The Arrival

After 30 or so hours of travel and navigating the mystical land of airport security, Sean and I finally made it to our home in Santiniketan, India around two in the afternoon on Wednesday. I determined right then and there that I refused to loose time to the terrifying monster we've labeled as 'jet lag' and so I went with my cousin and mother that afternoon to a nearby village where we taught a preschool class. My mother, among others, has been working on building up a preschool system in the smaller villages for some time now, taught by local teenagers, and it would appear that we've made some progress :D

Later on that night I ventured back to Antaranga where I tutored some high school students in English. We have a group of about seven or eight of them that come every night, and while I know some of them from last year, the rest of them were rather entertained to watch me stumbling over their names. "tumar nam chi?... Salamood? Salamat? Salamta?... Salami?" Yeah, you thought you were bad with names? Try memorizing them when they sound more like deli meats and less like you're typical "Nick" and "Jessica" (though there is a girl in one of my classes named Issaca which reminded me of your name Jess!).

The next morning I got up early to teach third and fourth grade English at Antaranga. Apart from being able to see the kids again which was fabulous, I was ecstatic to see that the school itself has made some progress since last year. They've installed a sand pit, and I have one student (Rajesh) that likes to spend his recesses telling me he's Spiderman and doing flips in the sand. Somehow it still baffles me that whether you go to India or Newtown kids will be essentially the same. To use a cliche, kids will be kids. Most importantly though, last year when I came there was one class for first and second graders and another for third and fourth. Now they have four separate classes!!!! This is fantastic because we really had issues before with teaching down to the younger kids and having the older kids not being challenged enough, so I think this should provide more opportunity for the children.

Anyway, I'm so glad to be back. In a way it feels natural to be attempting to decipher the fast-paced Bengali prattle of the children again and I am beyond psyched about the food :D I miss you all!