The word for the day is exhaustion. I am beginning to understand what parents mean when they say that they are always tired but love their children and are glad they had them. I truly enjoy the work we are doing here but its level of intensity hit me yesterday when I felt so exhausted that I was nauseous, as did many of my teammates. We debated if this was because of the jet lag (come on, it's been 5 days!), malaria pills (we refuse to read the list of 100 potential side effects), or the hard work. We settled for the latter.
Linda and I were excited about a day without construction. Instead, we went to Assisi, a daycare/orphanage, to join Ginny and Ann. When the car dropped us off, we found 40 kids ages 2 to 5 running over to greet us. OMG! They are so cute. I wanted to take them home with me. As soon as we sat down, they were sitting on us and staring at us with fascination.
One of the teachers did not show up today. This is common in India. Sadly, the State will look at teacher applications and randomly place teachers without considering vicinity of the school to their home. This means that some teachers travel three hours each way. (If they don't take the assigned job, they have to wait one year and reapply so they must take the job.) Since transportation is unreliable, if the teacher misses a connecting bus, she misses school!
Without a teacher, we had to make up a schedule. So we started the day with the ABC song, which is a bit different here. We then sang "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "The Hokey Pokey." Imagine getting these tiny kids in a circle doing the Hokey Pokey when there barely understand English and are unsure of who the heck these new people are!
The four of us volunteers separated off taking children to learn to write the ABCs. How does someone teach a person who speaks another language the ABCs? You just do! We sang the over and over, I pointed to the board a lot, and helped the kids maneuver their hand so they could correctly write or trace letters. I was as elated as they were when they got something correct. Oddly, when I would ask what the next letter was, they would either stare at me or guess. Instead, we had to re-sing the alphabet song so they could get the next letter...so that's 26 times.
During the afternoon, I went to work with the nuns at St. Joseph's. It is fun to teach conversational English because we get to learn about each others' cultures. Of course, we have to be careful of the topics because they are nuns. I was happy to hear that unlike arranged marriages, being a nun is not an arranged career. Each girl chose this as a career.
This brings me to the background of Indian the dowry. The history behind them is that when a girl gets married, she essentially leaves her family to join her husband's family. To make the transition a bit easier, parents would send her with things from the house. Over time, this evolved into demands by the husband's family. In some cases, a husband's family may be greedy and demand a ridiculous amount of worldly possessions like a house, car, family jewels, etc. It is true that sometimes, the husband's family will kill the wife if the dowry is not good enough. This was devastating to hear.
I am looking forward to my yoga class in an hour. We decided to hire a private instructor who comes here in the morning just before breakfast. I can't remember the name of this type of yoga. It is more about stretching and breathing, which is perfect for what we are doing.
And if you have comments on my blog, feel free to write them. I enjoy hearing from you. Also, some asked if they could forward the link - absolutely! I hope others read this and are inspired to participate in the great work we are doing.
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