Riot Control

Today it is a week since I first arrived at Devnar and is our day off. Me and Fidra have started planning our holidays for October and want to go down to Kerala to see the backwaters and more importantly RIDE ELEPHANTS. I may be a little bit over excited about this last part... We began teaching lessons properly on Thursday which was a huge shock, we teach four classes a day LKG (lower kindergarten, aged four), 1st class, 4th class and 5th class. LKG are lovely- I just want to curl up with them, they sit quietly and listen to stories and beg me to play round and round the garden on their hands. Yesterday we read them the Mr. Happy story and I got them to clap at the word 'happy' to recognize the word. Afterwards we got the class to chant 'Chantosham Telegu, happy is the English' it's only one more word but after taking first class it felt like such an achievement.

First class doesn't feel like teaching more like riot control. They jump around and bang desks and chatter away, they won't listen to anything we say. 40 minutes feels like a very long time when I know I have a session with first class. I dont know how we'll ever teach them anything! Hopefully we will get a teacher to translate for us this week so they can understand what is happening and focus. Busy Busy Busy :)

Thank you so much everyone whose written or sent messages of support- they mean the world when I'm so far from home. At some stage I'll work out how to upload pictures on this system!