A Good Deed

Yesterday our group went to a rural village to volunteer teaching young children. Our college, St Xavier's, has a program called NSS, which volunteers and performs various social work throughout West Bengal. We met early (6:45 am) at St Xavier's and headed out on a long drive to the rural village in which we would be volunteering. Adam, Erik, Kelsey K, and I, rode on the bus with 50 Indian students. Kelsey compared it to being in junior high where everyone stands in the aisles and shouts (or in the case of the Indian students, they enjoy singing). Needless to say, no one took a nap and towards the end of the bus ride we were all ready to leap out the window in order to escape.

Adam doesn't like the smell of the boat's motor

Once we got off the bus we were sheparded (literally it was like we were goats being herded by staff, and in some cases, students) to a boat in which we would travel to the rural village. There was 75 of us piled on one boat and we cruised along the river for about an hour, chatting with Indian students, and trying to avoid the smoke from the boat's engine.

Inside of the school where we taught

On arriving at the rural village, we walked along a dirt road until we reached the school. We sat briefly and drank some tea and biscuits before being lead to a large room where we split up the students into classes (grades). I, along with four St. Xavier's students, taught students from class 8 (8th grade). I worked with one girl named Sunita. We began by reading and I slowly read the English words to her as she repeated them back to me. Then she started reading and stopping once every sentence to have me sound out the word for her. Many of you must be thinking that everyone in India must speak English, but surprisingly there are many people who have a hard time speaking English, and numerous Indians feel self-conscious speaking English so they choose not to. Finding English-speaking people is even harder in rural villages so I was glad that they were being taught the language so they could go to schools like St. Xavier's (an English-taught collge) in the future. From the short time I spent with Sunita, I got the impression that she was more advanced than some of the other students, and once we got to multiplication and I had her multiplying 1465x1465, I knew that she was an intelligent young woman. Sunita had some trouble being able to talk with me so she mostly just smiled, but I was very grateful to be able to spend an afternoon getting to meet her.

Outside of the school where we taught

We ate a lunch of rice, dal, potatoes, popper, and bringer (eggplant). After we were done the principal of the school addressed us in Bengali and we were off to the boats to cruise back to the mainland and hop on the bus. It took awhile to get back and on the way back I was lucky enough to sit in the car that was reserved for American students. The driver drove like a maniac but we made it back without running over anything (apparently if you run over a goat it is a 2,000 USD fine, a chicken is a little less than that and a cow is even more. If you don't have the money than the people will steal all your valuables including your gold jewelry that you are wearing) and without anyone getting car sick (though Courtney looked a little green for most of the ride). We all had a great time hanging out with the kids and Panchali (our St Xavier's coordinator) was so happy that we volunteered that she cancelled classes today as a treat. All in all...it was a good day.

A house in the village where we taught