First day of school and other updates

Hello! I am very happy to tell you all that we have completed our first day of school! This past Monday, the four of us traveled by bus to the Blessed Andre School. The ride alone was interesting as students from class 1 to class 12 along with teachers piled onto a small school bus. The ride was bumpy and cramped, but we all made it to school just fine. Once there, the children lined up for morning assembly, which is held Monday and Fridays in the schoolyard. The students then parade into school by age and head to their period 1 classrooms.

The four of us were asked to play the role of substitute teachers for the first few days we are in the school to give the administration time to ready our classes. Collectively we subbed in classes 8, 9, and 10. Instead of trying to pick up where their regular teachers had left off, we were asked to engage the students in conversation to gauge their English ability and to try to get them used to our accents and us used to theirs. Indian English and American English are very different animals, so this was a nice opportunity to practice our active listening skills!

My first impressions of the school are mostly positive. The children are shy, but very bright, and once they began to feel more comfortable with us, they began to ask questions about the United States, our travels, how we were finding India so far, and of course American popular culture. Sadly, some of the worst of the U.S. has made it to even the remote villages of India. The WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) was mentioned, along with Justin Beiber, Miler Cyrus, and Michael Jackson. Oh well! I guess we can’t control what makes the leap and what doesn’t!

The classes, along with much of society, are extremely gendered. The girls sit on one side of the classroom, the boys on the other. When the boys speak, the girls listen, but when the girls speak, the boys tend to chat amongst each other. This attitude is reflected in marriage practices, family life, and most definitely in the political realm as well.

The younger classes are very cute! Their English comprehension and speech are not quite as good as in the Holy Cross School. I hope to sub in one of their classes at some point so I can spend time with them as well! Here is a picture of class 1!

One of the most eye-opening moments of the day for me was when a student asked me where in the world I had traveled. I told him that I had been to over 20 countries and the whole class let out a collective gasp. I asked them how many of them had been to Delhi, the Indian capital, not one hand went up. The vast majority of these children have not left their small state of Tripura, some potentially never seeing past the city of Agartala.

In other news, our neighbor Jinu (7 years old) has begun to teach me to play cricket! It is a very interesting sport that resembles baseball (but only a little). I will admit that I’m not very good at it, but Jinu says that there’s hope

for me yet! I hope he’s right!

We also took a group excursion to a local zoo! It was a very exciting to see all of the monkeys, rhinos, leopards, lions, and tigers! While we were there, one of the monkeys actually escaped! Here is a picture of the Royal Bengal Tiger that we saw.

I think that is all for now, but I will most definitely keep you all posted! ~Ben