Week 7

Phil here,

Another week has gone by, and it is the first for witch school has been held for the entirety of the week. That being said, the children once again needed to agust once again to being full time students.

Eliza was not feeling well on Monday so I went to school alone for the first time. It was on this day that I began to teach class IV more about articles and their proper use. Although they knew that "a", "an", and "the" were the three articles, they seem to never have been taught their proper use. They had no idea for example that "an" follows nouns that begin with a vowel sound. They learned quickly though, at least with the indefinite articles. The definite article proved to be a harder concept, and my inability to define "indefinite," did not help the process. The next class we needed to review the use of "the"

Class III finished their lessons on the past tenses, and did quite well on the test. I also have decided that they are in need of article review, but bereft of the double period it will take longer to accomplish.

Class II is reviewing "to be" after their abysmal performance on the quiz, I have no idea why they failed so totally, in class they are adept at doing the drills, but they fail to connect that experience with the questions on the test. Hopefully after a week of review they will be better prepared. Also they confess that they did not study, and the test came after a rather long hiatus, that no doubt added to the problem.

Eliza has decided that Class I should do poems next and she has created a wonderful game that involves matching rhyming words with a partner. The children really get into the activity and seem to really grasp the concept of words that rhyme. Babul also took his test on time and did quite well, receiving the third highest grade in the class. I admit that I did not think that he would do quite that well.

This next week will no doubt be full of review, beginning on Friday the students have terminal exams and Eliza and I have been encouraged to take the time to go to Darjeeling to see the sights with the other volunteers. Perhaps we will put up the tests we write to see how our readers compare to the children here :)

Newspaper

Just finished typing up this bad boy. Apologies for the formatting. Phil is off playing games. Ruth just walked in. Thanksgiving was yesterday? So depressing.

New Rise Gazette

Children’s Day by Eliza Miss

Children’s Day was a fun event that happened on November 14. Five schools gathered together to compete in races, dancing, drills, and marching. New Rise got 3rd place overall! Everyone liked meeting new students from the other schools. At the end of the games, several students received trophies for placing in a race. Phil Sir and SM received Rs. 250 for winning tug-of-war. New Rise is very excited for Children’s Day next year!

About Kalimpong by Pragya

Kalimpong is a noisy place. Kalimpong has many shops and tall buildings. Last time I went to Kalimpong with my father and grandmother. Kalimpong is a dirty place. Some vehicles go to Kalimpong from Kashyem. In Kalimpong, we get many things. Many people sell vegetables and fruit. There is a bank where we get money. In Kalimpong I have a grandfather and a grandmother.

Food by Dipash

I like food. I eat it. Food gives energy. Food is very necessary for us. We cannot live without food. Food grows in fields. We cannot do various things without food. Food gives energy to perform. Some food we eat raw. Cooking improves the taste of food.

Interviews with Class II

What is your favorite color?
Sweta: Pink
Nawang: Pink
Uksav: Red
Roseleen: Pink
Prabesh: Pink

What is your favorite book?
Sweta: Headway
Nawang: Headway English
Uksav: Nepali
Roseleen: Nepali
Prabesh: Math

What is your favorite sport?
Sweta: Running
Nawang: Running
Uksav: Cricket
Roseleen: Football
Prabesh: Cricket

Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Sweta: One sister
Nawang: None
Class II Interviews cont.

Uksav: One brother
Roseleen: One brother
Prabesh: One sister

What is your favorite animal?
Prasant: Lion
Morina: Tiger
Sajal: Yeti
Angah: Lion

What time did you wake up?
Prasant: 5 o’clock
Morina: 5 o’clock
Sajal: 4 o’clock
Angah: 6 o’clock

Cats by Bivek

The cat is a pet. I like it. Its name is Pukula. It is a big cat. The sound it makes is a “mew.” It is so heavy. It has 4 legs, but it has 2 ears. My house has 2 cats. One is big and one is small. One is orange and one is white. They climb fast on the tree.

Games and Sports by Karan

I am playing games and sports. I was playing race car. I like to play football. I like to play games and sports. We are playing football. I like to swim. I like water games. We are playing cricket. I like to play football. I like to run.

Monkeys by Shamuel

I like monkeys. Monkeys have long tails. Monkeys are very active. Monkeys have 4 legs. They jump from one tree to another. They climb trees. Monkeys run very fast. Monkeys live in the jungle. Monkeys have many babies.


Interview with Class IV

How old are you?
Phil: 18
Yangsi: 10
Aasish T.: 11
Divya: 10

Favorite animal?
Simron: Cat
Aasish R.: Dog
Prajal: Dog
Eliza: Elephant

When is your birthday?
Phil: May 1
Yangsi: May 3
Aasish T.: July 1
Divya: July 27

What is your favorite food?
Simron: Momo
Aasish R.: Pizza
Prajal: Apple
Eliza: Chicken parmesean, garlic bread, clam chowder, mashed potatos, grilled cheese. Oh and apples.

