Leaving Shanti Bhavan

So, as you can imagine Shanti Bhavan continued to be amazing through out my entire stay. I have some new pictures posted and I will put up a few more of my favorites soon. The big art projects we completed were Art Journals (so book making/decorating), Self Portraits, Paper Mache sculpture, 5th grade paper mache masks, 5th grade mural, and many, many, christmas decorations. 

I also picked up the role of 2nd grade gym co-teacher. The kindergarten and first grade basically have recess during this time everyday and then the one gym teacher is given 2-5 all at once. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade practice their marching drills for Sports Day (which is a one day event at the end of the winter semester that I'll get in to later) and this was just too much for the 2nd grade in the middle of the afternoon. So we played kick ball, and tag games, and camp games for an hour each day. As it got closer to sports day we started training for our events. I was in charge of the girls cart wheel race. Let me tell you, 11 seven year old girls trying very hard to do cart wheels and instead falling on their faces is very cute. 

Sports day arrived in the last week before the school closed for vacation. We had a half day of classes and then everyone went back to their dorms to rest and get into house colors. The four houses were made up of 1/4 of every grade. Each grade had at least two events and all the events scored the same (3 points for 1st place, 2 points for 2nd, 1 point for 3rd). This meant that the kindergarten "Button the Shirt" race was worth just as much as the high school basket ball tournament. 

The event began with an opening ceremony, team presentation, marching drills, and the team captains relaying a torch around the field and finally lighting the big torch together. 

Because there are no other schools for Shanti Bhavan to compete against, sports day is taken pretty seriously as the only chance the students get to compete physically and be honored for their skills. As far as all of the ceremony - I think it is more looked as more on the level of family tradition - it's important because we do it every year and we do it every year because it's important. A few of the teachers were given a mic to commentate through out the afternoon and took every chance to poke a little fun at the ceremony of it all. Events ranged from "lemon on a spoon races" and "sack races" to proper track and field events to cycling races.

My cart wheel pupils were INCREDIBLE! I was very very proud. 

The final event (and the only event to last beyond that evening) was a 4 day basket ball tournament. Two houses played each morning before breakfast. Each quarter had new players (middle school boys, middle school girls, high school boys, high school girls). The points would continue to build with each new set of players - again making the high school boy captain very invested in even the middle school girls team. The whole event is very well thought out and lots of fun. 

Also in my last week at Shanti Bhavan we celebrated Christmas. (Over all a very very exciting week).  The 11th grade took on the task of the Christmas party. It was amazing. As the children walked in - the school choir was singing carols. The decorations were beautiful and almost all hand made (you can't really run to Target for this sort of thing here). After a few songs with the choir - the lights cut out mid song - a drum started beating at one end of the cafeteria - and as every looked for the drum a red light turned on in the kitchen (behind the crowd), everyone turned around to see Santa climbing down a latter (next to the chimney). The choir - started singing again and 100 - ish children all under the age of 10 began cheering and screaming with amazing excitement. I mean - I help dress Auntie Annie up in the Santa costume before hand - but it was all very convincing. This was followed by a "Yule Ball". For a high school - they don't get to have many dances - so the 11th grade took the opportunity and ran with it. They put every member of the staff teachers and students names in hats and pulled one boy and one girl to come up and dance in front of the school to half a song before adding another couple. The principal got called, the dreamy-est boy in the high school danced with a 1st grader. 

Then there were games, then Christmas dinner - and this is when Santa came around with a gift (3 candy bars wrapped up neatly - but in newspaper) for every student. 

Finally the little kids went to bed and the middle school and high school got to stay up and dance for hours later than normal curfew. (Resulting in the next morning's basket ball game to be postponed to the afternoon.) 

This unbelievable last week ended on a very serious note. Every semester, on the day before holiday the students are talked to about sexual harassment. Most of the students will go home to some sort of either physical or sexual abuse - not always by their families - neighbors seem to be a bigger concern. When parents go to work for the day - their is no one around to help keep the children safe.

