Teaching and Learning

During the past few days, I've continued to work in the daycare and teach English to the girls. In the daycare, I have been mostly playing with the kids, helping them learn to count (one, two, three and ek, dow, teen) and keeping an extra eye out for children that might see their mothers washing clothes by the river and make a run for them. Some of the children have already started to warm up to me and I have been able to see their personalities and get to know them. One of the kids named Shubam, is really talkative and loves to learn English words. He is one of the oldest of the group and definitely the most outgoing! Rhea is extremely quiet and will never speak unless she is asked a question. She is three years old and really shy but she always wants to sit with me and hold my hand. She hardly ever speaks to the other kids but if I want to know the Hindi name for something I point to it and ask "yeh kya hai" (what is this) and she will always tell me! I am learning Hindi the most from the little kids rather than the older people. I think it is because younger kids are more persistent and will repeat the word and use hand motions until you understand. Varun really helps also though. I am always asking him what something is in Hindi! I really enjoy class with the girls! I've gotten to know them more and we have a lot of fun in class! Sometimes it's too much fun and we don't get a lot of work done! They are picking up what I am teaching really quickly and I think they will be able to speak English very well by the time I leave. It is sad to think that I will have to leave eventually, but I miss my family a lot already so I will be happy to go home and be with them again. I have been reading the girls the book, The Calico Buffalo and they love it! I also brought the stuffed buffalo toy with me and they took turns holding it and giggling at the sad, droopy eyes on it! The book helped increase their vocabulary because every time we came across a word that they didn't know, I would explain it. It helps with the whiteboard to draw pictures and diagrams. When I came here, I was thinking that I was going to miss St. Patricks Day but I definitely did not miss it! Aoife is from Ireland so we wore green and then when everyone had already gone to bed, Aoife and I were still wide awake so in the middle of the night we were learning Irish dancing from youtube in the driveway! Then I was teaching her how to do a headstand. It wasn't such a good idea, especially under the particular circumstances! Then we tried skyping some of Aoife's friends in Ireland and so we stayed up all night so that she could celebrate St. Patricks Day in the Indian time zone and in the Irish time zone! So we talked to her sister and brother in law on Skype and accidentally woke up Varun! I was so tired the next day so they let me sleep in and I was a little bit late for work in the daycare on Friday! Friday was Pooja's birthday and I gave her colored pencils and a candy and Aoife gave me a miniature perfume to put in the gift too. She was really surprised when I gave it to her and she loved it! I tried to say happy birthday in Hindi (janam din mubarak ho) but all the girls just giggled while I struggled to get the correct pronunciation! Yesterday was Holi and when I woke up in the morning I got a dot on my forehead smeared on with colored powder that sticks to your skin and then some on the rest of my face too. Then we drove to Vaun's parents house early that morning. They are really nice people and we had a lot of fun there! When we arrived, we got more powder smeared on our faces and we put some on them as well! Varun's mom is a really good cook and she let me help make breakfast! I watched her first make the paranthas and then I tried to do it but mine came out terribly! It started breaking apart when I was rolling it out and so I patched it up but then once I put it in the cooking pan, it split apart completely and crumbled! I didn't try to cook anything else after that! After breakfast, I met Varun's cousins and they put more colors on our faces and we took some pictures. Then we walked to his sister's house down the street and on the way there more people stopped us and dipped their hands in the powder and put it all over us and everyone was shouting "HAPPY HOLI"! Then a group of people with musical instruments came down the street, playing music and they were lead by the mayor of Palampur who put more colors on us! There was so much powder being used that it was like a big cloud of colors in the air! My face was so full that people started smearing the powder in my hair and for the rest of the day it looked like I had dyed pink streaks in my hair! When we got to Varun's sister's house we got more colors put on us of course and we visited there for a while and took a few group pictures on the balcony. Then we went back to Varun's parents house and watched people get smothered in bags of colored powder and buckets of dyed water dumped on them from the balconies as they walked by! It is really funny