Trip to Shirdi

Just one week after my stay in Mumbai I got again the chance to see an important place in India. All the blind children were sponsored a trip to Shirdi, a spiritual place for Sai Baba and the second most important temple in India.
We set off from the school n Saturday morning, staring with a “farewell procedure” which I basically had to perform. It meant among other things breaking a coconut and spilling its water on the bus, but also some sacred signs were painted on it and incense sticks burned. – it took us nearly seven hours to reach Shirdi and for me it was a surprise how calm and patient all of the students were. Although traveling in two buses there was not much space and comfort, but with singing Indian and (some) English songs, listening to music and few stops, time passed (and no one complained). Again and again slogans like “Jey sai nadki”, “Sai babaki” and others could be heard as well in the bus as on the temple complex. No matter who it cried, whether it was a small girl or an old man, it was always enthusiastically responded with “jey” by everybody, very often several times after another. I’ve never seen such a passion before.
After dinner all of us drove with the bus from our accommodation to the temple itsel. On a small stage the kids and two teachers presented a few religious songs. It was followed by a speech which introduced me to the crowd as well. Everything was fimed and photographed and appeared in the newspaper a few days later.and thus our group got a lot of attention.
Due to its importance and popularity the temple was as always very crowded. Fortunately we didn’t have to stand in the cue and got to all the important places in relatively little time. But although being treated differently than the other visitors there was a lot of rush and hurry and especially for me who doesn’t know a lot about Sai Baba (who is fur Hindus probably like Jesus for Christians), it was hard to find peace and the right spiritual mood.
The next day we traveled back, after having an interesting and uncommon night for me, sleeping close together on one room with approximately 50 girls and ladies. On our way we stopped in Saputara and the children got the chance to do some nice activities like a boat trip or a ride on a “rollercoaster”.

I stayed about four days with the blind and much more important than the trip to Shirdi was that it gave me the chance to get to know the kids better and improve our relationship. Unfortunately language is still the biggest barrier and sometimes avoids good communication and interaction. But at least I could help the staff and also do some teachings.

Christmas vacation

This year my Christmastime and New Year were totally different. First of all I had never spent these days having an average temperature of 30 degrees Celsius instead of cold weather and hopefully snow. On the other hand the religious aspect played an important role. More than 80 % of the Indian population is Hindus directly followed by Muslims. Only a few are Christians and thus Christmas is not much celebrated. Only 25th is a national holiday and most of the schools don’t give vacations, so the one where I’m staying. But because of my faith and due to the fact that I had never seen Mumbai, this was the perfect time. It was there when I saw the first Christmas decorations.
I stayed in this metropolitan city for 8 days at two families’ homes. Because they never celebrated Christmas or New Year I didn’t have it either, but I got the chance to see many things and get to know another part of India and Indian life. On 25th I went to see Mount Mary Church and had at least a little bit of Christmas atmosphere. Afterwards I went for some shopping to Linking Road. The next days consisted basically of sightseeing, combined with a lot of traveling through Mumbai. Thus I visited most of the places where the terror attacks had taken place like Tajmahal Hotel, Oberoi, Trident and the Gateway of India. Unfortunately there was a lot of security so we couldn’t get very close. Furthermore I visited the Elephanta Caves, a world heritage site, the Wankele Stadium, Helen-Keller-Institute for deaf and deafblind, went to Juhu Beach, and a handloom exhibition and a special dome-cinema. I also got the chance to visit a laughter club once and had a very nice and funny experience there. Starting in the early morning it was a mixture of physical exercises interrupted by different laughingmethods and -versions.

Actually I had expected big celebrations and fireworks on New Years Eve, but due to the bomb blast nearly al the parties etc. were closed and most of the open shops and restaurants were shut down by the police right after 12 o clock. Thus, and also because of some cultural and family reasons, I had a very quiet start into 2009, although being in one of the biggest cities of the world.

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