Progress: Month One

I think it's fair to say that this past month has been more about me than about my project. Getting settled has taken a long time, and now that I do feel ready to really get stuck in, the children have quarterly exams so I no longer have my normal timetable. However, teaching the nursery and kindergarten children has made me realise that I still haven't completely adapted to the heat or the overexcited noisy children. I feel like I constantly need to lie down and by the end of the day I am often struggling to work up the energy to tell the children off for fighting or refusing to do their work! It's been a busy month, and definitely a steep learning curve, but I am beginning to notice changes, and most importantly progress.

Personal Progress

As I mentioned in a previous post, being alone has definitely sped up my progress in terms of making the effort to intergrate into the community. I have been challenging myself to talk to a new person each day, branching out from the people who speak the best English, and today I was rewarded, being invited to two different teachers  houses for tiffins - although thanks to the extreme 'Indian time' in Tangutur who knows when I'll actually make it, inspite of my enthusiasm. However, I definitely need to learn the names of all of the different curries I've been eating, because the favourite topic of conversation seems to be food: "Have you taken meals? Which curry? Which tiffin?" Sitting outside I am probably asked seven or eight times at lunch time (I really should start counting!) by the students in tenth class, whose classroom is next to my room. They always peer around my door to look inside and if my washing isn't hanging in every available place, I sometimes let them in to be nosy. They like looking at my pictures and cards from home. They always ask about the boys in my pictures and I can tell they are commenting on the clothes I am wearing, but I've managed to distract them with the Telugu words on my walls; so far I can just about manage body parts and family members, still some work to do...

Project Progress

Although I love my project, I'd be lying if I said that it was perfect. Before I left for India I had an image in my head of teaching classes of attentive children English words and phrases through fun activities and games - now I realise how naive that thought was! Discipline is still an issue for me. Everyday I see the way the teachers punish the children, and everyday I am told that I should do the same. Keeping discipline in my classrooms is near on impossible because the children are always fighting and 'practising beating'. I've grown to be thankful when I see teachers with canes (which some of the children carry in their bags too), because I know the punishments without a cane are much worse. It is also frustrating that the children are beaten for making mistakes, because it means that they will never admit that they don't understand. What makes it worse is that the teachers change the test scores, so that their parents will never know that they are struggling. Today I sat with a kindergarten teacher who was rubbing out children's answers and correcting them. She would then pass them to me, and I marked the papers. It took all my self control not to say anything.

Despite all the difficulties, I feel grateful to be on such a welcoming project. I am hoping that soon the older students will let me help them out with their speaking, once I manage to persuade them that being able to speak English is the most important thing, even though speaking doesn't feature in their exams. The teachers will be more of a challenge. Trying to explain that in English we say 'aubergine' not 'bringal' or that they are pronouncing/writing the alphabet wrong never goes well, and seems to give them the impression that their English is better than mine. Saying that, I have managed to persuade them that it is 'zi-la-fone' not 'x-la-fone' and that 'Thursday' is not pronounced the same as 'Tuesday'. It might be baby steps, but it's a start.

So one month India is complete and there is still a lot to learn. This Sunday I have two weeks holiday and have booked trains to Tamil Nadu and Kerala - all very last minute so we're not sure if we even have seats! It will be nice to have a break from the intensity of being the only volunteer on my project and spend some time with some of the other volunteers. I have been working on a new plan of action for my classes, and hopefully giving myself two weeks to refresh will mean that I can focus all of my energies on the teaching when I return.