to see people on motorcycles ride by and then be taken off guard when they get a bucket of blue water dumped on them! Varun, Aoife, Varun's cousin and I were standing on the lower balcony watching and then a truck of boys drove by, throwing raw eggs at people. They threw two eggs up onto the balcony and one of them missed and the egg flew into the house and got all over the floor and some on the chairs. The other one hit the edge of the balcony and splattered on some of us so I got some of the raw egg on the bottom of my shirt but it dried up and was just a little stiff. Aoife and I were afraid of getting hit by eggs again so all of us moved up to the upper balcony of the roof of the town-house style building, right in the middle of the city. We were higher up than before but still not out of reach of people throwing eggs so every time we heard that truck coming or people shouting "anda" (egg in Hindi), we would run and duck! We had the perfect view of people getting covered in dyed water dumped from other balconies and they managed to hit every white car that came driving down the street! The white cars had big splashes of blue dye on them! It doesn't matter who it is walking down the street! They will still dump color on them! I saw one person walking with an umbrella! The only people that they won't throw color on are police officers but even the mailman gets covered! I felt so bad for him because his white uniform shirt was all tye-dyed with powder and colored water and his hair was purple! After most of the color throwing and craziness of Holi was over everyone was washing off the powder and it came off of my face and neck but the purple around my hairline wouldn't come off. So my face looked normal but my hair was still pink and my white pants were covered in purple, orange, green, and pink and my shirt had a ton of orange powder on it but you couldn't really tell because it was already coral colored. When we got back to Sidwarri, I took a shower and managed to scrub off the leftover color. In Sidwarri, they celebrate Holi later and Dharamsala is still celebrating today, so after I was all clean a group of people covered in powder, carrying flags, and playing drums came to the house and I was afraid that they were going to cover us in powder again but all they did was put the dot on our heads. Throughout the whole day, everyone we saw would shout "happy Holi"! When we were back at the house in the evening, Vineet and Neeraj were with their families for Holi and Varun, Ravi, Aoife, and I were playing badminton and the birdie went over the stone wall and so I climbed over it, not knowing that someone's backyard was on the other side! When I landed on the other side, there was a little girl standing there and I was a little bit shocked to see that I landed in their yard and I thought that she would be too but she just said "happy Holi"! So, still feeling a bit embarrassed, I just said "happy Holi", retrieved the birdie and started climbing back over the wall! Later that night we were playing uno outside and Ramesh had some of his friends at the house but he joined the game anyways. Ramesh always thinks he's going to win but he only won once! Today is Ramesh's birthday so this morning I went outside to say happy birthday and then I tried it in Hindi. I've been practicing so I think I said it correctly this time! Today Varun, Aoife, Ravi and I went to the Himachal Chidhyaga (zoo). It is a small zoo and not anything like the ones in the U.S. The animals are enclosed in rusty, wire fences with barbed wire on the top. It is in the jungle right off of the road we took to get to Palampur yesterday. It is a very small zoo but they do have lions and leopards! The lions and leopards were the most exciting animals we saw and Aoife and I were making fun of how they put chickens in the zoo even though most families have them at their house! We had fun at the zoo though and on our way back we stopped at a little fast food place and a sweet shop to try to find a cake for Ramesh' brithday party tonight. They had only one cake and it was white with a big pink flower on top. Aoife was going to ask if it was fresh but then Varun said that the guy would just say yes even if it wasn't but he asked anyways and the guy said no. So we figured that it must be really not-fresh if the guy admits that it wasn't so we didn't buy it! Then we stopped at a few more stores, looking for a birthday gift for Ramesh. We have been playing a ton of Uno at the house! They never get bored of it! We have been watching a lot of cricket too! The guys are always either watching cricket or playing Uno! Actually, right this second they're doing both! While writing this blog post, I forgot to mention, for anyone that doesn't know yet who everyone I have been talking about is! So, very vaguely, Varun is the director of Ispiice, Aoife, Ravi, Neeraj, and Vineet also work for Ispiice and Ramesh is the owner of the house who lives upstairs. I'll try to write another post tomorrow night so I hope everyone has been enjoying the blog so far!