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Arrived in Tiruvannamalai (4 hrs from Chennai) in the southern state Tamil Nadu. On February the 25th I went by bus from Chennai to Tiruvannamalai (after uploading tons of photos - I found a really good internetcafe in Chennai..). In the bus so many people a realised that my time schedule is getting really tight unfortunately, so I think I need to skip it. I am going to visit private families in Rahasthan anyway.
After a 4 hour busride I arrived in Tiru not knowing where to go to find the volonteer place... I, however, had a phone number to call (got it from Grith) so I dialled and got through to JP (the leader of the place) who came and picked me up. We drove to Quo Vadis which is a inter faith dialog center where they discuss faith and at the same time place volonteers in jobs. I had a shower and talked to JP afterwards to find out what sort of work I could get to do. After dinner we drove to Anna and Nicolaj's house (to Danes who are in connection to the center) where I met two other danish volonteers, Johanne and Elise, and where I had coffee and, wait for it, salt liquorice! Very very nice :) And very nice people aswell. Everywhere I have met so many sweet, open-minded and helpful people.
After a good night sleep in a room at the center (in the best bed I've had in India so far...) and went to get some breakfast and had afterwards a talk with Nicolaj and JP about where to place me in a job. By then it looked like I would be placed in a part of a school where they educate and play with children who are in child labour. Very interesting, I think. Child labour is a hard nut to crack because if you take the children to school and in that way remove them fra their job, the family loses an important income. At this offer at the school the children in labour can come after their jobs and get some time off learning and playing and in that way get some of them back to school. While waiting for an answer about where to be placed (everything goes slowly in India) and went to have coffee with Elise who I met the night before. She is working at the center in the cafe and the library and doing other stuff aswell mostly together with JP. We had a very cosy afternoon together and had dinner in the cafe in the center together with Johanne aswell, who is working at this child labour place. At 7.30pm some musicians held a small concert in the cafe which was really nice and afterwards I spoke to JP who told me, that I would get to work at a kindergarten/primary school instead of at the child labour place, where I would begin the day after (Friday). Very exciting! :) Then I went with Johanne and Elise to move into my new home. A bit out of town there is a woman center (owned by Quo Vadis) where ostracized women get activated in jobs and where other women are educated teachers. JP lives here with his family and there is aswell a volonteer house where I was to live. And it is really, really nice. Elise, Johanne and I have our own rooms, a living room, a kitchen, internet access and our own bathroom aswell.
Next morning I was picked up at our house, named The Nest, by the leader of the school, where I was about to work. Her name is Grecy and her English is really not that good so conversation was on a very simple level. We drove by autorickshaw and hen catched a bus where we were standing totally crowded and people were looking at this white stranger (me..). We arrived in the village called Mangallam(?) where the school is and went to say vanakkam (hello in tamil - there are 27 different official languages in India and more than 1.000 dialects) with the hands together in front of the chest to all the children. There are 84 children at the school in total in the age 4-10 years, I think. The school is build up of two brick cement buildings and a school yard in the middle. One of the buildings is for the oldest pupils and the other building is divided in three (however still very open and loud) where the small children are in three different classes.
