Day 5: School Time

Day 5 consisted of the following:

• Getting ready for school
• School time
• At the orphanage

Friday 13 November 2015

Getting Ready for School:
A bell rang at 6:30am and all the children ran into a hall and starting singing a morning prayer for 10 minutes, it was a really nice and unique way to be woken up, much better than the loud speaker for muslim prayers.  We had breakfast at around 8am and it was by far the best breakfast I've ever had.  Really nice toast, butter, jam, cheese, eggs and banana.  I think it must of taken a fair amount of effort to make these meals for us but Keith said that it is custom to provide the best for guests.  


The temperature and weather were both very pleasant all day.  At around 9am all the children got dressed into their school uniforms, they looked very smart and proud to be wearing them.  A large school bus pulled up outside and all the kids pilled on board, the bus look very overloaded as it had a kids from other villages on it already, but Keith said that it's normal to fit as many as physically possible on board.  We were told we would go visit the school at 11am so we had some time of rest and relaxing.  Still trying to get over a sore throat and blocked noise but feeling a bit better each day.

Picture of the children at the school

School Time:
At 11am we headed out to the school, it was about a 10 minute drive.  We drove through the town centre of Hunsur which was quite busy.  Google maps say that Hunsur's population is about 30,000 but Shanthi's son, Immanuel said that it is actually around 130,000.  The school is down a long dirt road which was full of bumps, but it is in a very good location, away from the noise of the shops and next to a large river.  The school has around 330 children between ages 5-14.  When we pulled up to the school, all the children were outside sitting down in a line getting ready to start P.E class.  The P.E. teacher is a very nice young man named John Mark.  Straight away I picked up on how well mannered all the children were, sitting patiently for their turn.  

Half way through the class the teacher stopped the children and got them to all sit in rows facing two chairs, which were for us.  We were introduced to everyone with a very warm welcome.  Keith told a bible story and then I introduced myself to everyone.  They all had such a curiosity look on their face.  A few of the children stood up and asked us questions, the first question that was asked to me was "Why did you come to India",  I replied by saying that I came to India to teach you english, maths and about God.  They were all very interested in me and afterwards lots of them rushed up to me just to shake my hand and say hello.  All the teachers were every pleased to see me and asked if I would take a class to teach them spoken english.  

I still can't get over how little these children have and yet how happy they are, it's just amazing. We headed back to the orphanage at 1pm and was told that the school needed to shut early today because of danger from a big dispute between muslims and hindus, apparently a hindu leader was killed the other day and it has sparked fights between the two. 

Lunch time at the school

At the Orphanage:
Later during the day some of the older children lead me down the back of the orphanage and showed me all of the different trees and vegetables growing.  One of them climbed up a big coconut tree, knocked a few down and broke them open for me to drink.  I notice they all call me "uncle", Keith says it's because they don't have any family and see me as their uncle.  The children followed me everywhere and I had a good talk with them, they kept telling me that they are so happy that I have come to stay with them.  I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable now and very thankful for being able to stay here.

Picture of outside the orphanage

Tomorrow is the Prime Mister of India's birthday and national children's day.  Everyone will be going to the school for dancing, games and a special event.  I'm really enjoying every moment that I'm here, but can see that the next few weeks will be really challenging with having to learn to be able to teach everyone.