Attraction and joy

The constant changes between the two schools give me a good relieve in teaching because the students start each time with new energy and enthusiasm. They seem to be so happy to have me here and to learn totally new things, to have new equipment and games and to get to know them, that my teaching is combined with even more joy. Watching the photos in the evenings encourages me in doing the right thing and having made the right decision to come here.
Meanwhile we are working with several different tools and all of them are also very attractive to people working here or passing by and thus I usually have a few more “students”. It is great to see how people of all age groups are working together and learning the same things. – But because my activities are so attractive to all the kids I’m sometimes having several classes together, meaning 30-40 students for me and free time for the other teacher if he likes, but I suppose that is part of India – be flexible and learn to handle new situations, many things don’t go their strict way.

A totally different world

The blind school is located in Dang-district, 2-3 hours drive from Navsari. It is a forestry mountain area, also called “Jungle” by Indians, with nothing more than small villages. Thus staying at this school was totally different from my time in Navsari. Because the school doesn’t have its proper buildings yet and in general only very basic and simple things I had to stay in a tent. The only people were the students and staff and except for a lot of traffic going to the far away hill station and some locals and wild animals there is nothing around. Thus it’s not very odd that also school life was more flexible and spontaneous than it already was in Navsari. And when I finally managed to get a fixed schedule for the deaf school, I had to realize that this was impossible for Dang and the easiest was to adjust. No matter how often I asked about the program for me and which classes and lessons I would have, the answers were always different and in the end reality as well;. Thus I always go to know the class right at the beginning of the lessons which left me no time for specific preparations or planning. I had to decide immediately what to do and be present to give the class structure and be a good teacher. This was even harder because of my lack of Gujarati and since language is the most important thing in communicating with blind it left not many opportunities for me. But fortunately the children were very happy to have me with them and very keen to learn new western – especially English - songs.

The first day I was having standard 1-4 all the time and had to bring out everything I know. Starting with drawing for the partially blind and arts & crafts for the totally blind children I continued with music and finally games. Fortunately I had two teachers with me which supported me a little, especially when it came to explaining things. Although not everybody did always sing correctly and they did not always understand my instructions we managed quite well and at the end of the day most of the students already new a new German song.

The following days were always different but generally I was teaching alone, having one or two classes (7-25 children, sometimes also about 30). Every day I was surprised by new changes in schedule, timing and program occurring and after a while and having some real problems with it at the beginning I managed to become more flexible and accept their system. For example it was very likely to happen that I had one class for more than one hour instead of 35 minutes (= one period). Sometimes lessons never took place and usually I had to pick the right information out of several about what classes I would have, what made it even more flexible. Sometimes there were days when I was ready to go to a lesson but actually no school was going on because of a national holiday or some work the students had to do in the ground. But after a while I found out how to handle it best and very often just asked the kids whether they wanted to do drawing or music, because both things were new to them in a way and the best I could offer them to do.

My 11 days in Dang were very different each. Sometimes it mad a lot of fun to teach and make music together with the kids, but sometimes it was also very exhausting and difficult because of above mentioned problems. With hardly speaking the language it made it hard to start initiatives. Music lessons sometimes became very long for me, because I had to sing all the time and the students basically copied me and hardly any explanations or interactions were possible. But I learned to do different things with them, let them listen to western music, did some recordings and used a few percussion instruments to accompany our singing. Latter usually led to a mix of western and Indian music bit it was quite alright because with giving the drums etc. to musically talented students their rhythms usually suited. And if not, it was not always a big problem because even the singing was sometimes quite mixed up. Some of the kids didn’t seem to have a feeling for the tunes at all and just sang enthusiastically the wrong melody, but because of usually big groups the others were very often able to cover them. The main problem for all of them was to understand little differences in our western music scale.
Although it was not always easy and I was confronted with many other problems I had a nice and intensive time in Dang. Besides teaching the students I did also learn to make rotis and finally sing an Indian song and as I found out later also improved my Gujarat. In the end the students and me got to know each other better and I think next time will definitely be easier because I do basically know how everything goes. And in the end the students and staff let me know that they are looking forward for me to come again soon.

Time goes on...

