- Thoughts
- School
- Afternoon shopping
Thoughts:
It's
really interesting teaching the kids at the school because I get to see what
the future generations of India will be like.
Although the education and discipline are very good they seem to lack
basic essentials of living, such as recycling - the kids will simply throw
rubbish on the ground and not think twice.
From what I've seen of India I think it is still very much a third world
country as virtually all of the buildings are run down, lots of poor people and
livestock everywhere, and nothing to suggest they are moving towards a first
world western society anytime soon.
Being here in India and living in this orphanage really puts the world into perspective. Things I previously thought were important or that I spent lots of time on seem to fade away and are no longer something I think about anymore. Instead only things that are eternal really start to matter.
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| Saturday afternoon work - Washing clothes and moving dirt |
School:
Every
Saturday morning the whole school does aerobics before class starts. From what I remember of New Zealand primary
school aerobics which had music, jumping, dancing etc this was nothing like it. It was more of a military exercise. All the students lined up very formally, with
exact spacing in between each other, and if anyone was out of line they would
get a whack from a stick on the head from a teacher. John Mark shouted out 1..2..3 etc. just like
a army officer would and all the students preformed a particular action at the
same time. This went on for about 20
minutes and then they all marched off to class.
I thought it was quite a good way of teaching them commands plus the
aerobic exercises were done reasonably well.
I'm
starting to get the hang of teaching, I'm enjoying the English classes as they
are quite simple. I find some of the
phases Indian's use when speaking English quite strange, for example, they
don't seem to understand phases like "This food is nice" but they all
understand "This food is super", and instead of asking "How are
you?" they all ask "have you had your breakfast/lunch/dinner?". Also I've noticed a lot of Indians shake there head in a strange sideways figure eight type of way which is to mean okay
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| Driving through the town of Hunsur |
Afternoon shopping:
In the
afternoon I went with a few of the adults into the town of Hunsur to buy some
formal clothes for school while they were buying vegetables and others
foods. They told me Saturday is not a
very busy day but there were still lots of people everywhere. We dropped off a few people at a supermarket
to buy food while me and one of the older boys went to buy a SIM card for my
phone. Most of the shops are very small
and basic looking. We pulled up and
stopped right outside the shop half of the road, I don't think anyone cares
about parking. There were a few people hovering over the counter but we just
pushed in and told the owner what we wanted.
I feel very much out of my comfort zone when I'm in public places as
everyone keeps looking at me because I stand out as being a foreigner. An old man with a deformed foot hobbled
towards me asking for money but I just stuck with the older boy from the
orphanage. It is very difficult to get a
SIM card in India as you need to provide so much information, such as copy of
photo ID, parents details, signature etc. but we managed to get one in the end.
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| Purchased two formal pants and shirts |
Next we
headed around to another shop to buy some formal clothes for school. I've found out that it is illegal for school
teachers to wear shorts, they must dress formal during school hours, and I only
brought one pair of pants with me to India.
Shopping for clothes was a real strange experience. I told the shop keeper my size and he showed
me lots of different types of clothes and then I tried them on in a very small
dressing room that felt like it was 100 degrees inside it. The clothes were actually very nice once I
found which ones fitted me. I gave the
older boy with me my money and he bargained with the shop keeper. It started out as 3000 rupees which is $70
NZD for two shirts and two pants but after a bit of talking he accepted 1500
rupees which is $35 NZD. Very cheap for
the amount of clothes I received. The
shop keeper also gave me a book on Islam and then we went our way. I definitely get the feeling of not being
very safe when in public but I'm thankful to have people that I can follow
around.
Tomorrow is Sunday so during the morning we will have a meeting to remember the Lord and in the afternoon there is free time which many of the kids like to play some type of sport. Apologies for the delay on getting these posts up as there was no internet during the week. I really appreciated the comments and emails that I am receiving as it very encouraging to know someone on the other side of the world is praying for me.
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