firstly, i am putting hundreds of photos on facebook all the time if you want to look, or if not i should be able to get some of the best ones on to the blog.
28/8/2010 just a quick recap as usual. got up early, washed my clothes and it was boiling! got on a tiny bus to town, wandered round and bought school supplies. had a very spinachy lunch and went on a boat with loads of people, it was top we just rowed about and took photos. a very peaceful day.
29/8/2010 woke up and had 5 pancakes with nutella that i got off another volunteer. we had enough electricity to watch most of pearl harbour. got a massively painful electric shock when i took my dodgy indian torch out of the dodgy indian plug socket in a wall made of poo and hay. oh well, just a small blister and a broken torch later i survived. went into town on a massive tuc tuc with loads of volunteers. went in a swimming pool. there was about 20 of us just playing games and listening to music it was loads of fun. it was 46 degrees at its hottest, ouch! met two women from oregon which was fun because i gave them loads of advice and they thought i was in my early 20s and i must have lived there for a long time. ate on the roof of a hotel, first omlette in a month went down very well. had a walk throguh the market on my own, a rather 'rasta' south african couple had a blazing row with an indian man about humility, and the price of his guitars. it was funny to watch as the whole street treated it like a soap episode and we just stared. after it fizzled out i went further and met a couple from camebridge who were travelling. we exchanged some useful information about india and went our seperate ways. i was proud to be able to say that i was a teacher. had some ice cream and went to bed feeling optomistic about the week ahead at school.
30/8/2010 the wild dog in our shower gave birth! 4 puppies, very cute. I'm starting to miss rain. i started singing don't worry about a thing by bob marley and the whole camp ended up humming it which made me laugh. It was boiling again. I was on a tuc tuc and i had a chat with a guy on a motorbike behind whilst we were moving. he was friendly but he winked at me too much for my liking. i am learning slang such as stern, and raaaaah. i suppose that is likely being that people are from so many different areas of the uk. I got to school, and enjoyed it. I LOVE the kid who i call charmander. he is full of life. i played football with about 30 kids and they just didn't stop smiling. after i got back from school i found out one of my mum's parcerls had arrived which made my eyes light up. i got a tin of beans and some noodles. i was so happy i could not contain it. I spent an hour marking the kids' work and i learnt a lot about their abilities. they worked as a team to kill a huge hornet in class today, and also they worked together to get rid of a huge spider which looked more like a scorpion. scorpions live in our room actually, with a rat, several geckos, and many other creatures. I waved at a load of strangers out of the bus who all waved back, as indian people usually do. I missed home very much on this day, but i feel at least as though i am doing a bit of good now. talking on the phone to people i care about is keeping me sane! we moved rocks in the afternoon for two hours, i just put oasis on my ipod and time went quickly enough. Oh, tony if you're reading this - I met the austrian lacrosse coach in a restaraunt!
31/8/2010 got about 5/6 hours sleep. the heat and humidity is taking it's toll. i feel drenched in sweat all the time. i had my tin of cold baked beans for breakfast which i was very greatful for. the kids decided to be naughty at school today so i had to do a lot of moving them about and telling them to shhhhhh. they call me white boy in hindi, they don't mean it in a bad way but i try hard to get them to use my name. still marking their books, and giving stickers to the hard workers. Me and my group of teachers work pretty well together in general. the kids are of very different abilities so we try and work hard to accomodate for that. I spent ten minutes just teaching charmander because he struggles with numbers, and i always give keku hard questions as she is very clever...etc. Cockroaches crickets hornets geckos and birds roam the class. i think if that happened in england there would be pandemonum! i played some bob marley to a hindi lady with no english and she bobbed along enough to suggest she liked it. the camp have started dropping like flies again. there are so many random illnesses, i dare not describe them. there have been a vast amount though. i beat one of the staff at chess which turned him into a laughing stock for the other staff members and it was good for my ego too. had a rubbish afternoon, tired of moving rocks and missing home a lot. i don't mind hard work but this seems pointless. i don't know if i was worn out or homesick but i had a rubbish night i was just unhappy. I hoped to wake up in a better frame of mind.
1/9/2010
woke up doubled over in pain. desperate to go the loo, it's been 9 days! still went to school. taught the kids some handwriting and they did ok. had a bit of a row with some indian teenagers but neither of us really understood what we were saying to it descended to taking the piss out of eachother in our own language. The ground at school started literally shaking, it turned out to be mining nearby but it was enough to scare us all. in the afternoon we dug holes for plants and played a bit of cricket. finally went to the loo after 4 laxatives, went to bed and watched the lightning for an hour or so.
2/9/2010 Woke up in a lot of pain again. i am going to the loo but it's an extremely painful trip. We had a couple of hours meetings to evaluate the trip so far. Went to town with some volunteers and had chicken for lunch, it was great. i bought some cornflakes as well to have dry at camp. turns out i have cost the insurance rather a lot of money when i went to the hospital, oh well. the camp spent an hour cleaning the whole place and it is now a lot cleaner. the boys cleaned the toilets and sinks which was a messy job due to the maggots, scarabs etc. It chucked it down with rain at night. It's rained twice in 5 weeks which is apparently a 7 year record. mental........
3/9/2010 in the boys room we decided it might have come to the time where we should prank some of the girls. we discussed hiding chappatis in lockers, and making chairs mysteriously vanish. we turned up to school with out the key to our room and so we had to teach outside. we made the best of it and drew pictures whilst teachinf them about animals. Most of the kids don't even know their birthday because they don't celebrate them so their age does not seem to matter to them. i arrived at camp to two more parcels off mum with bisuics and snacks in them. my happiness levels sky rocketed i feel very lucky as many people haven't been sent anything. We spent 2 hours planning the next weeks work and it was very productive. there are two other teachers in my classroom, one i like a lot and we work really well as a team. another is highly lazy and has a case of can't-be-arsed-syndrome. I shall leave her too it, she has nothing to be proud of when she gets home though. At night one of the lads sat up too quickly and banged his head on the bed, i laughed myself to sleep.
conclusion - today has been an eventful day, so i shall write about it next week. i'm ill again, dhiarrhoea and it is horrible. hope everyone is ok. half way point now which feels good :)
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