The Hindu : Life & Style / Metroplus : When they met

We made the India national daily paper!! Here's the article:

The Hindu : Life & Style / Metroplus : When they met

Home, Sweet Home

Sunday's travel was much better. Got to Abu Dhabi airport and off to Munich on time. We ate dinner in Munich and it was fantastic! I had braised beef! Others had duck, which was good too. Then, I bought a bunch of German Chocolate, some German beer and some Jagermeister at the Duty Free store in the Munich airport. I was impressed, I only spent $50! Our flight from Munich to Chicago boarded a little late, but we arrived on time in Chicago!! It's so nice to be home, but dang it's cold! Today the "feels like" here in Iowa City was 3* ... only about 80* colder than Madurai.

I'm planning to share my India adventure with a few groups of people back home in Chariton, and possibly here in Iowa City too, if the opportunity arises. I'll also be keeping in touch with the teachers I worked with in Madurai. I'm excited to be able to share my experiences and use the things I learned in my classes and my future classroom, as well as the classrooms I'm volunteering in now!!

Thanks to everyone for reading while I was on my adventure!! I hope you enjoyed my play-by-play. Never hesitate to ask questions about my trip!

Love to all...

Eventful Travels

The bus trip from Madurai to Chennai was fairly uneventful, but the flight from Chennai to Abu Dhabi was a nightmare! We got to Chennai and unloaded the charter bus at Blossoms, the hotel we stayed at the first day. Several of us went shopping and I somehow got separated from the group in this huge shopping center called a Bizaar. The place is 5 stories with stairs on both ends and in the middle. While I was looking for my group, they were looking for me, but we never met up. I ended up walking back to the hotel alone, but it worked out... no troubles.
Then, 12 of us left for the Chennai airport at 11 pm. Dana was scheduled to leave at 2, and the rest of us at 4 am. Dana got off fine, as far as I know, but the rest of us ran into major difficulty. Apparently, the burning from Pongal festival was causing a heavy fog in Chennai, causing only our flight and one other to get delayed (I don't believe this excuse for one second!) We waited in line for almost 6 hours to talk to someone about switching our flights, and to get checked in. It was completely ridiculous! No one ever told the huge crowd of people waiting to check in that the flight had been delayed. We only knew becaused we'd been there since 11 so we were at the front of the line. Then, once they started rescheduling people for a later flight, the whole process really got out of hand. The airport staff had us move lines 3 times and it also took the guy forever to get one ticket changed and printed (and bag checked). Most of us had been up a full 24 hours by the time we had our boarding passes. Sadly, Miranda wasn't able to get her flight chnged, so she went back to the hotel, scheduled to go on the same flight we had originally been scheduled for, only for tomorrow. She will still arrive in Chicago before us.
The only option available to us was to reroute through Munich, Germany tomorrow and arrive in Chicago a full 27 hours later than originally planned. The worst part about the whole ordeal was that the guy trying to "help" us was practically sleeping (or high) on the job. Alyssa and I stood at the counter for a few minutes with him just looking around. We were like "uh... can you check us in now, we've been waiting for 5 hours!!" He says, "oh, you haven't checked in yet?" It was such a joke! I tried to stay in good spirits the whole time, but there were squatty potty toilets and very little food near by. There were no benches, so some people slept on the floor.
Once we finally got to Abu Dhabi things started looking up. They couldn't get us on an earlier flight, but the hotel being provided to us is fabulous! I'll post photos soon, but it has a swim up bar, a kids aea and a couple good restaurants. They're feeding us well and the rooms are so nice. I can't wait to crawl into my bed ! Speaking of... until next time...best of love.

