We’re nearing the end of our volunteering assignment in Raiwala through WorkAway. Or at least Kimberly is nearing the end of hers. She wraps it up at the end of November so she can spend a month training to be a yoga teacher, while Dennis will hang on in Raiwala for one more month.

MONDAY

KIMBERLY: Today with Pre-K, we have outdoor fun time. The game the students play entails jumping when they hear a tambourine. In Grade 3 period, I teach two classes solo. I decide to take the students to the activity room to work on staging for a performance of a story we call “Silly Boy”. This is a Russian folktale that is a variation of the “noodlehead” motif common in many cultures. During our days as touring entertainers, we performed it many times, and it was one of our two or three favorite tales. Over the years, we’ve also used it with outstanding results as a story to teach student actors to perform. Both children and adults are delighted by its broadly comic scenes depicting a character who consistently and hilariously applies the right advice to the wrong situation.

TUESDAY

Today both of us are putting our marker boards to heavy use in the classroom. Kimberly is working with first grade on the concept of doubling the final letter of a word if it is f, l, s or z. She’s also working on certain class rules that they have difficulty with, such as not blurting out the answer when they know it. It’s very hard for youngsters to rein in their impulses sometimes. She is also trying to encourage everybody to actively participate when it is called for.

Meanwhile, Dennis is preparing students for their final exam in literature by having them match up the author’s name with the work the class has been studying. While some of these authors are superb, and even well known, the general selection of material is, in his estimation, rather weak and uninspired — which makes it even more of a challenge to get teenagers interested.

WEDNESDAY

DENNIS: Once again, I am asked to cover classes for an absent teacher. And once again, after I make my way to the campus, I learn that classes are…. (drum roll) cancelled today. This time, the reason is a volleyball tournament. The good news is that our school wins.

KIMBERLY: The nursery school class today is held outside. The children play a game similar to Duck Duck Goose, involving dropping a hanky behind someone and then the participants run around until they get tagged. No one is able to catch the girl in front in the photo –the person chasing her always gets tired and picks another student to try to catch her. Also pictured, a long line of students waiting for their turn on one of the three slides, at a playground next to bus parking; and students being punished by having to stand and hold their ears, a gesture signifying an apology. I am unfamiliar with this custom until I look it up. Third graders continue to work on learning English through the “Silly Boy” story, copying it into their notebooks seems to help them focus.

This evening we are settling in getting ready for bed when we hear a bit of commotion in the hall; someone seems to be trying to open our door with a key. (To the best of our knowledge, we have the only key in the known universe.) So we go see who and what is going on. There are three men outside with bags, here for a night’s lodging– one in our apartment, and apparently two in the adjacent apartment. In accordance with a pattern we’ve come to expect, we’ve been given absolutely no heads up about this. The gentleman who is to stay in the other bedroom in our apartment has one hand in a cast; he asks about blankets for the bed, and we point him to the closet in the living room where extra bedding is stashed. But he later rounds up some sheets from somewhere else.

FRIDAY

KIMBERLY: In these photos, the students are balancing books on their heads and giving me a gift of leaves they’ve rounded up. It was so touching receiving these little treasures and seeing their sheer delight. Also a shot of the school “library”.

DENNIS: Having no classes today, I hitch a ride in the school van to do some shopping at a store across the street from the Junior Campus where Kimberly teaches. After that, I walk down the road half a mile or so to the only liquor store in the area, because I’ve been craving some beer. When I arrive, the store is just opening, and there are several fellows waiting in the lot, having arrived by motorbike or on foot. Like pharmacies and many other businesses in India, this is a “storefront” business; you don’t enter the store, but just go to the window and tell the shopkeeper what you want. This takes some pondering on my part, because I am not familiar with most of the brands being offered. Finally I make a choice and tell the fellow I would like two cans. He seems taken aback, and asks if I am sure I want two — and I reply in the affirmative. It later dawns on me that most of the other customers who come here buy a drink and gulp it down right there in the lot. Which is not my plan at all. Honestly.

SATURDAY

No classes today, but the campus is still abuzz. Noticing a commotion at the basketball court, we mosey over to investigate. There are students from about a dozen schools there, all in their uniforms — some of which, to our perception, seem rather Hogwarts-esque. They are operating little homemade model “cars” attached to wires, and maneuvering them to go over ramps. Upon asking the students what is going on, they tell us that it is a robotics competition. Robotics is actually a subject taught at the school here, showing once again that schools have certainly changed since our own student days.

Events occurred 11/16-24/2024