Favorite song?
Phil: Title and Registration by Death Cab for Cutie
Yangsi: English song
Aasish T.: Spicy Girls
Divya: English

Do you have any pets?
Simron: Yes
Aasish R.: Yes
Prajal: No
Eliza: Yes, a dog named Tucker.


Music by Ujal

Yesterday we listened to music. The music is so nice. I like to listen to music. I have cassettes to listen to music. On a mobile there is good music. We see good music on TV. It is good to listen to music.



Interview with Class I

Age Favorite Song I look like… Favorite Color Favorite Person Favorite Place
Sudershan 8 Twinkle A horse Blue Babul Kashyem
Sangay 7 Little Bird A monkey Pink Babul Darjeeling
Prem 7 Solomon Gurdy An elephant Orange Sangay Kashyem
Babul 7 Twinkle An elephant Pink Sudershan Kashyem
Adit 7 Bati Batti An Apple Blue Prem Kashyem


Puzzle!
Word search

K K N G W W D D T D
A K D E M E R J A V
S H A N R I N Y C D
H H Z L S D L K S W
Y U O E I T L S J U
E M D O S M D I O E
M U A F X E P U H E
B S Y O A O Z O G C
A I Z O G N G O N G
J C M D N E O P R G
cat Kalimpong
children Kashyem
day music
food new
gong rise

Lyrics to Gong Song

"Man ringing a bell
Man ringing a bell
Man ringing a bell
Man *pause* ringing a bell"

There's not really a melody. They don't really get the rhythm of it. I'm working on it. Plus they don't udnerstand the word "gong" so I say "bell" instead.

Anywayyy... yesterday we met a new volunteer, Matt. He's working at Mt. View. He's older than all of us. He just decided last week to volunteer here for a month. He's British.

Phil got his hair cut and a shave at a salon for rs. 30. Not bad.

If Pizza Pan doesn't have pizza today I will just die. Silver Oaks had pizza yesterday but tomato sauce at Silver Oaks tastes like ketchup. Kind of icky.

Going to Darjeeling on December 1 with Ruth and Jessica (and maybe Matt). We're not missing any school because that's when exams start.

That's it.

Oh the man was Dutch, Tucker.

weeek 6... really this time

Phil Here,

Sports Day was on Tuesday this week, and it was quite the good time if i may say so. We hiked to bar number at eight. After a half an hour we arrived at the grounds. there we met the other volunteers and some of the trekkers doing the village discovery tour (a trek set up by jiwan to give tourists a taste of village life in Nepal, part of the proceeds benefit the villages), a British mother and daughter, and a couple from the Netherlands. during the day we chatted with the westerners and watched the kids, who were having a great time. the drill, dance, and marching was fantastic, i will confess that i was surprised by this. Unlike the last sports day, they kept track of each schools points, and the winner was given a truly massive trophy. we came in third overall, but the children were not discouraged by this, so all was well. i did tug of war again with the other headmasters and we won this time, SM and NB are still quite sore i believe, and i have several blisters.... but it was all worth it.

The only day we had class this week was Thursday, and class I had its time test. some did poorly, and others well. overall i was experting better results, but there are some students that need to retake (babul has mumps), so there is hope yet. other than that not much occurred, i am trying to teach the proper use of the plu-perfect, but the concept is yet to be grasped. difficult as it ism, i trust that class III will eventually understand, they are by far the brightest class.

Next week Class II has a test as you know, and that might prove better, and we must begin to write the conversation terminal Exam (Dec 1).

well that is all for now

Here a day early

Well, we are here a day early to meet the other volunteers for dinner.

Children's day went really well. It was a bit long at the end. Phil and SM won tug of war. The lunch was actually kind of decent. Jessica and Ruth were brave and danced.

That night we ended up staying at Ruth's school in her massive room because it was too dark to walk back. We had an amazing dinner. Something tells me Sunita's food is not so good relative to what the other volunteers are eating. I even had a decent amount of rice. Also stay at MB's (Ruth's headmaster/Jiwan's brother) were 4 trekkers with VDT (Village Discovery Tour). 2 were from the Netherlands and 2 were from Scotland. They were nice. A bit of an awkward conversation between the Dutch guy and Phil about America. I think it went like this...

Dutch guy: I think in a few decades, China and Japan will be the biggest world powers.
Phil: Actually I don't think so because-
Dutch guy: You wouldn't.