After classes, and sports day, and Christmas, and these students being so much fun, so intelligent, so hard working, and so normal - it was easy for me to occasionally forget what everyone was going home to. And - of course, I had these talks in school too - what to do if you are sexually harassed -how to get out of a bad situation. And I always listened, paid attention, took it seriously - but in the back of my head I knew there as a good chance I would never have to use it. 

So, this post ended up being much longer then I intended. Again, the school NEEDS volunteers for the new year. If you can't come keep and ear out for anyone looking to do volunteer work. Even if it can't be until later in the spring. A handful of you showed interest in going. I can't express how easy it is to be able to have this incredible experience. 

Merry Christmas. I hope you are all well.

 

Shanti Bhavan

It has been an incredible first week in India. I really couldn't be happier. I had a pretty exciting 3.5 hour ride from the airport involving two taxis, lots of miss communication and me arriving at my destination at 3 am. However I felt safe the whole time - this was a pre-arranged car with a company the school uses all the time. So, while I was frustrated I never felt in any danger.

This school is the most incredible place I have ever been. It is Bement (my summer camp), Star Island and Harry Potter all rolled into one - plus a whole lot of extra awesome on top.

The students are accepted 24 at a time (12 girls 12 boys) at the age of four. The first graduating class (15 seniors in high school) will leave the school next year. Currently the oldest kids are 11th grade. The students come from near by villages and are all from the lowest or "untouchable" caste. This means in many areas not only are they not expected to be in any sort of school - they are often not seen as worthy of going to school.

The students live at the school for 46 weeks a year. They are held to very high academic standards. 4th graders will take me aside to ask me if I am happy at Shanti Bhavan, if I am proud to be at Shanti Bhavan and then procceed to elequently tell me why they are proud to be at Shanti Bhavan and why they are proud to be from India.

I am teaching art 5 to 6 periods a day to grades k-5. We have made art journals from scratch and now we are working on self portraits. We are also studying Picasso (as one of the other volunteers is from Malaga - Picasso's home city) as well as Jamini Roy, and Indian artist. When the principle introduced me and said they would be having art class everyday the children litteraly shook with excitement. It was actually a little overwhelming. I can not walk from one class room to another with out 5-10 students running up to me to give reports on the how they have improved there self portrait since the last I saw them (usually 4 ish hours earlier). They haven't had an Art Teacher at the school in quite a while. And - really as of one week ago - I did not know that I was an art teacher - but apparently I am. It is actually really great to be getting time to focus on art. I pour over the art books in the library trying to find out anything I can about Indian Artist, and of course I try out all the ideas I have for projects before bringing them to class.

Also, the school serves only one non - vegetarian meal a week. There is chicken from Sunday dinner (along with of course a veggie option) - Amazing!!

We have a morning assembly every day - there is a prayer asking for help and safety for the school and everyone there and asking for help to see the divine in ourselves and everyone around us. On Saturday's the children also say a prayer for the teachers and then the children SING A SONG about all the things they could be when they grow up and sing about how it is people like their teachers who believe in them that help them get there. And - oh my - so far I have cried both times I've heard it. I don't think that will stop soon. The 1st graders all stand in front and are just so proud of themselves. The the 11th graders stand in back ... and while they are clearly a little less enthoused to be singing.... they still all sing. Then they give a world news report either in English, Hindi, or Tamil - depending on the day.

I'm in heaven.

Also one of the other volunteers has every episode of Friends on DVD.

Along with the rest of the world Shanti Bhavan is going through serious financial troubles. This is the first year they were not able to accept a new pre-school class. The teachers saleries have been cut and many teachers have had to leave. They are relying heavily on volunteers to fill in the gaps. While usually only two volunteers are accepted each year - there are currently 8 volunteers.3 of which have thier own entire grade that they are teaching.

