2 Weeks Later

Today marks the 2nd week that I have been at the Parijat Academy. The current went out yesterday so I was not able to post :( but today everything is up and running fine :)

I only taught one class today because today is a half day and I did some preparing for the meeting. But it went well. Yesterday, one of the small children in the 4th grade came up to me and started speaking to me in Assamese. I couldnt understand a word she was saying but it made me soooo happy because the children are now taking initiative to come and talk to me. I dont have to fight to get a simple " the dog ran" out of them. I got Promona to translate and she was asking me questions about where I was from and what I like to do.... and telling on students that were running around in the class lol. Today I did an activity with the 3rd grade math class where practiced the 2 and 3 multiplication tables by having 10 students say the solution whenever they heard their particular problem. The children were eager to participate and everyone wanted a turn. It was awesome...and I was happy because I actually am having a good time teaching the children.

For the past two days news reporters have come to interview me....while it may be a nice way to give the Parijat some publicity, it can be very annoying to ruin the daily schedule of the school because people want to record and interview. It went ok but they had problems because I did not want to interrupt classes in order to pose as if I was teaching for the media. It was really confusing to the children because I would interupt their hindi class and just promptly begin teaching English for the media....and because they did not complete it all yesterday, they had to come back today to finish. I am glad that it is over.

Yesterday there were heavy rains for about 2 hours straight. I mean heavy heavy downpours...it took 2hrs for it to slack up and then there was light showers. All the while there was no electricity because the current had gone out. The rains had caused the roof of the girls hostel to cave in. The hostel is made out of bamboo walls and a tin roof, without fans. Hopefully within the coming years, the school will be able to raise money to provide better housing for the children that are staying in the hostel.

Today we had the first teacher workshop. I must say it went well!! Uttam cautioned Promona and I that we should understand that these teachers are older and have recieved their degrees so that we should keep that in mind when we were presenting our ideas, but we totally understood that prior to entering the meeting. I took the time to explain to teachers effective ways to break apart English text to teach the lessons , encourage interaction, find out exactly what the children dont understand, promote retention, and most importantly HAVE FUN. They were very receptive and even went on to ask me ways in which I would carry this out in class. I showed them and they thought the ideas were pretty good, and they understood the points that I was trying to make. This made me really happy because Uttam was telling me about how the cildren are not passing test marks. Hopefully if the teachers take into account some of the strategies and it will have a positive effect on the children.

The current went out again today...actually in the middle of me finishing this post. Thank God I saved lol. I went into the city today to go to the internet cafe and had some interesting experiences. This was the first time I had ever gone into the city on my own, so it was pretty cool, despite the fact that I was toatally violated by a man on the bus and had to assault him in order to protect myself. Going to the city is pretty fun, it was cool to get turned around (lost lol)because I learned more about the city. I also bought a nice sari for my mother so hopefully she will like it ;). I am headed back to the school now where there is no current and cloudy skies because it rained heavily for about 2 hours straight again today. Sometimes not having a current is nice, its peaceful and it gives me time to reflect. But then when I have to go outside to use the bathroom I wish there were lights again because I cant see a thing. And even with a flashlight Im too scared to go on my own lol I know this is sad because I am an adult and I should not be afraid of the dark but when the dark is mixed with thousands of noisy bugs, small lizards, huge spiders, random roosters, cows, and birds....Im sorry but I will just have to be a chicken lol.

Will post again soon