Elizabeth W.

International Education Volunteer

Shiv and Gunga, India

As soon as I stepped off the plane in Delhi I wanted to get back on the plane and go home. It was so different from what I had expected. The city was chaotic, hot, and dirty. It was a major shock for me, who had been expecting the India I had seen in the movies. They say first impressions last, but I'm glad my first impression of India is not what I took away from this experience. I spent most of my two-month stay in Shiv, a small village in Rajasthan, India. However, I was able to travel around different parts of Rajasthan with the other volunteers, which helped turn my impression of India as a whole. In the first week we stayed in Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan, slightly less chaotic than Delhi. It is known as the pink city and has some beautiful monuments. The elephant ride to the Amber Fort, although scary at times, was a fun experience, and the fort is beautiful. We also had the opportunity to see the Taj Mahal in the first week I was in India. The best thing about my stay in Jaipur was the host family we were able to stay with.

My host family was really nice. They were helpful and kind. Sanjay, the father, took us to an internet cafe one night and made sure our Indian SIM cards were in working order. His wife, Sonya, was attentive and gave us chai every morning and night. Their two children were also very nice. Their nine-year-old son talked a lot with us and was fun to talk to, and their two-year-old daughter didn't talk much but was friendly. It was a real treat to be able to live with an Indian family for a week.

When we finally got to camp we started our work in the villages of Shiv and Gunga. Both were small villages that were near our camp, Lok Rang. We had to walk one kilometer to get to the half-mile stretch of road that made up Shiv village. We found the tailor to be friendly and spent a lot of our time in his shop getting clothes made, drinking chai, and having stilted conversations. The rest of the villagers were also very nice and tried to help us as much as they could, even with the language barrier. I couldn't help but fall in love with Shiv.

I also fell in love with the children I worked with. For the first four weeks I worked at two different schools. The government school, Nimbasar, and the snake charmers non-formal school. I found them to be challenging but rewarding. We taught both English and math to grades one through five. It was hard because the books we were given were too hard for the kids. The children at Nimbasar though really touched me. When I look back at my time at Nimbasar I'm struck with two incidents that make my time there rewarding. There was this one boy in the fourth grade who didn't know how to spell his own name and we taught him how to do it. We played this game where one of the teachers had to stand in the corner while one of the kids came to the board and wrote his name on the board, which the volunteer would then have to try and guess which student the name belonged to. At first he didn't know what to write and we had to tell him but as the days went on he learned it and could write it without any help from us.

The second rewarding experience from Nimbasar was when I was working with the first grade and trying to get them to learn the numbers one through ten. The first grade was extremely shy and timid around us. They wouldn't speak up. One day I had each of the kids hold a different number flashcards and they had to get into order. The I had them repeat the numbers by getting louder and louder. The kids got really into it and were actually shouting the numbers which was so exciting for me. Even the girls who hardly spoke were shouting, and I could tell they were excited about the activity. To see the kids enjoying school was rewarding in itself.

The Snake Charmers school was different because it was a non-formal school. We had several different levels all mixed together. We had to take a different strategy with teaching them. They were loud and all talked, even the girls talked, which was different from the government school. With the snake charmer kids I could see how they were all connected. Most were related in some way. The older kids would write on their slates and then write on the younger kids slates so they would also have the right answer. We had more freedom to teach the kids in the non-formal school because we could play more games and allow the children to have more fun than the government school. We taught them the alphabet by drawing pictures. For example, A is for apple. The kids would have to write the word apple and copy the picture of the apple we drew. I felt that was a more effective approach to teaching. My favorite student, Prem, loved it when I gave him a thumbs up, and especially when I gave him two thumbs up, and he would try so hard to get it. I would watch him concentrate on a word like giraffe to get it just right. Sometimes his letters were sideways or backwards. After writing a word he would show me his slate and if it wasn't quite right I showed him what he needed to fix, and sometimes he would have to rewrite the whole word but he got it right. After he got his right he would grab his little brother's slate and rewrite it with as much concentration as he wrote the word on his slate. I loved the time I spent at the snake charmers school.