Presentation day... goodbye Madurai

Today is our last day in Madurai. It's a little bittersweet. I met so many amazing people here! The Indian women we've been working with have been so wonderful and I've really learned a lot from them. I have their e-mail addresses and will definitely keep in touch! I'm actually planning to try to get a penpal program going with one of the classes here and a classroom back home.
We got together with our group and some of the Indian teachers to do presentations on something we learned or something that interests us about education. We basically had free reign to talk about whatever we wanted. I chose to make comparisons between schools I've observed in the US and schools I observed here in Madurai. I think it went pretty well, even though I went over the suggested time limit... oops! After our presentations, we went out to lunch with the founder of the school and a group of educators from Delhi who started a school for street children. They are all pretty phenomenal people and the lunch was delicious!
Tonight, most of us got dressed up in our sarees for the Pongal festival at the Residential school. It was such a nice way to end the trip. We got to see how Indians celebrate Pongal (kind of like Thanksgiving) and we had one last chance to see all our new friends from the schools before heading back to Iowa.
I successfully got my suitcase packed with all my new goodies and despite how much I love India, I'm ready to come home. Mostly, I can't wait to have quick access to my phone, eat beef (steak dinner is on the agenda) and see all my family and friends (not necessarily in that order). :-)
The bus leaves for Chennai at 8 am. It's about an 8 hour bus ride, then a little shopping, maybe a nap and head to the airport. I'm not sure I'll be able to update again before I get home, but there won't be much going on aside from traveling anyway! :-)
Love to all...

PS - I totally called the weather BS! When I got to India I said "I'll bet Iowa has gorgeous weather while we're gone and cold and snow as soon as we get back." Sure enough, I got on Facebook tonight and found many posts about snow & cold in Iowa! Just my luck...

Napping, Shopping, & school work...

We had a work day today, so there's not much to report. I mostly napped all morning because I had a headache, but then a bunch of us went back to the Meenakshi temple area to shop this afternoon. We ended up being there for 5 hours, but I got some more gifts bought and picked up a couple things for myself too. We also bought gifts for the Indian teachers we've been working closely with during our time here.
Tonight I've mainly been procrastinating and trying to decide how I want to approach my presentation. I've changed it 3 times in the past few hours, but I think I finally have something worked out. I need to get the details hashed out, so this is just a short update. Just wanted you all to know I'm doing well and ready to come home. I love India, but as I said yesterday, I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed. Love to all...

