Integration tutorials, Jazz Festivals, suspected rabies, a Women's Rights March and turning 24

The two weeks since our weekend away have been relatively uneventful. My school timetable has ballooned and is now packed with lots of individual supervisions.

I’ve been covering some English 1:1 tutorials and have been entrusted with some of my own (more rewarding) maths sessions. More recently I’ve been asked to teach year 12s integration, possibly a greater challenge than anticipated but good to keep me on my toes! I have started to appreciate the rewarding side of teaching too. One of my pupils, Montu, a teenage boy who is described as constantly looking stoned, has finally grasped long division! Literally made my week.

Weekends have been spent attending school sport fixtures and cheering the boys on. This in itself usually attracts more local attention; resulting in Future Hope sports teams having quite a fan club, or at least a lot of Indians watching their game! The sports are held on a large open green space in the city known as the Maidan. Originally used as a hunting ground, it now acts as one of the only large parks in the City and draws some parallels with Richmond Park, London. No deer or running yummy-mummies here though.

Maidan with the VIctoria Monument in the distance.

We’ve also discovered some of the larger markets, both local traditional market stalls and the brand new, American-style shopping mall, Quest. The latter is home to a western supermarket selling freshly baked bread. On discovering the bakery section I quickly purchased a large multigrain loaf and am quite ashamed to say I demolished it whole. My western cravings were bad that day!

The same day we found ourselves chilling out and dancing with some of the locals at a Jazz Festival. Set at one of the many country clubs in the City, we found ourselves dancing to an American Jazz band until 10:30pm (entertainment finishes early here). Even at the club we were of more interest than the band to some of the guests, with a couple of people trying to slyly video our dancing. Luckily one of the volunteers has learnt the helpful phrase, “Don’t video us, we’re not a circus” or words to that effect. I could have understood if they wanted to capture us playing air badminton (badminton without the equipment) but no one took any interest during our energetic rally on the lawn!

Jess, Georgie, and Alice at the Jazz Festival. Jess is our new addition and handily fluent in Hindi.

The school is in full preparation for the end of term school fair, or Mela as it is referred to over here. It’s a whole-school, fund raising event and all the students perform routines, whether it be singing, dancing or circus acts. They children put on food and game stalls and even make arts and crafts to sell. I’m looking forward to the entire thing coming together. Wanting to be the best volunteers we can, the 7 of us have decided to perform a medley from the Jungle Book. The initial deliberation over song selection took quite a long time and a lot of thought, always wanting to ensure there weren’t colonial/ racial/ religious references. Oliver, The Lion King and Jungle Book were about the only 3 that made the cut. In addition to our medley, the four girls have decided to attempt a popular dance from a famous Hindi Film. This led us to dancing until the early hours one morning, repeatedly watching a Youtube tutorial video and constantly saying “What on earth did he just do then?” If you want to know what some of the routine will look like, check out the song’s official video. Our version will have less champagne and skin on show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7k_U1ZXybo

India’s national motto should read, “The best laid plans of mice and men....” Saturday 7^th looked to be a really exciting day: lunch with the middle school boys, an afternoon Hindi dance class, Indian cinema in the evening finished off with a night out for the big 24! Instead I spent 8 hours in a hospital with one of the other volunteers who had suspected rabies. Although not what I originally planned, it was still an experience.

Bureaucracy had raced us to the hospital from the train ticket office. We spent the first 40minutes filling out various forms in a room ironically titled “Emergency”. Had it been a real emergency (which arguably suspected rabies is) I suspect the pace of progress would have been just the same. “Excuse Miss, place your severed limb here while you fill out these ten forms..... No Sir, the heart attack can wait. What was your postcode?” The time taken from arrival to injection of the rabies jab was 6 hours and 41 minutes. Luckily Georgie wasn’t foaming at the mouth.

Saturday night I found myself at a rich young Indians house party. Here it would seem most men, or rather boys, think the best way to impress a girl is to brag about the amount of pot you have smoked and where to find the best joints. Needless to say I find this whole performance quite repulsive and a real bore. But once most other people had drunk and smoked, the dance floor opened up and the party was much more my type of thing. Don’t worry mum I’m still going with the whole T-Total trend to stay on the safe side and you know I wouldn’t even touch a cigarette. And Jemima – I found a crazy Indian dancing friend. They loved the parachute move!

Despite the 3am close on the previous night, we were up at 7am on Sunday to participate in a “Women’s rights March” in Kolkata. Being white, Alice and I were photographed a lot and were even interviewed by the Telegraph newspaper (Kolkata version). We made it to the front page of a supplement section; I was expecting a bigger spread.

I spent my birthday teaching, and supporting the school athletics team at an inter-school tournament. In the evening we went out for a much-craved Italian dinner with the friends, finished of with a sampling of drinks at out third country club in Kolkata, The Saturday Club. Fantastic day. Lots of children wished me happy birthday; each on their own is worth a hundred presents, and a few even made small cards and paper presents. Its a birthday I'm unlikely to forget! 

Hopefully the final two weeks of term will fill me with more satisfying teaching moments, and memories with the kids that I’ll treasure for years. My time is passing so quickly, I’m already planning my return trip!