India – Day 14 – Post Party

Friday 16th August

As if they were out late drinking last night celebrating Independence Day, a lot of kids were late this morning for assembly. The policy here in this school is to pay 10 rupees if you’re late; now obviously this is a lot of money to these families but I agree with the policy being in place as this school is a paradise and a sanctuary for these kids and giving them the best start in life so they need to appreciate it, whether they have money or not.  It was so funny; one of the kids came prepared and just bashfully handed a ten note to Raquel, hehee. The rest of the latecomers had to run home and only some of them returned with the money.

This morning one of kids, a beautiful boy with the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen, was stung by a wasp and his little arm really blew up in reaction. He was quite shaken up by it bless him but he stayed in the office for a little while having aloe vera rubbed onto the sting site.  For some reason I felt incredibly sick this morning so through all the classes I was running a few times back and forth between the bathroom (didn’t actually vom but was convinced each time this was it) which was annoying and confused all the teachers haha. We had Special Programme (remember where they discuss motives and the theme of the week eg, gratitude) with Archana with Nursery class (the cuties).  Then we were with Class One with Chandan where he was teaching English grammar, when to use ‘a’ or ‘an.’  He taught it quite well but one of the boys got every single one wrong – he totally got the gist but just put them the wrong way round, bless him. Karan, as usual, was a little teacher and was right by my side as I went round the class helping anyone who needed it.  He directed me to the kids that needed more help and was correcting their mistakes perfectly! We then had BBC (DVD time) with Urmila (shouty) and the teaching assistant Shipra, but the electricity went so we sang songs and danced instead.  This is their remedy every time the electricity goes, which is roughly once or twice and hour, so lots of dancing and singing goes on at this school, scheduled or not! The kids love it though.  Then was lunch time and we cooked up some rice and veg with masala as Raquel was still busy in the office.

Next was more Role Play with the Nursery kids with Sajeet and I was overjoyed to notice he was wearing my sandals I gave him! When we gave them, if I didn’t mention it in that blog, neither him nor Chandan had any idea how to react to receiving a gift.  They didn’t say thank you and they asked Raquel if they could keep them! The people here in general do not know how to receive gifts; it’s sad and strange at the same time.  But to see him using them was so cool, it really made me happy. I couldn’t help teasing him, “hey, Sajeet, nice shoes” hehee.  Then off to the next class for maths time with Archana and the little ones where they were spelling out numbers.  The little girl I was sitting with said to Shipra something about me and she said to me “she just told me you look like a doll.” I didn’t know how to take this until she said to Javi, “you’re very lucky, your girlfriend looks like a doll.” Aww. White skin thing! This particular little girl is funny as she’s a lovely thing but very naughty and also verrrrry attention seeking.  You can totally understand though as these children don’t get much if any attention at home.  I did tell her to stop though when I was helping a little boy and she kept grabbing my face to look at her work.   Next class was with Shiv and Javi spent most of the lesson chatting with him (he speaks a tiny bit of Spanish thanks to Raquel and was gagging to try it on us) while I played memory games with the kids.  It was so funny, starting sitting in a circle on the floor around the playing cards but within two seconds the kids are all on top of each other and everyone’s’ heads are so close you can’t see the cards or the floor – this is how they play in the village, everyone fighting for their place.

Home time came quick today but I didn’t mind as I was still feeling queasy this afternoon.  I had tea and biscuits with Raquel on her terrace, so nice and peaceful – well, except from all the kids shouting “bye madam!” for as long as they could see us along the road to the village – and then me and Javi went downstairs to the outside sinks to wash our clothes.  The hostel boys were home from school and Ajay and Vijay came to chat with us while we washed.  Of course they wanted to help as they do with everything but we insisted you do not need to help us boys! I love little Ajay (see my Facebook as I’ve labelled some pics of the hostel boys) he’s just got the sweetest face and always comes for a chat and just looks up at you so intently.  Love him love him love him!

We’ve all rested for the remainder of the day as I think we’re all still knackered from yesterday, Raquel is blogging too for the charity blog and bedtime is coming.  Yawn. Sleepy happy. NB: Been here two weeks already! This is the point where the next week will go SO fast. Oh 😦