K.K. Nagar Campus

This week, we visited the last of the 4 Mahatma Schools. K.K. Nagar campus is located in another part of town, but still fairly close to our hotel and the Baba/CBSE campus. The school is nestled in a residential neighborhood, so it's atmosphere is a little different than the other 2 sites, where the campus is separate from the hustle and bustle of town. The campus is still lovely and I was just as impressed with their school and students as I have been at the other sites.
We started the day with a ceremonial welcome. KKN school provided a military salute and band welcome, as well as beautiful little girls all dressed up to give us our gifts - flowers, bindi paint and a fire blessing (they just waft smoke at you from a flaming tray). Then we went to the morning assembly, where the Monday ritual is universal prayer. This means they say readings from the Q'uran, the Bible and the Hindu holy book and sing songs from Christianity, Hindu and Islam. It is still so interesting to see the secular prayer and worship in the schools since that's something that doesn't occur in the states, but there are just the 3 main religions here, so it's easier to accommodate everyone.
This year, the Mahatma schools are celebrating the "Year of Patriotism" so in the 9th grade, we heard a patriotic song (a Tamil state song) and were introduced to important patriots, such as influential Indian authors and politicians. Then, the students demonstrated a debate on whether all Indians are patriotic. I continue to be impressed by the students' poise and knowledge in these debates. I think debate is a skill many schools overlook in the U.S. While it may not seem like the most important skill to teach, it certainly develops critical thinking skills and public speaking practice.
Next, we went to grade 3, where the children are learning about birds. KKN school uses the same format the other schools use, where students are introduced to the topic with a story, are taught the lesson, sing songs or some other verbal method of learning and do a hands on activity or craft to further the lesson. The school also uses tongue twisters a lot. I can't really remember doing tongue twisters in school. These schools have one on every chalkboard.
Something I really admire about this school system is how diverse the curriculum is. The students are doing so many different things like debate, cooking, dancing, yoga, mahendi (henna), instrumental and vocal music and many more. The students seem so happy to be in school and I attribute that happiness to the variety of activities they are participating in each day. The school is really focusing on teaching life skills rather than just teaching students to pass the tests.
One of my favorite parts of day 1 at KKN campus was dance class. 4 of the girls in our group, myself included, joined their grade 4 dance class, learning the steps to a traditional Indian dance form! It was fun!
The second day in the KKN school (today) was much the same... observing classes where students are participating in a variety of learning methods. But, the morning assembly was a shocker and one of my favorite parts of the whole trip! A band made up of 7-9th grade boys performed Eminem's "Love the Way You Lie". I was so not expecting it and had a great time. The boys on guitar and drums were great and the rapper was the biggest shock! He was quite impressive. I'm going to try to upload video onto YouTube, but I haven't had much luck with video here, so it may have to wait until I'm back in the states!
One of my favorite parts of today was visiting the KG (kindergarten) classes. For one, the kids are so stinking cute! For two, this is a Montessori school, which means the students are learning by using manipulatives (hands on tools). The upper KG students (4-5 year olds) showed us the "gifts" (tools) they use for learning. I rarely hear adults use the word "differentiate" but I heard a 4 year old say it today. He said "I use wooden blocks to differentiate sounds made by different density woods" or something along those lines. Regardless, he used advanced vocabulary in the proper context! I was impressed. In one of the KG rooms, we were greeted by children dressed as Hindu gods and goddesses... it was adorable! Then the children of that class sang for us in English, Hindi and Tamil! I am so envious of their multi-lingual education!
We toured the art department this afternoon. It was amazing! I saw drawings done by first graders that are better than almost any college drawings I saw in my art class this year! The students just love when we enter their classroom to view their work. And, they are so polite when thanking us for coming in or in response to praise of their work! They are always calling us "miss" or "ma'am" ... it sometimes catches me off guard but it's very nice to be respected in such a way. In the higher grades' art class, the students explained how they made several of their recent projects, including paper mache masks, stained glass paintings and book marks. Then, the girls did more mahendi on us! I now have the palm of my left hand (from Baba school) and the back of my right hand (from KK Nagar school). It's so beautiful!
We ended the school day with more cultural programs performed by the students. There was instrumental music and dance. Bri, Calley and I tried one of the traditional dances at the end, but Bri was the only one who really got it, but she's a dance minor and he mom is a dance professor at Augustana so I'm not giving myself too hard a time for not catching on. :-)
After school, we went back to CBSE/Baba Campus to talk with all the teachers from all 4 schools. Each of us from our group (Americans & Indian teachers) talked about our observations and some of us shared some thoughts on things we saw that could use improvement. All of us agreed that this past 8 days of observing has been incredible, and these schools are doing an amazing job of producing intelligent, well rounded citizens. We were presented with gifts - a shoulder bag, a shirt, earrings and a necklace.
It really was a wonderful experience and I love the school system here. I talked with a few of the principals about doing my student teaching here, but we'll see. I did get the e-mail addresses of Shakila and Narayani, the two administrators that I got to know really well from our group. Shakila even calls me Kiki now, since I told her about my nieces and nephews calling me that! :-)
Now that our observations are done, we'll have tomorrow to work on our presentations, then do our presentations for the group on Thursday, and have a banquet at the Residential school Thursday night.
We head back to Chennai on Friday and leave at 4 am Saturday morning. I'll continue blogging this week, but I had to mention how close I am to coming home. It's gone by really fast, but I think I'm ready to come home. It will be nice to sleep in my own bed and eat BEEF! For now, I plan to fully enjoy the next fews days, my last few in India for this trip!