I strongly urge anyone who has ever wanted to come to India, anyone who has some extra time right now, any one who is good at any school subject (the 11th graders are learning economics, and all the smart math and science kid things, and engineering) anyone who is a teacher (there are MANY of you on this list) - to write back to me and tell me if you would have any interest in coming in volunteering for the spring. All of the volunteers will be leaving at the end of December.

All of your expenses are taken care of, they pick you up at the air port. The grounds are very safe. There are always security guards on 24/7 there are not many health concerns in this area in India.

Okay that is my pitch. I hope I convinced at least one of you.

I miss you all and love you. Emily

ps sorry for all the spelling errors... I know they are there ... I don't have time to look them up right now.

Obama-rama

The US Embassy was nice enough to host Americans at a fancy hotel in Bangkok to watch the election results come in. It was also nice that the results came in at such a reasonable hour in Thailand. 

They served mini American food, such as mini hamburgers, mini bagels, mini brownies, mini blueberry muffins, mini pecan pies. Mini is fun. 

In other exciting news I finally bought a bunch of plane tickets. I am officially going to India, Kenya, South Africa, and New Zealand. I leave for India on Wednesday. I will be volunteering at Shanti Bhavan. It is a residential school for some of the poorest "untouchable" caste children in South India. I'll have the privilege of working along side the amazing Becca Bailey ( a friend of mine from Star Island). 

Halloween

The night before Halloween Vickie and I bought a very small green pumpkin at the market and carved it with the family and some of the students from the school. After lighting our Jack-o-Lantern there were many many many camera phone pictures taken.

When I went to dinner on Halloween day my host sister (Fon - 15). Had drawn a picture for me titled Happy Halloween Day. There were trick or treaters dressed as a ghost and a witch, carved pumpkins, buckets of candy and houses decorated for the occasion. She hit all the major points. Then just as I was getting ready to go to sleep there was a knock on my door and Fon and her mother (Pi Waa) were outside with a well rehearsed "Trick or Treat" and a hand full of candy. Trick or Treaters who bring candy are the best kind. :)  

Fairy Tales

I have more or less fallen in love with the family that lives on sight on the school. I wrote in the letter to my mother that the kids names are Din, Nam, and Fon. It turns out these are nick names. They haven't bothered to tell me there real names. However, they have told me that there names mean Earth, Water, and Rain respectively. I live with Thai hippies. It's pretty awesome. Not to mention, after having Bangkok leave me wondering if "the land of smiles" was a myth this family has quickly shone me how many times it is possible to smile in one day. As we cook dinner Nam sits in the hammock and plays his guitar and sings in Thai. The boys each have motorcycles (really more of scooters) and are nice enough to let there little sister ride on the back as they zip around Chang Rai with there shades on. They are the coolest teenagers I have ever met. The parents speak very little English but smile and laugh as they teach me Thai and try to improve there English. The father (Pi Sak) has learned the word for cute uses it the most as I try tirelessly to correctly pronounce Thai words.

As it turns out we do not work very much on this farm/school (VBAC). I have not worked on the mud house (or anything else for that matter) since my last entry 1 week ago. I am starting to understand that just by having travelers coming through and more or less being in the community and representing the school we are helping the school. I think Silapa more wants us to be learning about Thai culture, meditation, herbal remedies, and Buddhism.

We often are given a rough idea of what we will be doing each day - but very rough. For instance, last Sunday we were told we were not working this day but going to a Waterfall. We piled in to the back of the old pick up truck the school uses. 10 minutes later we arrived at a near by temple. We ended up staying at the temple for 3 hours putting together a "money tree" for the upcoming meditation retreat. (A money tree is like a much more exciting collection plate).

We make it to the beginning of the trail to the waterfall. It is about a 20 minute easy hike in until I round the corner and am blown away by a waterfall 3 times the size of anything I was expecting. The waterfall was mentioned so casually I figured we were going to swim and it would be neat and maybe we could even slide down it. Standing fifty from the waterfall my clothes were soaked from the mist and you had to yell to hear the person next to you. Din, Nam and Fon arrived shortly after us and Nam was nice enough to be my guide under the waterfall. It was incredible. There was just enough space for 3 or 4 people to climb up in behind the fall and sit for a few minutes.

