Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The Girls go to the Snow




I tried to do a field trip but I realized that the Gods of India are against me. I thought it would be a good idea to take the girls up to the snow before it gets too cold to go up there and if there was enough time, we would go tubing (yes, they do have tubing here, the Indian version of tubing which is a REAL tire the size of an alien mothercraft) First, Mother was against me taking the kids. Her prediction for my trip: Reshma will not only kill all the children but she will prevent them from ever entering the heavenly gates, I’m not kidding that’s what she thinks I will do by taking the girls to the snow; I’m a real monster. Later on we all snuck out and finally left despite her. Then, the crafty money hungry car driver lied to us! He told us there was enough snow to go tubing (Indian version tubing, which I was even excited for) but of course, there wasn’t. There was barely enough for the girls to make a snowball the size of a baseball. Here’s where I was dumbfounded: the car driver had the audacity to say all the other tourists in this area are fools because the ski rental shops tricked them into going skiing with no snow present; if they’re fools, what does that make us sitting in his car looking for the snow?
Oh well, the girls still had a good time in the barely there snow. They actually enjoyed the view and the scenery more. I’ve worked with kids back in the US, I don’t think one of them would even consider looking at the scenery and saying it’s beautiful if they were just told that tubing has been cancelled, I would be hearing a lot of complaints and whining.
All the girls are doing well, no one is sick thank you GOD! I always get more and more surprised with what these girls find amusing. I gave them all a piece of bubble-icious gum and they went nuts! I thought I could impress them by blowing bubbles that would blow their minds but they already knew how to blow bubbles the size that blew my mind! And that is how we spent one afternoon…
Teaching at the school is also going well, the teachers are still snickering but at least at a distance. Now, I can amuse myself by filling in their words when I see their mouths moving, if they think I sound funny in English, wait till they find out what I’m saying for them (it has a lot to do with donkeys). I really enjoy teaching at the school. I go everyday at 11am and I have two classes. I make simple games like memory games or I time them on spelling and these kids have a ball. I also make them interact with each other instead of talking to me all the time; this surprised the teachers! Who would have thought that kids come to school interact? Oh boy, I’m corrupting the system. I reward them for their efforts with treats and overconfident phrases, something totally new and innovative to their system. The only problem is that they stopped calling me “Ma’am” but now they call me “Madam Ji.”
This is getting long isn’t it? Well, I just have one more thought to share: If you haven’t been thankful for the following things, you should be:
Car shocks. If you don’t know the feeling, just take your car shocks out and drive through a river. And PHYSICS. Somehow, I don’t know how, but physics does not exist here. I don’t think Newton could even explain how a car that is half on the road and half off does not land on the bottom of the mountain in a ditch. And somehow cows here can stretch their heads all the way back, they think they’re owls!

2 comments:

JoDee said...

You are my hero!

Eden MaRee said...

Oh that is classic! Well, at least you got to play in a little snow!