India is a country which differs to Germany in nearly everything. Now that I have really started teaching everyday, I’m also confronted with timing and organizing a lot. Because I’m a person usually needing and having a lot of structure, the Indian spontaneity and flexibility is even more challenging.
After several hours of discussion I finally managed to get a fixed schedule. And although it took some days to find out everything and fix it and still changes always happen (and always will) I do now have a plan what to do every day and when I have to be where.
The fact that I’m sometimes whole days or weeks teaching classes on my own and sometimes together with other teachers, especially the drawing teacher whose schedule I’ve got, has become quite normal and beside showing the students different circus skills – especially juggling – and games I do also learn a way of giving drawing classes.
Sometimes it’s very difficult to explain juggling. On one hand there is the language barrier – because although learning sign language quite fast I’m still far away of being fluent in it – and on the other hand for the children juggling and all sorts of circus activities have a totally different meaning then I got to know it in Germany. Very often it’s more like a game then a special skill. Thus it’s not always easy to bring structure in the groups. But by just letting it go and working with each student separately I could see a good progress. I’ve begun to learn new ways and methods of teaching and explaining and after practicing a little and having a break for a few days suddenly many students seem to have understood the process and are very successful now. It is always a great pleasure to be able to tell them that they have got it and see them smile, see their joy and their new efforts to improve.
One other thing I had to learn to deal with in the right way was the age. Especially for drawing age mattered a lot, while for games it often played a less important role. Concerning juggling etc. I had to make a huge difference in explaining on one hand, but on the other hand age finally didn’t matter at all. In all age-groups were students that understood and learned very fast, sometimes the younger even faster than the older, and others who needed more explanations and help. But no matter how long it took, in the end all students who succeeded at some point were very keen to continue practicing. Thus it will be very interesting to see how they continue after my return from the blind school.

Schoolstart

On Monday, November 17th, the school finally started again after 3 weeks vacation. In connection with that I was supposed to give my first proper lessons, but because in India reliability is not always a big thing, everything started slowly and the students even continued coming back on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thus my lessons started slowly as well and on the first two days I only had a few hours to teach and less students.
On Monday I started with juggling, having a group of nine boys. They all participated well and were quite keen to learn it. After a while, though, it became clear that it was not always easy for me to explain everything to them in sign language and for some of them it became a bit hard to hold concentration. But because of showing them different versions of juggling we managed to do good training for at least 40 minutes, until many other students came as well having finished their lessons. For this matter we had to quit and just start playing games.
On Tuesday and Wednesday a beekeeping-seminar was being hold in the school and affected my teaching again. On Tuesday I was just able to play with the children, because all the lessons were canceled after the early morning. I brought out some material again and suggested games. It was very interesting to watch them play and see how they learned differently, picked up my ideas and brought in theirs. They were very happy about having me and the balls etc. there and for me it was a pleasure see them smile and very warming to hear their nice and clear laughter.
Wednesday was my first day of proper teaching and I immediately got a full schedule which meant being busy from at least 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., the normal school time. Actually I was meant to be with the sports and drawing teacher, but because he was busy this day I was on my own all the time. Just a few minutes after 11 o clock, I got my timetable and had to start teaching immediately. But everything went very well and the fascination, interest and joy of the students made it a lot easier for me. According to the age group and number of class members I had to vary and improvise the program every time.
Finally I can say I tried my best and had a very successful day with many different lessons, classes, students games and circus activities.
The rest of the week I kept teaching and introducing different versions of juggling and games to the students. Sometimes I was together with the teacher, sometimes on my own and sometimes it was easy to explain, but sometimes it was also very hard for the students to hold concentration and to understand the complexity of dealing with two or three balls at one time.
Beside teaching I got the chance to watch an English class and do some Yoga; And all the time it were not only the students who were learning but also me. Over the week I got to know some new games and new versions and I also realized the big difference of older and younger children in understanding and picking up new and foreign ideas. Unfortunately I’m not fluent in sign language which made it very often even harder to explain juggling and new games and will always be an additional difficulty.

The whole week I kept taking out playing equipment after school finished and thus made the students very happy. They usually never had so many things to play with but thanks to the group from the UK they are now very happy and satisfied and also thankful.
Because I’m living on school premises I’m together with the students nearly all the time and could play day and night with them if I wanted to. Thus the end of school time doesn’t mean that I’m out of everything. Usually I keep playing with them a little, go to their hostel in the evenings and talk to them, learn sign language or even learn some Indian cooking. My position here is very special, because I’m a foreigner and the only person doing this kind of job. That also means that the students are very interested and happy in having me around and really want to play with me all the time or be at least somewhere near. On the other hand it makes it a lot easier for me to get integrated and participate.