Kodaikanal: Weekend in the Mountains

We spent the weekend in the mountain town of Kodaikanal. It was beautiful there. On the way up the mountain we stopped at a couple scenic overlooks and took pictures of waterfalls. One is the tallest fall in India. It was so pretty, and provided the backdrop for an even more impressive valley veiw below. Once we got to Kodaikanal and checked into the resort, we visited a lake that offered shopping, horseback riding, boating and biking. I rode a horse around the lake and did a lot of shopping. I got some really awesome souveniers for people! I can't wait to deliver them! Lauren and I rented a 4 person peddle boat with 2 other girls from the hospital group for a half hour. However, once we got out to the middle of the boating area, our boat starting taking on water. Unfortunately, the bulk of it was in my seat and under my feet! I was soaked! Since we were in the mountains, it was much cooler up there and I was in for a very chilly and unconfortable night! We ended up heading back to the dock having only used up about 15 minutes of our time. We got some fun picture though. :-)
Saturday night, we had a bonfire at the hotel with a huge buffet and music. It was a really nice break from the busy, noisy city of Madurai, and all three groups (education, social work and microfinance) were there. I got a chance to get to know some of the other people outside the education group. We left early Sunday morning so we could make several stops on the way down the mountain. Most of the places offered the same kinds of tourist shops, but there were a couple stops that ended up being quite eventful! We stopped at a scenic overlook, and there were monkeys everywhere!! We had a couple people get growled at by monkeys and one person even got their package of cookies stolen right out of their hand! The monkeys were all over our vans. I even saw one pulling at the door handle! They have definitely figured out how to scavange the tourist vehicles! When our van was loaded and waiting for the others to get loaded, a couple monkeys climbed up on the roof of our van and were playing with us, tapping on the windows and hanging over the edge. Sentil, our driver, shooed them away with a stick.
At the next stop, we had a half hour to walk around in a wooded area. I wasn't really sure who thought it would be a good idea to walk around in the woods for a half hour, but it was a very beautiful place. Unfortunately, it was still teaming with monkeys. Since there weren't vendors/food stands at this sight, there were fewer monkeys, but they were just as naughty. When we first arrived, as the last few people were getting out of the van, a monkey climbed through an open window and scared the daylights out of the people still waiting to get out! The van drivers came to the rescue again and got the monkey out quickly, but a few of the people were pretty shaken up by the event! Then, I was walking with a few others, including the other Kari, and a monkey came charging at Kari, growling. We all scattered and it kept after Kari. She yelled "NO!" at it, but it kept growling and eyeing her purse. Bupender, the T.A. for the social work group, ran at the monkey with a stick and was throwing sticks and pine cones and it went away. It was one of those moments where I was thankful it wasn't me, worried for Kari and seriously wishing I'd been filming! lol.
As we continued down the mountain, we stopped for shopping a couple more times, and stopped for lunch. Several of us headed straight for the pizza parlor! I think we were just in need of some American food. I know I was. I love the Indian food, but it's not really something you want to eat 3 meals a day. After lunch, we were supposed to descend the mountain without stopping, but it didn't exactly work out that way for my van. About 60 km from Madurai (still about 1/2 way up the mountain) our brakes overheated and we were coasting down the mountain road because we weren't able to stop the van. A few people were freaking out, but I was just sitting back, enjoying the ride. I figured it wouldn't do any good to freak out, and would probably just distract Sentil from getting us to safety. At one point, the driver of another van (the one 2 of the professors were in) went ahead of us and stopped up the road, got out of his van and started sprinting along side our van with a big rock. He tried to throw it under the tire to stop us but we just kept going. Then, because we were moving so slow, the monkeys got upset and a whole troop of monkeys started chasing our van, growling at us and showing their teeth (a sign of aggression). Eventually they gave up chase and Sentil found a spot in the road that leveled out, then went slightly uphill. There was also a rock quarry right at the end of the uphill slope, so he headed for that. Luckily, the van stopped on the level part. We waited on the roadside (monkey trouble free) for about 30 minutes so the breaks could cool down. Apparently this happens frequently and Sentil knew what he was doing (although he had limited English to convey this to us). The rest of the trip, once we got going again, was uneventful. I was exhausted when I got back to the hotel, so I skipped the blog and went straight to bed!