For the last four weeks I switched to working at the daycare center next to the snake charmers school and would occasionally go back to the snake charmers school in the afternoons when we had no community work to do. The daycare center was very different from the schools. They were a lot more subdued and quiet. We would give them toys, books, and coloring pages, and they would be happy with that and take care of themselves. The kids were so sweet. We had kids from babies to six years old with the occasional school-aged kid who came. The daycare center was at Chan Chal's house, a woman of the community. The kids just liked having us there. Only the older kids knew English and it was just enough to say hello, but we communicated almost better than two people who spoke the same language. We tried teaching lessons at daycare as well as in the schools but it was harder because the kids didn't understand us. We could really only do it when the older kids were there. We had one girl who was around three years old, Bhauna, who came in every day, sat down, and cried. It was quite the sight. She would just throw her head back and cry to the sky. She would always sit as far from the volunteers as she could, but while still collecting as much of the toys as she could and not sharing them. But by the end of our time she didn't cry as much and actually gave us stuff back without us having to take it from her.

My favorite kid from daycare though was a boy who was four years old named Bhavan. He was the most adorable kid ever. He would always try on our shoes and walk around with them on. We also had a bottle game where we knocked down bottles that had numbers on them and he loved them. He would go and set them up and play by himself and when he was done he picked them all up and put them back in the box. He also liked it when we threw this ring for him and he would go chase after it and bring it back. One time when we threw it it knocked over our bucket and towel. Bhavan picked up the bucket, set it right, put the towel on top and then grabbed the ring to bring it back to us. He was just so cute and really all of the kids in daycare helped make the last weeks in India amazing. I loved it when we tried to explain something to the kids and they didn't understand us but after several tries they finally understood. It was that moment of realization that was the most rewarding. Pooja, a slightly older girl took one of our color by number pages we had made to teach both numbers and colors. We had tried to explain it to her and she didn't get it. Then Hitesh, our project executive tried to explain it to her in Hindi and she still was a little shaky but then Giatry, another girl at the daycare, who knew a little english, told her what to do and she finally got it. It was heartwarming to see how much the kids cared for each other and helped each other. It was rewarding for me because of the cooperation among the children could be seen but also I could see the connection between colors and numbers. It was a good way for us to teach numbers and colors. It was fun for the children but also educational for them.

We worked in the daycare in the morning and then in the afternoons we had community work where we went around to each of the houses and talked to the parents of the kids who attended daycare and the community members. One day after we had washed the children in daycare we went around and talked about the importance of hygiene to the parents. Community work also involved testing the iodine levels in the salt, and giving the kids vitamins, not just the kids from the daycare but the all the kids in the community. Community work caused us some problems with communication and using the time wisely but we did help and the community was welcoming to us.

The kids made a huge impact on me. Most of them were really happy even though to our standards they have nothing. I remember seeing one boy so content with a pulling a pen on a string along behind him. It opens your eyes to the rest of the world. In order to have any impact on the children we relied on our project executives. Each school or daycare center had a project executive who came along to help with translating. Sometimes we had our own problems communicating with each other but they tried really hard to understand us, answer out questions, help with making the kids understand us, and just making sure we had everything we needed in order to complete the tasks of the day. The entire program was organized by IDEX and for the most part the IDEX staff was helpful in getting us teaching materials and other things we needed throughout our stay. They were welcoming and inviting. They threw a party for us and helped create a bond between the staff and volunteers which was somewhat hard to do not only because of the question of language but also cultural considerations. The volunteers also were a big part in my realizing how connect we all really are. I met people from all around the world, from all different walks of life and backgrounds. For the first four weeks I was the only American and it was interesting to get hear what others thought about my country. Even among the volunteers we had language barriers but we worked through it and I made some lasting friendships that I will always remember.

I know that without the Working Abroad Grant I wouldn't have been able to do all that I did. It would have been a financial crunch if I hadn't gotten the grant and I would have been able to go to the Taj mahal with the volunteers, visit Jaisalmer twice with two different groups of volunteers and spend a weekend in Jodhpur with two girls from Holland; all of which gave me different experience with different people. It really helped me understand the world on an international stage rather than my obscure view from America. The interactions also with the people of India helped me understand how naive Americans are. We think their life is so much worse than ours because we have such a higher standard of living, but we're materialistic which they're not. I met so many people who were more happy with their small hut or small business housed in a shack than anyone I have met where I live. The working abroad grant allowed me to see how a community should work and how it can work. This experience really changed the way I think about the world and has allowed me not only to grow up a little but also to not put so much stock into money.

Although it was a rough start, i eventually fell in love with India, with its people, culture, and history. And I would love to travel there again.