Day 2: Sainji Village

I woke up on the roof of Kunwar’s house to the yell of Samir and a flurry of sparrows buzzing just above my face at high speeds.

“What the fuck?! That sparrow literally just flew into my back!” yelled Samir. The sun was still just peeping over the mountains.

“Nah uh”, I sleepily responded.

In an hour or so, the boys and I would pack up all of our gear and creep back into the house the rest of the group was nesting in. They were all still sleeping and we merrily began getting ready for our big day. The kids usually walk up a kilometer or so to the bus stop and then get driven to school. That was our game plan.

Jessica taking pictures of the kids. They loved our cameras.

I walked with Samir, Rohan, and Jessica with a group of 10 or so girls of the village. Zach and Nick had left earlier with all of the boys. It’s funny how the girls all stick with their gender and the boys do the same; very little social contact is exchanged between the two. It was also made known by the fact that all these girls surrounded Jessica while Samir, Rohan, and I were largely ostracized. The hike up to the bus stop was short but I was sweating bullets from the ascension. It was a solid 500 feet up, maybe more.

When the bus arrived, it was packed to the brim, so Rohan, Samir, and I elected to walk the remaining mile or so to school, which was extravagant. It was really nice to slowly take in the surroundings from a walk as opposed to the wildness of a bus ride where I probably wouldn’t even be able to think.

Samir at the front with Rohan following behind.

We arrived at the school just as the students were beginning their early morning activities. They all met in the center, outside the school and recited the Indian national anthem. They also went through some rather militaristic drills where students facing the crowd of children, would yell something, and the kids would repeat. Once the other students of Pitt from the village arrived via bus, we had breakfast and got assigned classes to teach.

Morning drills.

I was assigned to Kindergarten along with Annie, and we quickly started planning our day… albeit poorly so. We each chose two books and went to meet our students. Immediately upon entering the class, the kids absolutely beamed at us with shy, sly grins. The class of 16 was separated into two groups and Annie and I took them outside for the reading.

I had chosen the story “Wacky Wednesday”, which upon reading out loud, it quickly became evident it was a little too “high-level” for the kids. However, the fun of the book was the fact that the students had to locate things on each page that were wacky or out of place. It started with 2 things, then 3, then 6, 10, 12, 16, and 20. It worked out perfectly with the kids. They were nearly climbing onto my head, eager to locate the strange things in the pictures. We counted, smiled, and laughed. Afterwards, for the next 3 hours, Annie and I played games with them. It was funny; we totally ran out of ideas for games to play and even games like “Ring Around the Rosie” had the kids smiling like it was Christmas morning. I was terrified before the day began that the kids would hate me or something but in their eyes, there was literally nothing we could do wrong.

Worthy of noting is the how much touch is involved with these kids. At all moments of the day, the children almost always have their arms around a buddy or are just touching other individuals. Now, this is incredibly cute but also problematic. There’s been an outbreak of mumps at the school (it might also describe why I’m sick today) and Lori had a clever way to look for it: She had the kids walk by her this morning giving high fives but she was really looking for anyone who might have the mumps. One student did.

When our teaching escapade was finally over, we waited for lunch and talked with the kids who had recess. I made some friends (Anush and two others) who taught me some Hindi words. Ugh, I was terrible at recalling them but some of it did stick and I was impressed with their patience. I could tell they also really enjoyed teaching me.

After lunch, we were told that the kids had prepared yet another gift for us. This time, it was a traditional dance that was gorgeous. About ten kids, dressed head to toe in vividly colorful garments, danced amongst their gender in groups of five. At times, the Hindi music would have a little “breakdown”, in which one boy and girl would come to the middle of the circle and dance with each other. Everyone else would begin clapping at this moment. Afterward, they performed one more dance. Midway through this dance, each of them grabbed our hand and lured us onto the dance field. My worst apprehensions had come true. I was on display dancing like a goon amongst these kids. However, that became the fun of it, and the dance became so foreign to me that I was totally just swaying with the rhythm, mimicking the curious hand gestures of the other dancers. Pretty soon, I didn’t really care how silly I looked. Not long after we joined the dance, all of the GEM school students joined the dance floor and chaos ensued. Dancing gave way to moshing and once one of the children got hurt, it was over.

Traditional dance.

We sang a couple camp songs that a handful of us knew from the states before it was time for the kids to go home. The one bus takes three groups of students home, coming from a bunch of different villages in the area. As we waited, the one child with the mumps played games with me until the bus was done. Despite being sick, he was really sweet and showed me the most popular game amongst the children; the rock game. I didn’t quite grasp it but he absolutely killed me. The kid was a pro. It finally came time for us to leave the GEMS school. I was touched by the whole experience.