Red Nose Day

My brownies have sent me out a couple of parcels with some craft stuff and ideas so I really wanted to do some before the school term finished.  One of the suggestions I was given was some paper mache.  After a long conversation with my mum, we came up with making some red noses for Red Nose Day because she was sending me out a Red Nose so I didn’t feel left out.  She then also decided to send out some Red Noses for the class I was making them with. 

I made the noses with my 3^rd standard class because I have them most often and because there are only 13 of them, I figured I could control them better around the flour and water paste than I could with the younger class of 24.  I’ve done some weird things already this year but sitting on my bed whisking flour and water together while asking Sarah if it looks like a glue like consistency is now top of the list.   

It took about five days to get the noses finished.  They plastered the newspaper around the ends of the bottles and then painted them.  It got a lot messier than I would have like and I now no longer want flour anywhere near my hands again.  I think I still have some embedded there.  But the noses were finally finished on Tuesday and the kids could wear them.  If they could forget about the horrible smell of dried flour.. 

They were really amused by the noses, so were most of the kids from the other classes who kept asking what I was making.  However they really don’t understand when you say you’re making noses. 

Explaining Red Nose Day to the kids was fun as well.  I think they now think it’s a big Scottish festival that is played on TV every year.  I was wished Happy Red Nose Day hundreds of times today as well. 

I handed out the noses to the kids yesterday so they would have them in time for Red Nose Day and they absolutely loved them!  They were rather bemused though I have to say.  But they’re faces were amazing when they opened the packets and could play with them.  It’s just something that’s really different and they love it.  And even the class teacher got her Red Nose and was really made up as well.    After a tantrum or two when someone didn’t get the nose they wanted, I managed to organise a class photo!  

 He was determined to to his red nose

 "But Miss it's broken" "No it's not, just put it on..."

 This is my favourite photo of the day.  Soundarya, Tanuja and Vidya

You take my class now

Despite having timetables and being told we have to stick to them, very often we’re just asked by one of the teachers, or the pupils to take their class.  This can mean anything from just minding the class for 10 minutes, to taking them all day with absolutely nothing to teach them.  I can confirm that my improvisation skills have come on leaps and bounds in the last five months.

One of the worst times we’ve had to take a class was the day that both of the nursery teachers were off, so Sarah and I were left both LKG and UKG by ourselves.  A group of about 35 3-6 year olds children.  The UKG teacher had told Sarah that she would be off so Sarah had the chance to at least partly prepare herself for what was to come, but I had no idea the LKG teacher was not going to be there.  Which was a fabulous present to get that morning.  The LKG class is slightly larger than UKG but the kids don’t really have the English skills UKG have.  Although, with LKG you can often just tell them to sleep and they do it.  Perfect for when I was just sitting on a chair at the front freaking out over what I could teach them and wondering how many times I could realistically listen to “Johnny Johnny yes papa” before I would have to go and find Johnny and his father and murder them.

The thing about Indian teaching is that you can prepare so much but that could all go out the window the minute you turn up at school and a child comes running up to you saying “no teacher miss.”  What I’ve discovered works really well is spelling tests.  They take up loads of time so you can mentally go through every lesson plan you’ve ever done, or even just thought about in passing so you can prepare for the next seven hours.

The kids get bored, I get bored.  I end up unable to even think up new words for the game splat.  It just goes down-hill.  I have so much more respect for Primary School teachers who deal with the same class all day, every day.  I am really not built for that at all.  I have a shorter attention span than the kids.  Which is good because they get lots of different activities in a forty minute lesson.

Commonly used phrases when tying a sari

We try and wear a sari every Saturday to school because it's not a full day of teaching and we usually don't do as much jumping up and down and stuff on a Saturday so it's a lot easier to wear it.  But that does mean having to tie it in the morning.  It's not as easy as we first thought.  Genuinely, a phrase I think was uttered when we first got our saris was "how hard can it be?" I can now honestly answer that.  It is very hard. Have you ever tried wrapping 8 meters of material around yourself elegantly? It doesn't work!! So after about an hour of frustration every Saturday we finally get our saris on correctly.  Well, we always think they're correct... But then we get to school and the UKG teacher, Prameela Miss, ushers us into the nursery and sorts us out.  Which usually involves the entire sari coming off and we just stand there in the petticoat and the blouse.  The only good thing about saris is that a lot of Indian woman also find them frustrating and difficult as well.  Some don't even know how to tie one.  They find them hard and just awkward to have to wear.  Most of them, me included, prefer to wear the trousers and leggings with a loose fitting top.  I decided to put together a wee list of the most common phrases we use when we try to put on our saris.  