Divali vacation

During the three weeks Divali vacation (Indian Christmas) I travelled a lot around, saw many places and went to many peoples homes.

The first days I mainly stayed at families homes to celebrate Divali with them, which basically meant a big relativemeeting. According to the festival people were preparing special dishes and especially snacs and although New Year was a few days after Christmas, people were bursting firecrackers day and night.

Divali is the festival of lights and so little candles and lights could be seen every evening.

Rangoli - making pictures out of coloured glasspowder - belongs to Divali in the same way the candles do. The can be found at almost every door or in every court during the five days of the festival and make the homes look very nicely.

This is a picture seen in a special exhibition

After a few days I went to Daman to stay in a hotel at the sea for 2 1/2 days. Although it is known as a tourist place i could hardly find any foreigners and especially staying on the beach was sometimes very exhausting and annoying because my simple appearance seemed to be a big attraction, even more than in Navsari; and actually I had thought tha I was used to people staring and gazing at me all the time without any hesitation.

After coming back I went to Ahmedabad the next day. I had been invited to stay with an elderly couple which spends most of the day in an Ashram and lives very close to it, in the outscirts of the city.

I had a great time during those 12 days and especially during the first days I was mostly accompanied by some people in my age which made it even nicer. It gave me the chance to improve my knowledge about the Indian culture and gave me the chance to get to know the young peoples view. - Beside amusing activities like shopping I saw many ancient places and learned a lot about Jainreligion (the religion practised in the Ashram). I was confronted with a lot of spirituality and went to important places like Akshardam, Adalaj, centre for Dada Bhagwan and Gandhis Ashram.

Temple for Dada Bhagwan

Adalaj

Mobile hospital

From the very first beginning I was invited to accompany a new project the Manav Kalyan Trust had just started. Because of very bad health conditions and no medical support in nearby villages, people decided to provide the villagers with free medications. They also want to change minds and make the villagers more aware of food, health and hygiene, because most of them were suffering from lack of vitamins. Many of those people we went to had never been to a doctor, just because they couldn’t afford it to pay fourty rupees to got to a hospital etc.

At the moment I’ve been with the ambulance three times. First we went to some villages to see if medical support was welcome and to introduce the project to the people. The second time I went with the group from the U.K. and we saw in what poor conditions some of the people really were and watched the doctor providing them with medications. One of the villagers has had such a bad cancer for two years already that he’ll soon die of it and no doctor is able to help him anymore. – But most of the deceases were caused because of a lack of health awareness and nutrition.

Visitors from England

After one and a half weeks a group of young people from the England came over to do some activities with the children, meet some people, get to know India and to build bridges from the UK to India and overcome the gap the Indian and Pakistani Government always create.

The group, consisting of seven students of different heritage and all boys between 15-18 and four staff, stayed for two weeks and I was always with them. It was a really interesting, hard working, exhausting, but also happy and funny time and meant a good break for me and gave me good company.

At the blind school in Dang

The main aim of the group was to spend time with the children in the schools. Therefore we stayed in Dang at the blind school for about tree days and did a lot of activities. We had tree main groups: music, arts & crafts and sports. I was mainly involved in music, because this is what I’ll be mainly doing for the next few months. On the first day we brought many different rhythmic instruments and showed the children how to use them. They started playing immediately and hardly ever stopped. It was hard to give it a structure, also because they didn’t know western music and didn’t seem to have the same feeling for beats rhythms as we have. On the second day we chose to do some singing and began to teach them and easy African song, because the melody was very easy to understand and the words always the same. The song had only four lines and the last was the same as the first one. Still it was not quite easy to explain the song, because the always copied us and it seemed as if they’d never heard anything about an ostinato (a simple second melody, parallel going) or a round. Thus we split the group and I went practicing with the girls, while Don, the music teacher from the U.K., had the boys. The girls did really well and because of ‘my personal translator’ and one of the girls who was very good in singing, we finally managed to sing it in a round with two groups. For the boys the song seemed to be much harder and as soon as we put both groups together, it was hard to see any structure. The few percussion instruments we tried to use, made it even worse, but still the sound was great.

