My flow of life over the last week has largely followed the patterns of the kids at the school and the villages surrounding Kaniyanbadi. The kids begin arriving around 8:30am and typically run to the main play area in between the classrooms. For an hour or so as kids arrive we play a variety of games from naming things in English/Tamil, cricket (I still don't understand the rules - except the basic idea that you hit a ball with a flat stick), tag, and a game where you draw a number of boxes in sand - throw a rock into a box - and proceed to hop in a pattern I'm still figuring out until you pick up the rock again - like all great games if you fall you lose).
The kids take six classes - Tamil, Social Studies, Maths, English, Environmental Science and General Knowledge. They get a mid-morning break to play, lunch (little kids get one scoop of rice and sauce, bigger kids get two or three - usually you can get seconds), and then playtime again at the end of the day before assembly. I've been joining them for classes - English for the 4th and 5th graders - and Anarchy of the two classes (upper and lower) of Kindergarteners.
Before school we walk or bike into the main village, Kaniyanbadi. We have a regular restaurant - open air with a statue of a local God who looks eerily like Hulk Hogan (I'm not the only one to notice). The TV blares Indian music videos - usually a romantic dance off set in all of a beach, Mumbai, and the Himalayas. My favorite breakfast is Idly - a sort of boiled doughy substance to which you apply delicious spicy sauces and coconut chutney. Then we proceed to the tea stand. There are tea stands in every other shop - but we almost always go to the same one. We are loyal. Tea is served in small glasses - sugar is put into the cup - then milk - then hot water is poured over the tea into another glass. The tea maker then mixes the tea, milk and sugar by pouring from one glass into another in a quick arc.
The tree house is almost completed - it is totally amazing. There are a series of walkways to the first floor - then a ladder to the second floor which is at the treetops. You feel like you are on top of the world.
This weekend a bunch of students from the University of Madras came to volunteer. They are planning on building an open air meditation center on the school grounds - with bamboo supports centered around a big tree they will plant in the middle. The area has been covered with concrete - so we spent a day smashing concrete (which is incredibly hot and satisfying) and removing it in wheelbarrows. The students, were mostly from northeast Indian states like Mizoram Sikkim and Nagaland. This part of the country is unlike the rest of Indian in religion (heavily Buddhist, animist or Christian), physical appearance (more like southeast Asia), weather (incredibly lush green and cool and rainy) and language (all local languages - many many of them - not from the same language families as Hindi or Tamil). The area has several active insurgencies including some that have lasted 50 years since right after Indian independence. The students have videos on their cell phones of insurgents marching to revolutionary songs.
After our hard work we went to visit the Golden Temple near Vellore. In contrast with the Temple visited with Santosh in Chennai - which was a wondrous and spiritual place - the Golden Temple is appalling. First of all they are not kidding - the temple is built of gold: 1.5 tons of it. It was not built in some long ago era when kings ruled and the needs of common people were dismissed out of hand - rather it was completed in 2007. In front of the temple there are hundreds of people selling plastic trinkets and noisemakers to survive (including young kids). The temple builders are justifiably defensive. The walkway to the temple (it takes two-three hours standing in line to get inside) is lined with banners in English/Tamil/Hindi stating: "Some say that you could build thousands of hospitals and schools instead of building a temple of gold... but this temple will inspire tens of thousands of hospitals and schools."
I've been driving the motorbike around. I rode yesterday from the school down back roads from the school to the base of the mountains that surround this valley. In contrast to Kaniyanbadi, a modern village of concrete, insane traffic, burning piles of garbage, (along with temples, a million tea stands and people who you've never met that pull over on their motorcycle as you are walking to town and motion you to get on back and drop you off at the very restaurant you eat breakfast at every morning) - the other nearby villages subscribe to a whole different pace of life. When I motorbiked by midday - the buildings are awash in sunlight. Nothing moves fast. There are dogs sleeping in the middle of the street. Orange, pink and purple houses brightened by the midday sun. Old women sitting on their window sills and parades of goats and the occassional cow being lead through the streets. The countryside is full one one lane dirt roads, deeply green rice paddies filled with women in brightly colored saris, mango and tamarind orchards and the occasional home brick factory. As I reached the base of the mountain I found a farmer leading his bull which tilling the land and a road that turned from rutted dirt to pure mud.