"So...."
"Which way up does it go?"
"Is this the right end?"
"Wait, that looks like it should go at the another end."
"Which side do I start at?"
"But she only put it round once last time!"
"Stop! I'm standing on it!"
"Just chuck it over your shoulder."
"But I can't! It looks messy!"
"Do I pin it here? But that's way too low."
"How big should the pleats be again?"
"But why won't they do that the whole way down!!"
"Wait, are they too short?"
"It's come undone!"
"How does Prameela Miss do it?"
"She does this every day.  It can't be this hard."
"Aw, no.  I need a pee..."
"But why is not going over my shoulder properly?"
"When I pull this bit, this bit here mucks up."
"But I've got like this chest pocket bit!!"
"Why is it so hard to get the pleats to line up!?!"
"Is that too short?"
"Hang on, if I pull this bit.... Nope, that's just wrecked it." 
"Why won't it just work? "
"There is far too much of my stomach on show here"
"Have I got it?"
"Pin my shoulder."
"No, wait, unpin it.  This bit's wrecked."
"This is ridiculous!"
"Just lie right!"
"Is that right?"
"Na, this doesn't look right."
"Why!?"
"Ach, never mind.  It's almost there."
"It'll do."
"People wear these every day.. How?"
"This is so impractical."
"A length of material is just not an okay thing to wear."
"What?"
"Why?"
"Where...?"
"I don't understand!"

Please insert your own expletives.  Trust me, I've probably used them all.

After we finally managed to get them on

Half Way!

The 19^th of February is my half way point through my year in India.  Five and a half months in, five and a half months to go.  Being half way is really exciting.  I’ve manage to survive India for five and a half months.  I’m actually tempted to give myself a wee sticker for that.  It actually gives me hope that I’ll be able to survive the next five and a half months and safely get myself back to Scotland in August.  The time has gone so fast but it feels like I’ve been here for ages.  I’m not saying that I feel Indian, I really don’t, or that I’ve gotten used to country, I really haven’t, but it’s become slightly more normal. 

The next few months here are going to get a lot warmer, I’m going to have loads of holidays and trips, I’ve got to get through exam time without stressing (for the kids, not for me, luckily I don’t have to deal with that any more) and I’ve still to try and control my classes.  But I’m in the home straight!  And as much as I’m enjoying it, the thought of going home is still exciting.  Basically so I can annoy everyone telling them about my year in India. 

I’ve learnt to do quite a lot of things that I didn’t really know how to, or need to, do before.

1.       Dodge cows the size of a small house in the street as they come towards you
2.        Wash clothes thoroughly in cold water while being watched by someone
3.       How to walk away from a rickshaw driver who is trying to rip you off by making you feel sorry for them
4.       Haggle in shops to get a pair of trousers down to 150 from 500 (a fiver to £1.50)
5.       Cross the road without dying (I could do that at home but here it requires more effort)
6.       Sleep anywhere. Honestly anywhere, a rickshaw, a bus, a train, a courtyard, a café…
7.       Eat plain idly
8.      Find somewhere to go to the toilet when there’s a massive spider above the one in your room
9.       Improvise a lesson on description. 
10.     Improvise any lesson that is
11.     Kind of control a classroom of 35 3-6 year olds
12.     Teach ceilidh dancing to kids whose English doesn’t stretch to “now dosido”
13.      Find my way out of a Pongal celebration after taking a wrong turn
14.     Fend off questions like “Are you married miss? Why not?”
15.     Not get offended when people say I’m really pale.
16.     Eat a plateful of rice that’s bigger than some people’s babies
17.     Get a mouse out of our room at half 2 in the morning
18.    Wear a sari (and then get it re-tied in the nursery because it wasn’t correct the first time)
19.   Not pick up stray puppies every time I see one
20.  Get excited over things I take for granted a home like a shower head, a washing machine, pancakes

It’s been an absolutely mental last few months.  Pretty hard I’m not going to lie, some of it really has been rubbish and frustrating at times.  But then I just look at some of the fun trousers I’ve got here and it makes it all good again!  And having kids sing Flower of Scotland.  That’s nice too.

One of my other friends, Tabs, did a half way blog as well and she talked about how proud she is of all the other Project Trust volunteers, especially in India.  And it’s true, I honestly feel like a proud mum most of the time.  Everyone has done amazing!  We’ve all managed this long in India, we’re all teaching some crazy Indian children, we’re dealing with strange food, wearing strange clothes in crazy temperatures but we all still manage to get on with it and deal with every day and all the weirdness that comes with it.  I just want to give stickers to everyone.

