Today has just been a good day. Since we were on tutoring today, we went over to the school before classes started and watched them do the national anthem, and other school announcements outside. We then commenced our day, spending one on one time with students for 40 minutes a piece. I think we each got through 5 students during the day. During lunch time, we had the option of eating with the kids. It was really cool... their cafeteria has open space instead of windows (as many buildings in India do). All the kids sit on the ground, and eat their meal of rice with a vegetarian sauce, and vegetarian side with their fingers. I got the kids to teach me the proper way to accomplish this. It does require a certain amount of know-how, and it was kind of fun.
For play-time with the kids, a bunch of them wanted me to swing them around by their feet... that's not something I'd done before, but apparently they like it. Pretty soon, another game of soccer developed (it's happened every day so far), and so I joined in. Our dinner today was similar to most nights; red rice, vegetarian sauce, fruit salad and fish (the fish is an uncommon thing). But the best part of the day came when family time rolled around. Before I came, I was asked to prepare a "talent class", where I decided I would make hoop gliders. (If you don't know what they are... look at this: http://www.eweek.org/site/pdfs/English/Hoop%20Glider.pdf ) I pre-cut the strips of paper, and brought the straws and tape along. I gave a brief demonstration on how to build them, and then let them loose. I maintained some sense of sanity and order in the room, by keeping possession of the tape, so that it didn't get used up quickly (which was a good thing... I really did run out about a half hour later). I had a crowd of at least 5 guys at a time around me asking for tape: "Uncle, tape!", "Uncle! Uncle! Tape here please!", and "Uncle! I more piece.", over and over for at least 20 minutes. I was worried that because I didn't have paperclips to put on the front to help them fly better, they wouldn't like them very much... but I was so wrong. They quickly started adding wings, putting pipe cleaners on that they'd found somewhere, and just throwing them around. It was lots of fun. I really feel like they enjoyed it. Luckily, only a couple of the older kids discovered near the end, that the straws could be used to blow paper wads at people. Once we all got back from our "families", we played a couple rounds of mafia. It really is a great group of people I'm with.
The school's morning conclave. It's hard to tell, but they're all lined up in nice rows.
Busily working...
Some of their finished products. I guess mostly for my sake, the one second from the left is Anbarasu. I think the one on the left is David.
And finally, we have Viren and Basha wielding their straws.
For play-time with the kids, a bunch of them wanted me to swing them around by their feet... that's not something I'd done before, but apparently they like it. Pretty soon, another game of soccer developed (it's happened every day so far), and so I joined in. Our dinner today was similar to most nights; red rice, vegetarian sauce, fruit salad and fish (the fish is an uncommon thing). But the best part of the day came when family time rolled around. Before I came, I was asked to prepare a "talent class", where I decided I would make hoop gliders. (If you don't know what they are... look at this: http://www.eweek.org/site/pdfs/English/Hoop%20Glider.pdf ) I pre-cut the strips of paper, and brought the straws and tape along. I gave a brief demonstration on how to build them, and then let them loose. I maintained some sense of sanity and order in the room, by keeping possession of the tape, so that it didn't get used up quickly (which was a good thing... I really did run out about a half hour later). I had a crowd of at least 5 guys at a time around me asking for tape: "Uncle, tape!", "Uncle! Uncle! Tape here please!", and "Uncle! I more piece.", over and over for at least 20 minutes. I was worried that because I didn't have paperclips to put on the front to help them fly better, they wouldn't like them very much... but I was so wrong. They quickly started adding wings, putting pipe cleaners on that they'd found somewhere, and just throwing them around. It was lots of fun. I really feel like they enjoyed it. Luckily, only a couple of the older kids discovered near the end, that the straws could be used to blow paper wads at people. Once we all got back from our "families", we played a couple rounds of mafia. It really is a great group of people I'm with.
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