I'll stay here for three more weeks - tomorrow my bicycle will finally be fixed!
Ryan
P.S. New pictures of kids, cows, and chameleons at right.
The kids take six classes - Tamil, Social Studies, Maths, English, Environmental Science and General Knowledge. They get a mid-morning break to play, lunch (little kids get one scoop of rice and sauce, bigger kids get two or three - usually you can get seconds), and then playtime again at the end of the day before assembly. I've been joining them for classes - English for the 4th and 5th graders - and Anarchy of the two classes (upper and lower) of Kindergarteners.
Before school we walk or bike into the main village, Kaniyanbadi. We have a regular restaurant - open air with a statue of a local God who looks eerily like Hulk Hogan (I'm not the only one to notice). The TV blares Indian music videos - usually a romantic dance off set in all of a beach, Mumbai, and the Himalayas. My favorite breakfast is Idly - a sort of boiled doughy substance to which you apply delicious spicy sauces and coconut chutney. Then we proceed to the tea stand. There are tea stands in every other shop - but we almost always go to the same one. We are loyal. Tea is served in small glasses - sugar is put into the cup - then milk - then hot water is poured over the tea into another glass. The tea maker then mixes the tea, milk and sugar by pouring from one glass into another in a quick arc.
The tree house is almost completed - it is totally amazing. There are a series of walkways to the first floor - then a ladder to the second floor which is at the treetops. You feel like you are on top of the world.
This weekend a bunch of students from the University of Madras came to volunteer. They are planning on building an open air meditation center on the school grounds - with bamboo supports centered around a big tree they will plant in the middle. The area has been covered with concrete - so we spent a day smashing concrete (which is incredibly hot and satisfying) and removing it in wheelbarrows. The students, were mostly from northeast Indian states like Mizoram Sikkim and Nagaland. This part of the country is unlike the rest of Indian in religion (heavily Buddhist, animist or Christian), physical appearance (more like southeast Asia), weather (incredibly lush green and cool and rainy) and language (all local languages - many many of them - not from the same language families as Hindi or Tamil). The area has several active insurgencies including some that have lasted 50 years since right after Indian independence. The students have videos on their cell phones of insurgents marching to revolutionary songs.
After our hard work we went to visit the Golden Temple near Vellore. In contrast with the Temple visited with Santosh in Chennai - which was a wondrous and spiritual place - the Golden Temple is appalling. First of all they are not kidding - the temple is built of gold: 1.5 tons of it. It was not built in some long ago era when kings ruled and the needs of common people were dismissed out of hand - rather it was completed in 2007. In front of the temple there are hundreds of people selling plastic trinkets and noisemakers to survive (including young kids). The temple builders are justifiably defensive. The walkway to the temple (it takes two-three hours standing in line to get inside) is lined with banners in English/Tamil/Hindi stating: "Some say that you could build thousands of hospitals and schools instead of building a temple of gold... but this temple will inspire tens of thousands of hospitals and schools."
I've been driving the motorbike around. I rode yesterday from the school down back roads from the school to the base of the mountains that surround this valley. In contrast to Kaniyanbadi, a modern village of concrete, insane traffic, burning piles of garbage, (along with temples, a million tea stands and people who you've never met that pull over on their motorcycle as you are walking to town and motion you to get on back and drop you off at the very restaurant you eat breakfast at every morning) - the other nearby villages subscribe to a whole different pace of life. When I motorbiked by midday - the buildings are awash in sunlight. Nothing moves fast. There are dogs sleeping in the middle of the street. Orange, pink and purple houses brightened by the midday sun. Old women sitting on their window sills and parades of goats and the occassional cow being lead through the streets. The countryside is full one one lane dirt roads, deeply green rice paddies filled with women in brightly colored saris, mango and tamarind orchards and the occasional home brick factory. As I reached the base of the mountain I found a farmer leading his bull which tilling the land and a road that turned from rutted dirt to pure mud.
I'll stay here for three more weeks - tomorrow my bicycle will finally be fixed!
Ryan
P.S. New pictures of kids, cows, and chameleons at right.
does that say anarchy of the two classes? For kindergarten?
ReplyDeleteare they playing hopscotch?
ReplyDelete