So, I’m hoping I survive the next few months here and I’m treating myself tonight by ditching my pajama top and starting to wear a new one.  I’m really splashing out.

Everyone loves a good ceilidh

We get one period a week with each of the older classes in the school to do whatever we want, be that craft, activities or dance.  So we chose to teach them some Scottish dancing because that's one kind of dance I can actually do.  One of my classes, 6th Standard, absolutely love it.  It's amazing to see them so excited over something that I love.  And they're really good at dancing as well.  Every time I go into the class now and ask them all what they want to do, the response is always "Scotland dance Miss!!"  I'm hoping to have a whole school ceilidh before the end of the year.  It's one thing I am definitely missing about Scotland but the kids here really make up for it!

School Trip or Party Bus?

On a school trip to Chitradurga with 5th to 9th Standard late last year, they decided that it was a fabulous idea to loudly blast out some Bollywood music.  For the whole bus journey. From half 6 in the morning to 10 at night.  And they didn't just play the music, there was dancing as well.  I was led up the bus by a girl in 8th Standard like people usually lead others onto the dance floor.  It was one of the weirdest things that's happened here but it definitely improved my balancing skills.  Because trying to copy some Indian dancing on a moving bus the way Indians drive was very difficult.

Hampi! Or the weekend Niamh got too excited over some ruins..

Honestly, this is my third and final holiday of January.  Promise.  This time it was for Republic Day and we headed to Hampi for a long weekend with Tabs and Ruth again.   We see them far too much..

We got a sleeper train there.  A lovely 14 hour train that stopped in all the stops along the way.  However, it did go right through the middle of nowhere so when I got up in the middle of the night to close the window, it was beautiful to look out onto basically these plain with palms trees dotted along the way and the stars which were so bright.  But I was a wee bit too cold and tired to appreciate it.   Tabs and Ruth were arriving a bit later than us so we had a bit of a wait.  We headed to our hotel, which turned out not to be the hotel we thought, and then it turned out that they had given our room away!  But it was okay, they were going to sort it!  So, not really worrying about it, we went out for a walk.  Tabs did warn us not to do any ruin watching without her, but as we soon found out, that was much harder than it sounded.  There were ruins everywhere.  And honestly, I mean everywhere.  It was amazing.  Even the police station and the bank were in one of the old bazaars.  I absolutely loved it.  We thought we’d go for a wee walk up this hill, thinking we’d maybe see the river or something but we actually ended up finding an amazing temple and the main bazaar.  It looked like the monkey temple from the Jungle Book and I actually just wanted to walk around touching everything.  Despite the majority of the buildings in Hampi being built in the 1300s, everything was so well preserved.  It really was beautiful.  Even all the intricate carvings and stuff were still really clear.  Even if some of them were fairly Kama Sutra like.  Although that may have been because we found the old Red Light District…

This was literally my stairway to heaven

Where I'm convinced the Jungle Book was set

After Tabs and Ruth arrived, we headed to dinner.  Again another chance for me to eat non-Indian food.  Chapatti all the time just isn’t interesting!  Heading back to the hotel, we saw our bed for the evening.  It was two mattresses on the floor underneath a mosquito net.  Now I say mosquito net, but any mosquito determined enough to want to get in could have because of the two rather large holes.  It maybe wasn’t the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had, mainly due to fact that I was concerned about getting eaten by a sloth bear and trying to scare that rat-maybe-cat away from our bags, but it was the most interesting I think I’ll have in a while.  We headed out for the day armed with our lonely planet guide, and bottles and bottles of water.  I seriously think I drank about 9 litres that day.  Our plan was to go the Royal Centre because that was at bit further away so we took an auto there and started from the start!  We went this underground temple that was partly filled with water so we had to wade a little bit through but it was amazing.  Apparently there was a bit in the middle of the temple that I think was a dancing platform, or something.  But the woman may have been telling us that we could dance if we wanted to.  Who knows?  It was amazing to just wander round this old city.  There was so much to look at and see and I could have wandered around it for weeks.  It was amazing.  Cue all the history geek jokes from the other three.  But to be honest, I really didn’t mind though, I was too busy trying to touch everything.  And it was surprisingly quiet for India and for a holiday.  Which was amazing because after the Shore Temple in Mahabs, I was dreading Hampi being that busy as well.  But there were times when we had the place to ourselves.   We also went to see the Vittala Temple and that was amazing as well.  Although slightly busier than the rest of Hampi, it was still beautiful, especially as we went as the sun was beginning to go down so the light off the ruins was amazing. 

