Pune, Maharashta

Greetings all,

Mel and I traded in the salty winds and cool breeze of Goa for the dusty, dry heat of Pune...and are still having a blast! We arrived in Pune on Monday and have been warmly welcomed and hosted by Johnathan and Lauren, originally from New York. We met up with them thru our primary connection, Melinda.

Melinda is the Director of Gyanankur English School, where we've been working the last 3 days. The school has two locations - Kharadi in the city, and Kesnand in the village. There is a different feeling in both schools but each with its unique character. Our first day in the village school was spent helping out in the nursery (yes, the nursery!). Most of the children that attend Kesnand are from the surrounding villages. While Kesnand is technically an English school, it is not mandated that every word spoken in the school be English. The model of education recognizes that the children not only speak and think in Hindi, but that the majority of them speak another mother tongue - Marathi (state language of Maharashta). As Melinda explained, the model of education that they are currently exploring is a multi-language approach where by you educate the child first in their mother language, recognizing its importance in their development, and then from there translating that vocabulary into English. As such, i saw teachers and students speaking Marathi, Hindi and English in the class. Nursery time was a struggle for me as i (a) don't normally know what to say to children who don't yet form words, and (b) don't know how to speak to children in Marathi OR Hindi....so i did a lot of smiling, colouring, and helping out in little ways. The afternoon was a much more productive time for me. I helped out with the grade 1 class, and we did vegetable stamp art! :) Yes ladies and gentlemen, i carved out shapes and designs out of potatoes, onions, and okra. We then painted the veggies and the children made pictures out of them. It was nice too to be able to speak to the children as they all called me "miss". "Excuse me miss, may i have a drink of water?" or "Excuse me miss, please paint this"....so cute! :)



[vegetable art - can you see the different veggie stamps?]

Mel and i have been working at Kharadi for the last 2 days and will return to help out with music at Kesnand tomorrow morning. While at Kharadi, we were able to help out with more behind-the-scenes stuff. An open house will take place next Monday and the teachers needed help with putting up displays and creating some sort of ambiance for the open house. So, we got creative and spent the last two days drawing and cutting out an assortment of shapes, letters, numbers, pictures, etc. Mel was even able to use some of her former drafting skills - i never knew she was such a good sketcher!



[Mel, sketching away...]

A nice treat that we both have gotten used to and will miss greatly is the morning and afternoon cup of chai tea that we get at each school. sweet, hot chai tea in the heat of the day - there's nothing better!

March 8th marked International Women's Day. Not generally known as a country that celebrates women's equality, India was making history regarding its stance on women's rights. A bill was passed called the Women's Reservation Bill which ensures now that 30% of seats in parliament are reserved for women. The response has been mixed both in the country, and for me. Without sounding like im going on a political rant, i'll keep the following thoughts short. While the passing of this bill recognizes (it's about time!) that women have a voice and should be heard in society, the reservation bill may potentially slant the quality of parliament where spots are filled by quotas first, and not necessarily merit/knowledge. i wonder, will other "marginalized" groups come forward and demand that they too be represented in parliament? what about representation from women from lower castes? will those women in parliament be treated fairly by their colleagues, or will they merely be warming a seat? what will that do to the make up of an already very complex government? This BBC article highlights some of the responses of the bill. lots of questions...few answers, but movement forward is better than no movement at all, i suppose. it's always easier to criticize politics than to actually participate in it so i think i'll stop now, and say im happy that International Women's Day was celebrated here in India. Even at Gyanankur, i came across this beautiful poster:



by the way, as i type, we are all watching American Idol. for all you people back home watching, Johnathan and Lauren are friends with Michael Lynch!

dL