At first the school leader went to her class (the big ones) and got them to do some assignments and afterwards we went to the kindergarten class where Grecy and the teacher looked at me, smiling and saying: Teach. I froze for a second and tried very hard to figure out what the hell to teach these 4-5 year old children, while the two teachers were looking at me with excitement.... On the way to the school I told Grecy that I work as a substitute teacher at home, which she quickly understood as teacher practice in the meaning of me being under education as a teacher - which she ofcourse told the other teachers immediately.... well, I had to do something with these children and before getting out of my freeze one of the teachers pointed at the blackboard and handed me a chalk. I went to the blackboard and dicided to teach them how to say their names, age and native place in English aswell as asking others the same questions, and that actally went quite well. However, timw was still long so I had to figure out something else. I looked at the blackboard and saw that they are learning the English alphabeth and the names of fruits, vegetables and flowers. I heard them saying it loud, but this went quite fast aswell so I needed to figure something else out... I new a needed something with body action to keep the children focused and then thought of some English lessons in 3rd grade in Denmark where I tought them about the names of different body parts. I wrote the names on the blackboard, the children repeated and then had to point at their body at the right places. This wasluckily a success aswell. At this point, however, I was sweating! I realised this when the teachers were pointing at me and giggling and I looked down at me to find out that my indian dress was all wet on my stomach and I knew the result was the same on my back just as I felt the wet hair in my face. Lovely! There was absolutely no wind inside the class room but a nice teacher helped me out a bit by waving a book near me and I felt the nice breeze reaching me. Time was still long and I was still supposed to teach.. I remembered an African action song which I learned in my own primary school and started to teach them this. It luckily went quite well even though the children probably were a bit too young to do it properly.
At 11.15 there finally was a break and I got outside in the school yard and got placed in a chair under a big tree - it felt SO good to feel the breeze! It ws luckily a very long break and I enjoyed looking at the small kids eating there packed lunch in the indian way and afterwards cleaning the box. And took some photos of them and they loved it :) Then it was my turn to have lunch and I tried to figure out how the other teachers usually do - without luck, however, because all of them have a really bad English. In the end I payed 50 Rs and one of the teachers went to get me some food. I was placed in the big class room at the teacher's desk under the fan where the food was brought to me in two big banana leaves. I thought I was about to share all the food with two of the other teachers but it turned out that all the food was for me... I sad there having thali (typical indian meal) eating rice with different sauces with my right hand (no spoon or fork) while the teachers kept refilling my banana leaf and looked at me eating. More and more children surrounded the desk looking at me eating (as the only one) and waving books to give me some breeze in the heat. It felt so weird but they were all really nice.
After lunch we all went to the school yard and ALL of the children were placed on benches with me in front. All four teachers were looking at me and said: Song in the meaning of me teaching all the children the African song from earlier. It went quite well actually but it is a bit tough teaching 4 and 10 year olds at the same time. Afterwards one of the teachers looked at me and said: new song making me thinking: That was the only one I know.... I told them that I Monday would be ready with a new song but that I couldn't remember one at that time, so instead she said: game. Man, I had to teach them a new game.. I ended up teaching them "Sleeping Town" (byen sover) which they liked, but it is quite difficult to play such a game being 60-70 children at a time (I was entertaining them all while the other teachers were reading novels and new papers..). After the game the teacher said: Tell them a story, and my reaction was the same: I needed to think quick because I couldn't just remember a story. I made something really stupid up and the children didn't really get it because the teachers didn't really translate and the parts they did translate were probably not translated properly as a result of their English. Quite boring for the children.. :) Time passed 3pm and the children got tired but I still had to entertain them so I tried to teach them another game, which didn't turn out so well due to them being so many. Finally I could have a break while the children cleaned the school yard and went home at 4pm. 4-5 year olds are in school from 9.30 to 4pm! However, a lot of the time is playtime.
On our way back in the bus I felt so exhausted. It was truly a challenging day! But I like challenges and I can use a lot of it when leaving for Ghana till August, I think.
At Quo Vadis I met Elise and Lika (a danish girl working full time at the center) whom I went to Cafe Manna with where we had cappuchino and met with Johanne. We also had dinner their and at around 9 we went back to our house drinking some coffee and having a good time. I tried to plan out the rest of my travels because I realised that I really don't have that much time left. I need to skip Kolkata (Calcutta) and Mamallapuram (beach near Chennai) and then I just need to be quite efficient during the rest of my travels to manage to see all that I want.
I am leaving Tiru on Saturday the 7th of March heading towards Pondicherry - a former French colony. I am really looking forward to go here - I heard so much good about it.
Now I have weekend where I am hanging out with Elise and Johanne and Monday I am starting out my full work week at the school. Wonder how that will turn out..? But I am looking forward to it :)
Hope you're all good.
Signe
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