The next morning we woke up expecting to work. We were once again told to climb in the truck little idea where we were headed. We arrived at a monastery. Our money tree was proudly displayed at the front of the temple. This was the first day of a 5 day meditation retreat. Silapa introduced us to an older Monk who explained the different activities and workshops going on (acupuncture, Tai Chi, natural healing work shop) he told us to look around but not to wonder far because the truck would be here soon to take us to the cave. Everyone was talking to us as if we had any idea what was going on. I get the impression that Silapa sets up many very interesting things for us to do, but maybe doesn't have the English to explain what is going to happen. It's always a surprise waiting for us in the morning.

So again we arrive at a trail opening, we hike in on a short path that crosses a stream. We arrive at a huge hole in the side of the mountain. The cave is maybe 40 feet deep and 30 feet high at it's highest point. There are a few tents set up and two young monks sitting with crossed legs on mats. They welcome us with smiles. We spend about an hour with the monks. There are two other caves close by that they takes us to explore. At the end of our time they begin talking about how we will be staying with them for the week in the cave. Once again news to me. It turns out it was our choice to stay or not... there were some key words lost in translation. But honestly, how often do you get invited to camp in a cave with monks for a week to learn about meditation.

We had time to go back to the monastery, try out having acupuncture done, and return to VBAC for just enough time to pack what we will need in the cave.

4 nights

3 Americans

2 monks

1 yoga teacher

Incredible.

The monks turned out to be hilarious. There names were SuphaChai and Matt (Matt is actually German but wanted to try out being a Buddhist Monk for a month). SuphaChai is Matt's teacher but has been a mentor and friend of his for many years now. SuphaChai was as incredible as his name suggests. The mornings were spent doing a little yoga with the yoga teacher (Sylvia), exploring the area, washing dishes, rinsing out muddy clothes in the stream, swimming. Afternoon often got us lessons in meditation exercises, background and basics of acupuncture, Buddhism 101. After dinner was talking about meditation techniques to try out the next day, stories about monks crossing streams, king frogs, and kings who like to hunt for fun. It was somewhat of a adventure base meditation style. Mostly it was an incredible experience, and a whole lot of fun. I am proud to say I have two brand new Monk BFF's. :)

First impressions (Letter to my Mother)

Hi Mom,

So I just arrived at the "farm". I guess it's a farm. It's very cool whatever it is. So I mentioned we are on a university. It is actually more like a trade school. School is out right now. maybe for the week, maybe the end of a longer vacation period. I'm not sure. It looks like there is a palm tree orchard on the grounds. There is a pond and 7ish cows. However, life so far has been very cool.

Bangkok was neat but kind of horrible. I mean it was just kind of a big dirty city. I probably told you already that it was really not that unlike any other cities I've been to. I was deffinatly singled out as a toursit very often. It was also very hot and just kind of gross. My hostel there was cool. I paid 4 dollars a night to stay in the dorm and then I spent my last few nights on the roof for free. They had the roof set up with a few hammocks and beds, a shower and bathroom and a few sinks. There was also a cover over the roof and 1/4 height walls giving you more of a chance of catching a breeze at night. The door to the roof locked from the roof, so I felt really safe staying up there as well.

My friend Vickie and I took an over night bus 11 hours north to Chang Rai. They served us meals on the bus and we watched Thai TV (which was a very very strange slap stick comedy show). We arrived at the and called our host. He came and picked us up at the bus station. Our host's name is Silapa. He speaks very clear English. There is also a family that lives on sight. A husband and wife and there three teen agers. The two older teenagers (Din and Nam - boys) will go back to college in a few days. They go to school in Chang Mai which is a larger city south west of here. I think students are in university younger here. Maybe 16 and up?

The youngest of the tree is a girl (Fon).

