Steve in India: Big Update 2! 29th July

Again I have taken my time updating the blog - apologies!

Thursday 29th July

Today it was 4th and 5th class for the first time this week, after being ill on Tuesday. All of them are making progress each session and it was good to see how much they had retained given that we had not had a class for a week.

At lunch time one of the boys in 4th class (Anuj) decided to give me my first real Hindi lesson and was adamant that I had to learn everything that I have taught him over the last 4 weeks but in Hindi – and I have just 4 days before my big test! Just the basic stuff but the pronunciation is not easy. Two of the teachers joined in and laughed a lot, most of which I am sure was at my expense, but it was a good laugh. They now speak to me in Hindi around the centre and laugh every single time that I attempt a response!

It was also nice that they wanted to look through all of my family photos – I had shown some of the boys from my classes the photos of friends and family and they had clearly told the teachers that I had them so they were all very keen to see everyone. Trying to explain the step parents/half siblings/step siblings was a bit of a challenge though! Every picture with a female in it was followed by the question, “Your wife?” and they also seemed to think that Rosie (Paterson-Spir, not Horrod!) was my daughter!

Had a very good evening with Stamp and another Cambridge student called Lindsey who is doing a placement with a law firm in Delhi – went for a nice meal and coffee (as 2 of us were on antibiotics so alcohol was off the menu!)

Friday 30th July

A pretty standard day at the centre again today. Every day it seems that I build a better and better rapport with all of the kids, so much so that I do not think I will want to leave when it comes to the end of my time here! Am making some progress on the Hindi – I have to learn; Hello, How are you? (along with 2 responses), What is your name? (plus response), Where are you from? (plus response), How old are you? (again with response) and then I have a list of vocab for fruits, vegetables, colours, animals and numbers – a lot to learn.

We did not go out in the evening because Anou’s other daughter Parul arrived from London with her husband Jean Francoise, their son Agustia and a friend of theirs called Gary. All very interesting people to talk to and have all worked in some sort of development work/research.

Saturday 31st July/Sunday 1st August

In the first few weeks of my stay here I was using the weekends to wander around Delhi and see the sights, but I am now appreciating just using them for rest, so this weekend was another of those!
I went for coffee with Parul, JF and Gary and was introduced to Indian literature – they have a chain here called Café Turtle, which has a café on the top floor and a book shop underneath. I really wanted to read some Indian literature (in English obviously) and Gary and Parul seemed to have read everything in the shop – every book we picked up was an ‘essential read’ and very quickly I had accumulated a ridiculous number of books! JF was working on a questionnaire for a research project in the slums in Mumbai, which I tried to have some input in to, and talking to him has really made me think more about doing development work ‘in the field’ – some great experiences to be had.

Sunday was more of the same – chilling and going for coffee, this time with Shamika and Rani. Gary and I then stayed home to watch the F1 and we watched a very funny film in the evening called ‘3 idiots’ – interesting illustration of the parental pressures that students face in India – worth watching.

Monday 2nd August

I decided today that I should test the children to see what they have actually retained as I have been teaching them for 4 weeks now. It was an oral test given that our classes are entirely spoken English and I made a test of 10 questions for the younger ones and 14 questions for the older ones, with some more difficult questions and harsher marking.

What was very promising was the number of students that managed to achieve over 80%, with many of them getting 100% or very close to full marks. I mixed the questions up for each student in terms of the order so they could not simply remember their friends' answers and so I think the results do show that some good progress has been made. Another thing that I was very pleased with was that the ones that had been attending my classes regularly were the ones that were getting the higher marks. I took several positives out of this. Firstly, I hope that it means that they are benefiting from my teaching and the results are not purely random. Secondly, it is promising that it suggests that if we can increase attendance by working closely with the parents, many of these children could really get to a very high level of English conversation. The project is clearly having a positive effect and still has scope for further progress in the community, which is always good to know!

