Had a lovely weekend with the arrival of my grandparents and I actually got to enjoy the many delights of Tikli Bottom and surrounding villages. The other 2 girls went off to Jaipur for the weekend so I was left all alone in our little dormitory to fend for myself (you'll all be pleased to know I am alive to tell the tale).
I had a lovely lazy Saturday morning before heading up to the farm to await granny and grandpa's arrival. They turned up rather flustered after their drivers sat nav had taken them into the deepest darkest fields of the Indian countryside along some very questionable roads. So they were even more relieved to see me! We spent the afternoon catching up on each other's activities over the last 3 weeks and it was great to see them on such a high from their 2 week tour of India. I walked them around the farm showing them the buffalo and other assorted wildlife including peacocks and squirrels that look like chipmunks and then showed them the school and my little humble abode. For dinner we were joined by a large group of Indians who were having a 20 year reunion having all gone to fashion college together.
On Sunday, I was treated to breakfast up at the house which was delicious and we then went on a gentle stroll through two of the local villages that are home to many of my pupils. We saw gazillions of buffalo, lots of yellow mustard fields and uncountable numbers of what I like to call poo pancakes which are hand flattened cow pats left about to dry or in 'poo huts' to then be used as fuel - it is very resourceful, if a little unhygienic!
Sunday also hailed the arrival of 2 new volunteers - Laura and Kat - who will be here until the end of march (like meeee!). We all had lunch together and then spent the afternoon playing scrabble and generally enjoying the warm sunshine. The newbies stayed up at the house for their first night and Katya and Nella returned late at night from Jaipur.
Granny and Grandpa came down to school for assembly on Monday morning and got to experience the slightly obscure school prayer and a sing song before they bid me farewell and headed off to the airport to fly back home.
This week has been very higgledy piggledy because there has been a couple of teachers off so I spent all of Monday with the middle montessori class and one other teacher, which was exhausting because it is full of 4/5 year olds who speak very little English and have ridiculous amounts of energy that they channel into shouting and fighting with each other. Thankfully I got the afternoon off to snooze on the roof in the sunshine as a recovery. Later on in the week I had the oldest Montessori class which involved one morning with just me and 30 kids - I nearly ripped all my hair out and had a very sore throat afterwards. Now that the weather is better, a lot of the lessons are taken outside sat around a portable whiteboard on the ground which I love.
On Thursday evening we popped into Badshapur, the local town, to book tickets for a trip to Jaisalmer for next weekend and then went up to the farm for both Peter and Katya's last supper. After dinner we went to Mr Kumar's - the lovely neighbour - for the after party where we drank rum and coke, accompanied by yummy picorra (vegetables deep fried in chick pea batter) into the small hours and went for a beautiful moonlit (full moon) and starlit walk around his 'estate' to see if the local leopard was about - sadly she was not. Getting up for school this morning was a bit of a shock having gone to bed at 1am but thankfully I had a pretty gentle timetable so I survived. The only proper academic lesson I had was science so I taught about water in its solid, liquid and gas forms. Apart from that the other things I have taught this week are similes and multiplication using a mixture of positive and negative numbers (which I used to be tested on weekly for the 3 years running up to GCSEs and loved it).
This weekend we are heading to the bright lights of Delhi to see some of the sights, deposit Katya at the airport and of course do some shopping. Annie and Martin have kindly let us use their flat in delhi so it will be two nights of luxury.
I cannot believe that I have now been away 4 weeks, time really is flying by!
Lots of love xx
I had a lovely lazy Saturday morning before heading up to the farm to await granny and grandpa's arrival. They turned up rather flustered after their drivers sat nav had taken them into the deepest darkest fields of the Indian countryside along some very questionable roads. So they were even more relieved to see me! We spent the afternoon catching up on each other's activities over the last 3 weeks and it was great to see them on such a high from their 2 week tour of India. I walked them around the farm showing them the buffalo and other assorted wildlife including peacocks and squirrels that look like chipmunks and then showed them the school and my little humble abode. For dinner we were joined by a large group of Indians who were having a 20 year reunion having all gone to fashion college together.
On Sunday, I was treated to breakfast up at the house which was delicious and we then went on a gentle stroll through two of the local villages that are home to many of my pupils. We saw gazillions of buffalo, lots of yellow mustard fields and uncountable numbers of what I like to call poo pancakes which are hand flattened cow pats left about to dry or in 'poo huts' to then be used as fuel - it is very resourceful, if a little unhygienic!
Sunday also hailed the arrival of 2 new volunteers - Laura and Kat - who will be here until the end of march (like meeee!). We all had lunch together and then spent the afternoon playing scrabble and generally enjoying the warm sunshine. The newbies stayed up at the house for their first night and Katya and Nella returned late at night from Jaipur.
Granny and Grandpa came down to school for assembly on Monday morning and got to experience the slightly obscure school prayer and a sing song before they bid me farewell and headed off to the airport to fly back home.
This week has been very higgledy piggledy because there has been a couple of teachers off so I spent all of Monday with the middle montessori class and one other teacher, which was exhausting because it is full of 4/5 year olds who speak very little English and have ridiculous amounts of energy that they channel into shouting and fighting with each other. Thankfully I got the afternoon off to snooze on the roof in the sunshine as a recovery. Later on in the week I had the oldest Montessori class which involved one morning with just me and 30 kids - I nearly ripped all my hair out and had a very sore throat afterwards. Now that the weather is better, a lot of the lessons are taken outside sat around a portable whiteboard on the ground which I love.
On Thursday evening we popped into Badshapur, the local town, to book tickets for a trip to Jaisalmer for next weekend and then went up to the farm for both Peter and Katya's last supper. After dinner we went to Mr Kumar's - the lovely neighbour - for the after party where we drank rum and coke, accompanied by yummy picorra (vegetables deep fried in chick pea batter) into the small hours and went for a beautiful moonlit (full moon) and starlit walk around his 'estate' to see if the local leopard was about - sadly she was not. Getting up for school this morning was a bit of a shock having gone to bed at 1am but thankfully I had a pretty gentle timetable so I survived. The only proper academic lesson I had was science so I taught about water in its solid, liquid and gas forms. Apart from that the other things I have taught this week are similes and multiplication using a mixture of positive and negative numbers (which I used to be tested on weekly for the 3 years running up to GCSEs and loved it).
This weekend we are heading to the bright lights of Delhi to see some of the sights, deposit Katya at the airport and of course do some shopping. Annie and Martin have kindly let us use their flat in delhi so it will be two nights of luxury.
I cannot believe that I have now been away 4 weeks, time really is flying by!
Lots of love xx
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