's 'farm' for dinner. They run their home as a guest house with 4 bedrooms so we have dinner all together with the guests and Annie and Martin. They are a lovely, older, english couple who have now lived in India for 30 years and they have been very welcoming. It is Martin who set up the school that aims to provide cheap, good education to the children of the 3 surrounding villages. There are around 250 pupils at the school and they pay the equivalent of 50p - £1 a month as school fees. The kids range from age 3 in the kindergarten and montessori classes to 14 in Grade 8.
After arriving I spent the first couple of nights up at the guest house because it wasn't full and the other volunteers had gone away for a long weekend, so it was nice to have that luxury for the first couple of days.
I was then thrown in the deep end teaching down at the school. I was given a timetable on the Monday morning, which consisted of mainly computer and library classes because the computer teacher has just left but next week I should get a more permanent timetable when a replacement teacher arrives.
The teaching is definitely a challenge as it is difficult to come up with ideas that will entertain the children for the 40 minute period and also teach them something. They are clearly used to having the push over volunteers because they just go on and on about wanting to play outside. I have so far done some heads, shoulders, knees and toes, taught the order of the letters on the keyboard, taught how to make words bold and coloured on the computer, played lots of football and stuck in the mud, played dominoes with words and I am currently teaching the kids the song 'cauliflowers fluffy and cabbages green' (a song from my primary school days) for them to perform on republic day.
We work every week day with a maximum of 6 of the 8 periods teaching, and the other 2 free - supposedly to lesson plan although I tend to spend them reading or playing with some of the adorable younger kids. Particularly Yogita and Jasmine who's families live and work up at the farm so are much more familiar. It is amazing seeing kids like them as 4/5 year olds who speak very impressive English and understand most things I say and yet there parents have very little English speaking ability, it really shows the difference the volunteers are making!
As we get the weekends off, last weekend me, fenella and Katya (the 2 other volunteers) and katyas sister went to Agra which is the home of the infamous Taj Mahal. Katya's sister, Ophelia, has been doing work experience at the very fancy Oberoi hotel as they personally know Mr Oberoi himself so she managed to fix us up with a very cheap (£15 each instead of £60) night at the Trident hotel which is the Oberoi's little sister. We also had a private hire taxi for the duration of the weekend and were classed as VIPs at the hotel!
Visiting the Taj Mahal was an incredible experience, it is such a mesmerising, beautiful building with so much detail! It is amazing when you think of the work that went into it and that the patterns are carved into the white marble and then semiprecious and precious stones such as rubies and sapphires stuck into the carvings to give the impression of a painting. We got our own personal photoshoot outside the Taj as we acquired a photographer on arrival and he got us to stand in about 6 different places in front of the Taj in about 15 ridiculous poses. Whilst in Agra we also visited an amazing rug shop, where we watched them hand stitch the rugs on handmade wooden looms and even got to do a stitch ourselves, and also a stunning jewellery shop. Overall it was a great weekend even if we did get very lost down the windy dirt roads on the way home.
One day this week me and the other 2 girls went into the local town to book train tickets for this weekend and on the way back we caught a public rickshaw. We were the first 3 people to get on the rickshaw and expected it to promptly leave, when we hadn't left after 15 mins we asked why and learned that the driver would wait for 12 people otherwise it wasn't worth the trip. There ended up being 16 people, 2 young children and the driver squished into one rickshaw, it was a tight squeeze and decidedly uncomfortable but was definitely an experience that needed to be had!
I am having a great time and am loving learning and experiencing new culture along with learning as much from the children as I am teaching them. However it is very cold and foggy at the moment so o am wearing every item of warm clothes that I brought so I look forward to the weather warming up in February.
Lots of love xxx
I am living in a dormitory with 2 others girls and one boy who left today. It is a fairly basic dormitory but it does the job - although the showers are pretty rubbish. Every evening we head up to Annie and Martin's 'farm' for dinner. They run their home as a guest house with 4 bedrooms so we have dinner all together with the guests and Annie and Martin. They are a lovely, older, english couple who have now lived in India for 30 years and they have been very welcoming. It is Martin who set up the school that aims to provide cheap, good education to the children of the 3 surrounding villages. There are around 250 pupils at the school and they pay the equivalent of 50p - £1 a month as school fees. The kids range from age 3 in the kindergarten and montessori classes to 14 in Grade 8.
After arriving I spent the first couple of nights up at the guest house because it wasn't full and the other volunteers had gone away for a long weekend, so it was nice to have that luxury for the first couple of days.
I was then thrown in the deep end teaching down at the school. I was given a timetable on the Monday morning, which consisted of mainly computer and library classes because the computer teacher has just left but next week I should get a more permanent timetable when a replacement teacher arrives.
The teaching is definitely a challenge as it is difficult to come up with ideas that will entertain the children for the 40 minute period and also teach them something. They are clearly used to having the push over volunteers because they just go on and on about wanting to play outside. I have so far done some heads, shoulders, knees and toes, taught the order of the letters on the keyboard, taught how to make words bold and coloured on the computer, played lots of football and stuck in the mud, played dominoes with words and I am currently teaching the kids the song 'cauliflowers fluffy and cabbages green' (a song from my primary school days) for them to perform on republic day.
We work every week day with a maximum of 6 of the 8 periods teaching, and the other 2 free - supposedly to lesson plan although I tend to spend them reading or playing with some of the adorable younger kids. Particularly Yogita and Jasmine who's families live and work up at the farm so are much more familiar. It is amazing seeing kids like them as 4/5 year olds who speak very impressive English and understand most things I say and yet there parents have very little English speaking ability, it really shows the difference the volunteers are making!
As we get the weekends off, last weekend me, fenella and Katya (the 2 other volunteers) and katyas sister went to Agra which is the home of the infamous Taj Mahal. Katya's sister, Ophelia, has been doing work experience at the very fancy Oberoi hotel as they personally know Mr Oberoi himself so she managed to fix us up with a very cheap (£15 each instead of £60) night at the Trident hotel which is the Oberoi's little sister. We also had a private hire taxi for the duration of the weekend and were classed as VIPs at the hotel!
Visiting the Taj Mahal was an incredible experience, it is such a mesmerising, beautiful building with so much detail! It is amazing when you think of the work that went into it and that the patterns are carved into the white marble and then semiprecious and precious stones such as rubies and sapphires stuck into the carvings to give the impression of a painting. We got our own personal photoshoot outside the Taj as we acquired a photographer on arrival and he got us to stand in about 6 different places in front of the Taj in about 15 ridiculous poses. Whilst in Agra we also visited an amazing rug shop, where we watched them hand stitch the rugs on handmade wooden looms and even got to do a stitch ourselves, and also a stunning jewellery shop. Overall it was a great weekend even if we did get very lost down the windy dirt roads on the way home.
One day this week me and the other 2 girls went into the local town to book train tickets for this weekend and on the way back we caught a public rickshaw. We were the first 3 people to get on the rickshaw and expected it to promptly leave, when we hadn't left after 15 mins we asked why and learned that the driver would wait for 12 people otherwise it wasn't worth the trip. There ended up being 16 people, 2 young children and the driver squished into one rickshaw, it was a tight squeeze and decidedly uncomfortable but was definitely an experience that needed to be had!
I am having a great time and am loving learning and experiencing new culture along with learning as much from the children as I am teaching them. However it is very cold and foggy at the moment so o am wearing every item of warm clothes that I brought so I look forward to the weather warming up in February.
Lots of love xxx