I was just wandering off to touch some more walls and stuff.  It was far too exciting,

Elegance personified

Our bed.  With Ruth, Tabs and Sarah still in it

I honestly could have skipped around this all day 

Everything's a farm in India

Being elephants in the Elephant Stables

We got back to the village of Hampi later that day, went to our hotel but the people there were trying to charge us more than we had agreed and we just not being very pleasant about it all, saying that we were out all day when they could have given our room to someone else who would pay the amount they were asking.  But why would we stay at the hotel all day when there were loads of ruins to see!? But we’ve been in India long enough now to know not to stand for any of that any more.  They’re just trying to rip us off.  So we headed off to find another hotel.  Luckily, the hotel we thought we had originally phoned but hadn’t (if you’re ever in Hampi and try to book a hotel from the Lonely Planet, just make sure you’re booking for the hotel you it says,  I think they’ve changed numbers) and they were lovely enough to let us stay in their rooftop café for free!  Which was amazing.  So we ordered a lot for dinner that night…  The rooftop café was amazing.   It was so nice to be able to look out under the roof to the stars and it was so comfy!   If I hadn’t been so tired and needed to fall asleep I would have appreciated it so much more! 

The next morning was another early one and other trip to the really clean, but really expensive, 10 rupees (okay yes, that is 10p but usually toilets here are 2), public toilets where all the local Indians were getting ready for their day.  It was Republic Day so we were greeted on the way in (after we had a waited for a really scary cow to move out the way of the door)  by a really excited man wishing us Happy Republic Day.  We planned to go on a coracle, well I didn’t, I’m not a fan of boats, but the others did.  However, the people who had the coracles were trying to charge them 400 rupees, far too much for a quick jaunt over the river.  So we just walked to other temple.  We just went to the one Sarah and I had been to because the other two hadn’t seen it yet.  While we were there we saw another ruined temple up a hill and decided to go and see it.  We maybe shouldn’t have gone up in the middle of the day with not much water but it was worth it for the view.  Despite my inelegance and lack of proper walking skills we all made it up alive!  And it was beautiful.  We could all the way across Hampi and it was amazing.  The terrain all the way around it really was incredible and all the ruins looked amazing from the top of the hill. 

Later that day we went out to the main working temple in Hampi which was really busy but it looked amazing.  And we think there may have been a wedding going on…  There was an elephant we could have been blessed by, Lakshmi, but she was a very smart elephant and knew when someone gave her less than 10 rupees so she wouldn’t bless you.  And with us all being tight, we just settled for looking at the elephant instead.  Then it was some shopping time!  Obviously.  But fun trousers are too hard to resist.  And after Sarah almost getting rabies from a monkey, we decided it was time for dinner.  At dinner we met a girl who was travelling India and then some more of Asia who had just finished in the north so we were grilling her on tips she had for when were up there.  It was actually remarkably helpful, thank you Becky!  Sarah and I had to run off to catch our bus a bit earlier than Tabs and Ruth so we had to say bye!  We’ve seen them so often in the last few months that it feels strange that we might not see them for a while!  So we’re currently planning a meet up at some point because going more than a few weeks is just going to be too hard! 

Lakshmi!  

So, the bus!  Well, when we booked it, it said it left from Hampi.  On the ticket it said our get on point was Hampi, I asked at a travel agent in Hampi and they said we could get on in Hampi.  However, when we got there, we discovered that it didn’t go from Hampi!  And our bus was due to leave in 10 from Hospet, half an hour away.  Thankfully, a lovely couple came to our rescue and phoned the bus company who said it would be okay, it would leave at half 8.  So after a rather fast rickshaw ride to Hospet we made it to our bus with plenty of time!  Now, sleeper buses seem like a great idea, but not when your bed is right at the back of the bus, so that you’re looking out onto all cars behind.  It was interesting though.  And I did manage to sleep, even if I was woken up every so often as I flew off the bed when the driver forgot to slow down to go over the bumps. 

We were dropped off at half four in the morning, a quick two and a half hours sleep at home, and back to school.  We are very dedicated to teaching I have to say.  Although not as dedicated as Tabs and Ruth who were getting into Tirupathi at quarter to 9 and were getting a rickshaw straight to school for 9.