The children really enjoyed us staying at their school and did, beside music, a lot of arts & crafts like painting, paper chain making, fan making, scoobies, ballgames etc. and especially the boys loved to play cricket.

It was a great time for me and the group and we made a lot of experiences, but it was also very exhausting, because we had to stay at a different place, because of the lack of proper buildings, which was each ¾ hours drive away. In addition to that it was very hot and dusty with only few sheltered places, but the excitement of the children and their joy were of great importance to us. Unfortunately it was not as easy as in the deaf school to get in contact with the children. I never really knew how much they could actually see and sometimes a smile was answered but sometimes only words could help and unfortunately I’m still not able to speak Gujarati, except for some words and sentences.

Back in Navsari

As soon we got back, we tried to spend as much time as possible with the children in the deaf school and the school for mentally challenged children. They really liked our activities which were basically the same as at the blind school, except for music. Very interesting and nearly shocking was the first day for me, when we took out all sports equipment and games the group from England had brought. The children immediately grabbed things and started playing with such a passion that it became really hard for some to share and also fur us sometimes impossible to show them the actual purpose, because many times they didn’t know how to use the equipment properly.

When the children first saw me unicycling they hardly could even shut their mouths again. It was a big attraction but impossible to teach any of the students, because it was just too much. The students were grabbing it and everybody wanted to have a go first, but didn’t give others a proper chance. Finally some girls decided it would be better to put the unicycle away again, because it caused a lot of trouble. I hope I can get a small group of people to teach and show them some circus skills after the holidays.

Beside these activities, the group and I had to give interviews for TV and newspapers and we went to many different places like a hospital and a Muslim wedding, for which we extra bought Indian dresses.

Before the group left, the children did a big dancing performance and finally made a leaving ceremony with speeches and flower chains… for this occasion we had to do again a little press conference and now I’ve been in the newspapers so many times that visitors and people on the street already recognize me and know my name, before I’ve even met them.

Today was the last day in school for the children and all of them went on holidays. It’s Diwali – Indian Christmas and new-year – and the schools will be closed for three weeks.

Navratri and Garbadance

Just a few days after my arrival the Indian festival Navratri started. It includes a Garbadance, a traditional Indian dance, with prayer at the beginning. In nearly every street were coloured garlands and the citizens always made sure that this place looked nice and tidy. The festival lasted nine days and people were praying and dancing every night. Thus I got the chance to learn some completely different dancing just right after my arrival. The students dressed me up and one day we went out together and I was invited to have a quick look at some of the teacher’s homes. On the second day a TV-crew came to make a documentation of the Garbadance of the deaf and disabled children. I had to participate as well and got extra dancing lessons.

Beside that I went to a big public Garbadance twice. There were loads of people and the media was always around. I even had to give an interview once.

First week

In my first week in India I did a lot of different types of activities. When I stayed in the school during the day I mainly watched lessons or did at least try to watch, because most of the time the children and teacher started teaching me their sign language. After the lessons I usually spoke to the students, learned more words, showed them some games and got to know them and their life a little better. The kids are really nice and I was never able to just walk through the school premises without being noticed and greeted. Usually I received lots of smiles, waving hands, ‘thumbs up’ and polite ‘namaste-greetings’.

Several times I went out and visited an Ashram in the mountains or was invited to peoples homes. – Because Dandi, the place where Ghandi broke the salt law, is very close to the schools, I went there on October 2^nd, Gandhis birthday. I visited a memorial and a museum and we drove on the read he marched on when he came all the way down from Ahmedabad to the sea.

Introduction

I came to India on the 29th of September 2008 do six months voluntary work in a deafschool and a blindschool. The deafschool is located in Navsari in Gujarat, while the school for the blind children in Dangforest is. It's a very remote area and the school is just on the way to get its first proper building.
There are 89 children in the blindschool and about 300 in the deafschool. In connection with that there is a third school for mentally challenged children. All three schools are connected to the Manav Kalyan Trust which brought me to India.

On this blog will only post few of my thoughts and basically write down my actions and some of my experiences. That means there are many aspects left out which are worth talking about but either too private to be read by everybody or just to complex, complicated or too much to be written down in this place.

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