Volunteering in the Slums

Day 4: Today we met Lalit and our driver at 9:15 to take us to Papakalan. The drive took about an hour, even though we were just traveling to the west side of Delhi. Driving in Delhi is an experience all itself. Cars are on the left side, British style, filled with the excitement an experienced New York taxi driver can provide, with tons of horn honking, near misses of cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and the ever present pedestrian. It's quite an art.

When we arrived at the slum, I wasn't sure what to expect. In a way, it wasn't as bad as I pictured it would be, however I think you have to be a bit numb to take it all in. Buildings are falling apart, children are poorly dressed, some covered with flies and ailments. The people were all very nice and we greeted the children with "Namaste." At this point, I really can't describe this better because the whole day was overwhelming. But as much as it would be easiest to just throw up your arms, cry, and say there's no way to fix this one little slum in India, so why bother... you have to realize that the people are not miserable as Americans in this situation would be. The children are happy, the women lovely, and its just the way it is. These 3 weeks will fly by, but as long as I show I care and try to give a little bit of knowledge, that will be enough.

Chantelle and I were directed to a small room that just had a single fan to ventillate it. The girls attend government school in the morning, so we were left with 9 boys mostly between the ages of 8 and 9, although there was one adorable 6 year old and a 13 year old. They wore uniforms and were provided with lunch at 11:30. There are no desks or tables in the room, so we sat all together on the floor (I'm so glad I'm used to this from NY public schools). We introduced ourselves to the teacher and the students, and got to learn there names. It was slightly awkward today, because I thought we had to follow the teacher's lead, but think now that we will just have to break up the students into 2 groups and prepare lessons for them. It's going to be a challenge due to limited resources of the facility and that the students really only know the alphabet, numbers, some nouns (trees, boy, etc.), but are true beginners of English.

It was quite hot in the small room, but at noon we met up with Rosie and her group of women. We will be spending 30 minutes practicing conversational English with this group. It was quite quiet in the beginning, but we shared a cup of tea (we generally have tea everywhere). Then I broke the silence by talking about the women's children and shared pictures of my brother and Emma, my hubby, and family. Family is a top priority in India, so this will be the basis for many conversations. Also, I showed the women some photos of my pre-k students (with my brother the firefighter), ESL students, and ESL parent class. The director was curious about class size and we spoke a little about the educational system.

I was feeling a little overwhelmed today from this emotional teaching experience and also from the lack of sleep (I think I've only been getting about 4 hrs or so a night), combined with the heat. We had a wonderful lunch back at our homebase (1:30pm) and then at 2:30 had our hindi class, which I uncontrollable laughed through the majority of the lesson. We are all feeling a bit overwhelmed, so its nice to have the support of the 6 others. It really is a fantastic experience and we are guided and taken care of completely.

Now I'm heading to dinner and will hopefully get a bit more sleep tonight. Hope all is well on the other side of the world!