Tuesday 3rd August

Carried on with the testing today with 2nd and 3rd class - again, the same kinds of trends appeared as with the older groups on Monday. It just really highlights how important it is to incentivise parents and encourage them to send their children to the centre on a regular basis - the results can be so positive if this is done well. We have also seen that working with the parents has helped attendance and has also given many of the mothers the urge to learn skills such as English and sewing, and we now have large groups attending the centre to learn these skills. By incorporating the whole community into this project there are so many opportunities for positive feedback and the project can have so much more of an effect on these people's lives if the community really work together and want it to work. The commitment of the parents is paramount for the success of this kind of project.

Wednesday 4th August

I decided to try to teach the children words such as in front of, behind, next to, behind, under, over etc and we had a very fun activity lesson. I would ask each student to stand either next to, behind, or in front of one of the others and they were all helping each other work out which was which. I then chose the brightest student to be the teacher and order the others around and tell them where to stand. I was really pleased because when one of the girls was confused where to go, one of her classmates then instructed her in very good English where to go - very proud!

There were a lot of giggles when they did the over and under - crawling through each others' legs and then playing leapfrog - surprisingly no one got hurt and they all seemed pretty clear on the vocab by the end of the lesson so it was quite a success!

I have not written many rants recently and this will not be a full blown rant but just another comment about the CWG. I was shown another article today and watched a news report about the games. Many things shocked me but the two main ones were as follows. Firstly, the former sports minister has released some figures that show what is being spent on what for the games and one of the entries was a treadmill. A top of the range treadmill can be bought in Harrods for what is 7 lakh rupees (1lakh=100,000) but the committee have managed to RENT a treadmill for 45 days for 10 lakh rupees! Waste of money?!

Another thing that I read about was about the slums in Delhi and the process of 'beautification' that is going on. I have already written in a previous blog about the fact that the committee are wiping out slums and clearing Delhi or slum dwellers, beggars, cattle etc but there is concern that they will not have time to clear out all the slums they want to clear. So what solution has been proposed? - well the first suggestion was that there should be a huge tent put over the slum areas in question (yes, this was a serious suggestion...) But the latest idea is to just build bamboo screens to put across the front of the slums so that they are out of sight - again just trying to sweep the poor under the carpet like they simply do not exist. You have to wonder whether the committee actually believe that visitors will be fooled by all of this. Everyone knows the issue of poverty that India faces, and rather than trying to resolve the issue they are just trying to ignore it like it will just go away. The fact of the matter is that if you just ignore these people, they will not be educated, India will continue to see the unsustainable population growth rates in the poorest families and the issue of slums and beggars will be even greater. They cannot really believe that India will grow and be a developed nation like those in the west when they have such a lack of social policy?! India wants to have these games to prove that they are a growing and developing economy but how can you call a nation 'developed' when you have such high incidence of absolute poverty?!

Thursday 5th August

Classes went very well today, and thanks to Nina I have some new ideas of how to keep the children entertained and on task in the lessons, which is a God send really especially for the younger children who are very easily distracted.

Had a nice evening with Leonie from Cambridge (one of Fitz's friends) wandering around some more of Delhi - saw India Gate and went for some very good Indian food.

Friday 6th August

Carried on with the new games that Nina showed me, which went down very well with the 4th and 5th class boys and girls. Also carried on the next to, behind, in front of etc activity and many of them got the chance to be the teacher. I felt it was important to do this so that they were actually doing the speaking rather than just listening to me. We also sat in a circle and rather than me asking them questions I told them to ask each other questions so that they practiced this a lot more. Often they will know how to respond to questions but struggle in conversation so I felt they should focus more on this. They actually all wanted to ask me questions, which was good fun and they struggled pronouncing English names - they also kept asking me what my wife and kids were called...have lost count at the amount of times I have told them I am not married!

After staying in last Friday we ventured out to the Turquoise Cottage (a bar) for the evening, Stamp joined us and it was a great laugh - struggled to get up this morning though (Saturday). Am looking forward to chilling this weekend and going to the boarding school for the parents and teachers meeting where I will be able to see all the kids again.

(Happy Birthday Chris! x)

Some pictures from the last week: