Here we go, finally, with a new blog entry.
This time we shall focus on telling about the work we’ve been doing here.
We are visiting some schools, as well as orphanages. All the institutions, except for one, are in or around Kullu.
OLS School – being one of the best schools in the area, this school has been a great challenge for us. Students here are very competitive and that also puts an extra responsibility on us. We’ve been going to OLS around twice a week. We’ve had sessions with different classes (age 12-16), those include team building activities, games, problem solving tasks and discussions. To be honest, the older the students the more we enjoy the session. Grade 6 has nearly made us cry and question our role in this project, whereas grade 9 has absolutely proved their maturity and thoughtfulness putting a rewarding smile on our faces again.
GSSS – this is the first time Government Senior Secondary School has been involved in the Kullu project. Since me and Baiba both have interest and experience in basketball, we thought it would be great to use our knowledge and enthusiasm to teach children here. Believe it or not, Indians do know how to play other sports, not only cricket! We chose GSSS because it has a great and large basketball court. We go there twice a week and have a 2 hours practice with a group of boys (14 years old and younger). Sometimes the language barrier is disturbing but when you smile and join in doing what you love nothing else really matters.
Bharat Bharti – this is another school where we will start our sessions this coming week when the students come back from their break. We plan to do three types of sessions – English through Film (watching a movie and having discussions about it afterwards), English through games and basketball.
Kalyeli – this is an orphanage where we absolutely love to go. The boys are fantastic here, extremely sweet and good hearted. So far we’ve done some games, drawing, we’ve had a photo session and we’ve been making bracelets and paper planes, done some rhythm games and some dancing too. It doesn’t really matter what you do there, you just come and be with them. We hope to organize a camp or a picnic for the boys some day soon.
Bashing – this is the Kullu orphanage. We’ve started visiting the kids there just a couple of weeks ago. We’ve been there 4 times only and we’ve just started building a closer relationship with the children. The same as Kalyeli boys, we feel these boys and girls ask for no more than our attention. We do some drawing, some games etc. In addition, we try to teach them some English through games. Sometimes it works quite well but often they can’t focus on one thing for more than 5 minutes.
Mrs Suddershana’s Orphanage – this is the only institution in Manali that we are visiting. We go there every Saturday and we’re really happy we can do that. It is not only a very nice institution that we as volunteers can work with, it is also a great weekly bus ride with spectacular views and loads of new faces, places and happenings. We do similar things as we do in the other two orphanages and mostly we very much enjoy the time spent with the children. Some of them speak quite good English and they are really keen to improve their skills.
To conclude this entry, we could just add some general comments to help you understand the feeling we get while working on this project. It does sometimes seem that we are losing control or that we are misunderstood or not understood at all. Recently we had some doubts about our input and while reading about the work the previous volunteers had done we feel as if we don’t do enough. However, from time to time we are assured we do have some impact and that it’s for good.
That’s it for now. Next time we’ll tell you about the ways we entertain ourselves.
Always yours –
Ance & Baiba.
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