February 25

The past week has been a complete blur. We are busy from morning to night with the kids in two separate schools. They keep me on my toes! I’ll try to give a small summary of how the days go:

In the morning I go to St. Mary’s, a school that is right down the road from the place I’m living. James and I teach English to kids who are in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. Each day we have two classes. At first we were going to teach separate classes, but when we realized that the classes are huge (7th standard has 56 kids in one class!) we thought it would be better to teach two to a class and be able to split them up frequently. Language learning is basically impossible in such a big group. No wonder they still don’t have a great grasp on English. The biggest problem with English in India is their pronunciation. They will know the material and which words to use but what comes out of their mouths is unrecognizable. I really wonder if there is a “Indian English” dialect almost, which only other Indians can understand. Either way, the kids want to learn American English so that some day they can get what is considered a “good job” with the government or in a city working at a call center. So we’re working on pronunciation a lot, and conversation and speaking exercises. Today we brought music and the lyrics to the song into class and the kids really enjoyed that. Their enthusiasm for being around us and learning from us is unbelievable. After class they come up to us saying, “Great class!” “We really enjoyed that” “Thank you for teaching us” and “When will you be back? Please don’t forget us”. With kids acting like this, how could teaching not be rewarding?! I don’t think I’ve ever felt so appreciated in my life. You can tell it means so much to them to have people from "the outside world" care about them.

After lunch the three of us interns here head over by motorcycle and motor-scooter to Periacachoor, the school for dalits (untouchables) in a small village about half an hour away. The school has cows grazing in front of it and miles of rice fields behind it. It is very basic, without even a restroom facility for the kids to use. Nuns and a few teachers hired by the program work there, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen teachers more dedicated to their students, they are just terrific. At Periacachoor our tasks are a little bit more unstructured—Mondays and Thursdays I help with the “library” (really a few shelves of books in a classroom) and letting the kids take out one book each time. I’m also working on finding good computer software for them to use on the 8 computers that Communities Rising donated to the school. It’s a problem because they don’t speak English well enough to really use American software. And then of course I spend time playing with the kids and reading to them and helping them practice their English. It is extremely fun but those hours out in the 90 + degree Indian heat are just exhausting. By the time we get back around 7 pm I am completely wiped out.



I’m not a person who particularly likes children really, but some of the kids I’ve met here have just completely stolen my heart and won me over. Their lives are so difficult compared to what I’m used to. They walk miles to school, go barefoot most of the day, and as I’ve seen personally, their education is much less than ideal. Most of them probably also help their parents in the field or have many household chores after school. The girls will marry at a young age and always be subservient to their husbands. Their prospects for a brighter future are dim, to say the least. Yet the joy and love the kids have and are willing to share with us is truly special.

I’m learning so much from them and at the end of the day, despite the exhaustion, I fall asleep feeling really fulfilled.