The family cooks all of our meals for us in there house. If we show up at the right time and ask many times they will let us help. We eat on the floor. Every meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) consists of rice and stir fried vegetables. Every meal tastes completely different from the last and is very spicy (even when tuned down for our sensitive Western tongues).

All the ingredients are fresh and organic. What doesn't come from the farm comes from farms near by or from the produce market at the end of the road. The fruit is incredible. The bananas are as sweet as grapes.

Silapa is an herbalist and medicinal wine maker. There is also an herbal winery on sight. He actually just left a few minutes ago on his motorcycle to gather herbs in the forest (no joke). I feel like I am describing a fairy tale. For work we are eventually building a mud brick house. Right now we are working on the bricks. In the morning we make the mud - soil, water, rice husks, and crushed clay. We mix it with our feet in the mud pit. This takes a few hours in the morning. The afternoon is often dubbed too hot to work ... so we take it off and return to work for an hour before dinner. This is when we put the mud in the frame and set it to dry for two weeks.

This is all for now. Love,

Emily

For those who are interested in every detail :) (Ireland and Qatar)

My trip started with visiting my sister Becky in Limerick, Ireland. Becky is doing her first semester of college abroad. I stayed with her in her apartment/dorm. For me, the point of this stop was getting my travel bearings and of course getting a chance to see Becky. We didn't do too many touristy things. We did manage to journey to the homeland (which is apparently Cork). Cork was awesome. Just a small city two hours out of Limerick. We went on a Sunday so, of course, very little was open. As we came to the end of the hub street we found ourselves in the middle of a good sized folk festival. At first there was a live band at one end of a big open court yard area and they were calling Irish Folk dancing that anyone was welcome to join in. We watched for a few dances before joining ourselves. Unfortunately this left no one to get pictures. We wondered Cork a little more, tried to get a bus to see Blarney Castle (we missed the last bus) and ended up back at this same court yard in time to see Salsa Celtica. This Cuban /Irish folk fusion band was incredible. I highly suggest looking them up on YouTube or trying to find them online. It was truly amazing music.

Back in Limerick, Becky and I visited her local castle (St. John's Castle) and the museum and made sure we went out for Guinnesses and some more traditional Irish music before I left. All in all Ireland was a great place to chill out and get reorganized after a first leg of my trip.

So I left Ireland. I had a 6 hour stop over in Doha, Qatar. Which I realize doesn't really count as a destination on my trip, except that it was so different from really anywhere I had been before. So there you have it, I am counting it. We off boarded the plane by climbing down stairs and walking outside over to buses that then drove us 15 minutes to the terminals. This wasn't so strange except that it was 75 degrees outside at 2am. That was new. I stayed awake while in the airport. I browsed the duty free shops and tried out the perfumes. I swear it was dark and the middle of the night as I left one end of the terminal and by the time I looked out the windows at the other end it was daylight. I watched the sunrise before getting back in line to board my 6th plane of the week. This time as we rode the 15 minutes on the buses I could clearly see my surroundings. The airport is right on the edge of the city. I feel like we drove pretty close to down town Doha. It was pretty neat. It is clear from the in flight magazine that Qatar is really trying to push Doha as a great new tourist destination. It was interesting to get to see a little bit of it. While through the haze you could see colorful buildings in the city everything directly around me was the all the same desert camel beige color. Everything, the ground, buildings,workers clothes, even the haze turned the air a sky a similar hue. Anyways, I've never been to a desert before. This is what I have to report from Qatar.

I had a really lovely flight from Doha to Bangkok. It was sunny and beautiful the entire way. The clouds just below us made incredible shapes in the sky. I was embarrassed for myself when I looked back through my camera and realized that the 20 something pictures I took of clouds. My friends and I met at the airport and began bargaining with cab drivers. After an hour and a half of one way escalators, not being able to find the buses and resilient Thai cab drives we settled on what we knew was an extremely over priced cab out of exhaustion.