T-E-A-C-H-E-R

When I first grabbed the teacher edition of the text book to start my lesson plan, it took me back to elementary school when the “teacher book” was this sacred thing WITH ALL THE ANSWERS…it was now on my left hand, oh and on my right hand CHALK. It took me a few days to get used to the idea, but I like it now.

An aspect of teaching here is that these children don’t only ask for our attention as teachers, these children need affection and a lot of it. Some of these children have always been deprived of care and affection in their homes, many of them are children that are mistreated or raped by neighbors of family members when they are at home. Others naturally require affection from the teachers because they miss their families being away from home. A lot of them are faced with the dilemma of missing home because they love their parents but feel bad because they prefer being at Shanti-Bhavan where they actually have food to eat.

From the minute I introduced myself, Sumith, my new friend in the 4th grade, not only received me with arms wide open, he grabbed on to me and didn’t let go. The boy who is a menace in the classroom, constantly asks me to sit next to him during meals, wants to be holding my hand all the time and gives me this adorable puppy face whenever I say I can’t or when I ask him to settle down or be quite in the classroom. I could say he is a bit manipulative, since children unintentionally often are, but I don’t think that is the case with Sumith.

My biggest challenge thus far has been my voice…these children are really loud and although my class is disciplined, I still have to project my voice for 20 children for 8 hours every day…the nodules in my vocal cords that they discovered this summer are probably a bit bigger after a week here. I am trying my best to breath with my stomach and not into my shoulders and I’m doing some muscle relaxation exercises at night, lets just hope this serves as a way to learn how to talk instead of a path towards no voice at all…

The food is not my favorite. It is not bad at all its just that its traditional southern Indian food which is spicy and mushy most of the time... anyways I’m getting the hang of it and trying to eat a little more each day. Tea time at 3:30 pm is something everyone looks forward to all day. They give us volunteers a spoonful of PEANUT BUTTER! =) The creamy, flavorful spread is quite the commodity among volunteers; among all the spices, rice, lentils, mushy vegetables, and more rice, peanut butter all of sudden tastes just as good as a large King Crab at the Fisherman’s Wharf in my favorite city ;).

Colors!
When I imagine Africa I always think of orange and red skies for some reason, maybe because of movies or my own silly dreams of dancing with an African tribe or riding in a safari…anyways, my point is, the skies here in India are a beautiful array of purple and lavender, its magical. I go on runs every afternoon at 6 pm when the sun is setting, its when I decompress, probably my favorite part of my day; well and when I teach my dance classes off course =). The climate here is perfect! I thought it would be either hot or rainy but to my surprise it is a perfect 75 degrees during the day and then it drops at night to an awesome 70 degrees. It has sprinkled some water in the afternoons but nothing big. Apparently because we are so inland, the monsoon rains lose their force on the western coast and never reach the middle plateau.

Fun Fact:
There is a particular gesture Indians do with their heads. I just recently found out from Dr. George’s son Vivek (who hangs out here on the weekends) that it means like an “uhum uhum”, or a “yes I understand”. Anyways, it’s this head bopping thing from side to side. They look like those bopper head figurines people put on car dashboards, quite peculiar and very unique in comparison to your usual western nod.