Day 9-12: Indian Wedding at School

Day 9-12 consisted of the following:

• School
• Driving
• Upcoming

Tuesday 17 - Friday 20 November 2015

School:
The next few days at school were a bit easier as I'm starting to get use to how things work.  I'm taking more English and less maths classes as I find them a lot easier to teach.  For the English classes all the students have a textbook which is distributed from the Karnataka State Government.  It is actually a very good textbook, it is to cover 6 months of teaching.  I think we are to teach them one exercise each day, an exercise generally consists of a story or poem to read then questions to answer.  The classes that I teach are between 3rd and 8th standard which I think is about 8-14 year olds.  It is quite difficult to overcome the language barrier at times but most of the children understand basic English words.

I'm really getting on well with the students and other teachers.  I'm good friends with John Mark who is the P.E. teacher and also a type of vice principle.  He was previously named after a Hindu god but when he got baptised he changed his name to a christian name.  During lunch together he told me that the Lord is great because we can have fellowship together even though we are from different countries.

Me with two of the older boys from the orphanage

Driving:

I still can't get over the driving in India, it is absolutely insane, nothing like I've ever seen before.  The bus trip to and from school is quite the experience.  A huge bright yellow school bus jammed packed with children, feeling like its 100 degrees inside and bouncing and sliding all around.  The driver is extremely good at dodging all the crazy things on the road while talking on a cell phone and looking over his shoulder yelling at people. The roads are full of people, cows, dogs, motorbikes, cars, buses, small trucks, carts with ox's everywhere.  Road rules and police don't seem to exist so it's a free for all and the bigger vehicles generally get the right of way.  I feel so exhausted after getting off the bus from just holding my breath at all the near misses, literally within millimeters of hitting things. 

The orphanage/children's home has been opened since 1993 and a few of the older ones have been here since the start.  It is incredible to think of the hope they have been given at the orphanage.

Lunch table at the wedding 

Wedding:

Thursday and Friday mornings were raining quite steadily which made all the dry dirt paths around the orphanage turn into mud and made doing anything quite difficult.  There was a wedding taking place at the school with around 500 people that attended.  The bride is the sister of a man who stayed at the orphanage, so Raju, Shanthi and everyone from the orphanage was attending.  School was running as normal even though all of these colourful tents and smartly dressed people were just outside. At lunch time all the teaches walking over to the lunch table at the wedding and we had a famous south Indian dish called biryani, it has rice, ginger, garlic and chilli powder which tasted very nice.  There was also a desert, a very sweet tasting green soup with vegetables and others things in it.  Still can't get the hang of eating with my hands, I just make a mess everywhere.

It was a very strange experience walking around the wedding as I was literally the only European there and stood out like crazy.  Lots of people were running up to me and shaking my hand and wanting to say hello. They were being very welcoming and even insisted I stand next to the bride and groom for a picture.  I get the feeling that very few Indian's have had much experience interacting with Europeans as so many of them were amazed at seeing me, trying out their English and pointing out that my skin colour is different to theirs.  I didn't have any classes on in the afternoon so I spent most of the time talking with the older boys from the orphanage who were at the wedding.  They were telling me all sorts of things about India and pointing out the different buildings around the school.

Picture with the Bride and Groom 

Upcoming:

I'm now taking a bible study/talk for everyone at the orphanage from 7-7:30pm every weekday.  It is going to be very difficult to manage both preparing for school and a bible talk each day.  There is very little free time at the orphanage as the days consist of: morning prayer and singing, cleaning duties, school, homework, bible talk, evening prayer and singing and then dinner at about 8pm.

I becoming really attached to the children at the orphanage and I know when it comes time to leave it will be very difficult.  It feels strange to know that I am having such a big impact on each of the children's lives, as they keep thanking me for being here.  I think what really stands out is that I take a real interest in each of them as I think they have never experienced it before.

I'm slowing getting over this flu and starting to feel better, but I'm still really tried at the end of the day from teaching, hoping I'll get use to it soon enough.  Tomorrow is Saturday and school runs from 8:30am to 11:20am, it is apparently the law from the government that schools run on Saturdays, which I think is a bit strange.  Planning to head out with the older boys in the afternoon to the shops in Hunsur to buy some more clothes.