Teaching Fun
This is a blog I wrote while working in Shillong, North East India.
July 26th, 2006
In 2 days I will have been in India 6 weeks. Like, what the hell? This place makes my summer go way too fast! Things are going great here. “Can I defer third year’ has crossed my mind once or twice. I hear the gang in Calcutta are having fun too which is cool.
Today was another crazy day. Started my morning ripping the meat off a chicken, then mixing it with this chicken substitute thing and rolling them together into balls. It was decided fairly lively that I should go back stirring cause my chicken balls kept falling apart. I think I’m going to be stirring for quite a while until I can prove myself. I tried cutting some veg thing the other day. Ended up cutting my finger and yelping “Oh, shit”. The ONE frikken time they listen to me is when I curse. So now I get a chorus of “Oh, shit” when I pop into the kitchen.
While we were cooking we were told one of the students, Johnstar, hadn’t been seen in over 24 hours. He left for school yesterday morning, never turned up at school and didn’t return home last night. His father is dying of TB and he’s suddenly the man of the house. Seems working, studying and housework is too much for a 13 year old so he headed off. We just heard tonight that he was found alive and well. His poor mother had been searching the river for 3 hours looking for his body. I offered to look in the river because I doubt they have a sub-aqua unit round here, but thankfully he headed home after ‘36 hours of playing with his friends!’
Lets see….what else have we been doing?? Myself and Sharon headed shopping one Saturday. But being Irish, and not the shopping type we were in the pub by about 2ish. Got talking to two Indian men, well boys really. They offered us a lift home. Now normally I’d never accept a ride home from a strange man but we’d just been so good lately we had to let loose. Turned out they both drove scooters and they brought us on a guided tour of Shillong. Only found out later that the guy we’re staying with had rang a load of people looking for us. There was no phone coverage in the pub so he thought something had happened. And our dear ol’ students of course spotted us flying around on the scooters. Guess we should have worn helmets. They’ve been making vroom vroom noises at me for a few days. But they seem to have forgotten that now thank God!
I went to Guwahati to collect Ciara from the airport. Tis a three hour drive. Took along 2 students so we’d have a lil welcoming committee. It was like something out of a Mr.Bean episode. Me trying to look after two really quiet kids with a…um…limited English vocabulary. I couldn’t get it out of them at breakfast what they wanted to eat. They kept just saying ‘Anything’. So I ordered a hell of a lot of things. Seems the waiter had worse English than the kids because what I got wasn’t what I ordered. But the guys ate everything. We arrived at the airport 2 hours early and Ciara’s plane was an hour late so we did a lot of hanging around. And it was like heat wave day in Guwahati. Under 3’s get into the airport free and one of the students, who says he’s 12 (most of them don’t know their ages) got in free! I was told the reason for the payment in Calcutta anyway was so beggars won’t go in. So ya 3 hours in the airport. I tried my best to entertain them. All I could think of do was eat food. So we had just about every kind of sweet, crisps and cake in the shop. Sure that went down well with two kids who are used to their boiled rice diet! Shock shock they were absent form school for a few days after that. We finally got Ciara and packed her into our taxi. Poor taxi guy was waiting about 3 and half hours for us. He must have been in a rush after that because he knocked a fella down at one stage. I was sure from the sound of the thud that the guy had to be dead. I was terrified to turn around. But when I did I saw the guy hobble away. Thought our driver wasn’t even going to stop, but he did…..to check his car! Our car got surrounded by people pretty quickly. Was one of our scarier moments. We had to head to the police station while they filled out forms and stuff. Don’t want to think about what the students told their parents about their day out with Miss. Claire and Miss. Ciara!
We brought eight of the kids to Cherapungee on Saturday. One of the guys, Brij, started throwing up 20 minutes into the journey, and I can’t remember him really stopping at all. He had to keep a bag with him to throw up in because the bus just kept going! We saw lots of waterfalls and brought them into a cave which was really cool. A lot of them were terrified of it but I think they still enjoyed it. We did what we do best and filled them with crap all day. think the chocolate started sometime around 9am. Got more photos taken with random Indian people. I always wonder, after they get their photo taken with us, what do they tell their families back home? Who do they say we are?!? Weird to think how many people have photos of us now.
Oh, dunno if I told you guys about Evangelene. She’s a student who was given a very small chance of surviving about 2/3 weeks ago. We were sent to the hospital, basically to say goodbye. They thought she had TB, then liver and kidney failure, then a heart problem, then something else, can’t quite remember. Well, they never found out what was wrong with her, but they somehow made her better! It was crazy, like a lil miracle. She got better so fast. Her mother came to the school to thank them for saving her life. Think the school paid for her medical bills and stuff.
Right…..what else…. Oh! We won a soccer game on Friday! It was brilliant. We were playing St.Edmunds, the mega rich school. They seem to have a different jersey everytime I see them train. They only played us as practise for a big tournament they have in Calcutta soon. Some of our lads played barefoot but we still kicked ass. 2-0 was the final score. Great goals from Kenny and Starly. The other team had a goal disallowed. I filmed it and I’m just editing it at the moment. They can’t wait to see their historic victory on the big screen.
K I could carry on all day but I’d say the only two people who’ll read even this far are my dad and Ciara, who was next to me when I started it.
Keep in touch lads.
Have fun
Claire
Tags: India, Shillong, Volunteering
cybersusst
nice blog u got here……… I m from Shillong and I studied in St’Edmund’s school….. workin in Bangalore right now and missing home a lot… reading this article made me nostalgic….:)……and by Providence do u mean br. eric d’souza’s school?
hi just reading ur blog i too was in that same school in india two years ago my secondary school the abbey in tipperary town do great work there and it was nice to read about ur experience,
Really nice blog u have there… I am from Shillong and had volunteered in Providence for a very short while… reading ur experiences der made me wish i had a little longer… but im actually writing an article on the school and have been viviting it often… Today I thought id check out if ders anything on the net… to my surpries i found quite a few… reading up on experiences that people have had in Providence really helps me… I hope that through my article many more people come to know about the school.
Hey guys! Thanks for the comments.
Silvester, yes it is Br. d’Souza’s school I’m talking about it.
And Gail, I’d love to read that article some time!
Nice blog. Just one thing I would like to point out. Edmund’s isn’t a ‘mega rich school’. A lot of students there are barely from the middle class. And the brother who started Providence is himself a teacher at St.Edmund’s.
Sorry. Can`t believe I said ´mega rich school´. What a horrible phrase! And yea, I know Br. Steve. I just got the impression it was a pretty well off school. Oh well.
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