And some conversation about Hilary Clinton which I'm sure ended badly but I've blocked out.

Anywayyyyy... we found out there are 10 children in Jiwan's family (14 originally but 4 died). His 2 eldest sisters took care of them when their parents died a long time ago and they never got married. They made dinner for us and they were so nice.

Wednesday we had no school and we walked back home around 8:30 in the mroning. The walk is realllllllllllly nice.

Yesterday we had school and we both felt kind of unmotivated. Class I had a quiz on time which they did pretty poorly on in general. Phil taught Class III while I made a spelling list and a chart of ruppees to dollars conversions because I was really bored. Class II drawing was slightly hilarious. We made them draw pictures of a man ringing a gong (again) and then they each had to sing this song I made up about a man ringing a gong. Then we went on a field trip to see the man ringing a gong. Oh and we played the quiet game (first one to talk loses). Class III painting was norms. Class I spelling we read a book and gave them spelling words and that was it.

SM has oranges now.

Pragya wrote some note to Bivek (the cutest boy in the school, I would say) saying that he is "fine" and he "looks like a girl." This is really good because I want them to get married. They're like best friends. Phil saw the note, I did not. Very sad.

Well, that's all for now. The food will be gooooooooooood today. They love us at Silver Oaks. I am their Eloise.

"You want this one?"

Last night we had dinner at Jiwan's house. His house is HUGE and very empty. Jiwan, Premika (his sister), and Santa along with a few other random people live in it. They have a western bathroom with toilet paper. A HUGE kitchen with a fridge.

The food was amazingggg. I had planned to eat there and then get back to the hotel ASAP to have dinner there because I didn't think I'd eat much at all. I was wrong. We had chicken (which I trusted because they have a fridge) and cauliflower and potatos and spinach (ick) and radishes (kind of ick). And dal bhat obvs.

Lots of bamboo... the dirnk I've mentioned a couple of times. It's millet and you add water to it and it ferments. It doesn't taste so foul anymore.

We had delicioussss pizza for lunch today. Pizza Pan didn't let us down for once. This was a very good weekend for food.

We watched Seven Years in Tibet this morning. Brad Pitt is a POW in Dehra Dun! Kind of funny. Lots of Himalaya action. I like this quote from it for obvious reasons:

"I am a person you don't know. A man you've never met...But you are someone who occupies my mind and my heart in this distant land where I've gone. If you can imagine a hidden place, tucked safely away from the world concealed by walls of high, snow-capped mountains, a place rich with all the strange beauty of your nighttime dreams... then you know where I am."

Week 6

Phil here,

Well, another week has gone by and for the most part it has passed uneventfully.

The week did mark the end of several units with the classes, and next week there will be several large tests (which actually count now that we have taken it upon ourselves to record grades) Class I and II both have large tests.

Class I has completed the unit on time with a most encouraging leason on "awkward times". the children emediately grasped the concept and before long we were at a loss of material. given this development we have decided that they will be ready for examination on the next leason. I will admit that i am aprehensive of their test taking skills. i fear that the grades might not mark their development.

Class II will have a test on the verb "to be", possibly after a review day. they still have some trouble, but i am sure that they have absorbed a great deal and will do ok. i was put off by their confustion with the future tense.... its all "will" seems easier than any other tense, but the children would beg to differ

Class III continues with the various past tenses, and are doing well. Their last vocabulary quiz was not as good as the first (we needed to give a second and average the grades) nevertheless, they are far better off than class IV....

Class IV is have GREAT difficulty with "fill in the blank" dispite two leasons solely devoted to the subject. durring the leason, they showed improvement and i was sure that they would all perform well on the quiz. Although the grades WERE better they were nothing to "put on the frige," so to speak. Many children still put any old word in the black, and almost all of them seemed to have lost their understanding of the words displayed in the previous leason.

Children's Day is on wednesday and we are exited to see the children compete again. they have been "drilling" (looks like a dance with hoops to Eliza and me) for the afternoons and friday this week, but i doubt tht they will win that contest.

More about the event next week

Alsoooo

I got confused about the Gurkha/transvestite thing cause there is this weird shooting range place where soldiers chillax and all these signs around like "If a man says he is not afraid either he is a liar or a Gurkha soldier" (or is it Gorkha?) and another that says "When you go home, tell them we gave our todays for your tomorrows." We pass it everytime we go to and from Kalimpong.

Also I forget to mention the size of the spiders here. They are all gigantic and disgusting and we have killed 2 in the past week.

The end again.

I hate subjects

This song just came on the radio and both Phil and me know the dance to it.
Speaking of dances, we may or may not have to compeltely humilate ourselves and dance in front of everyone for Children's Day on Tuesday.

What happened this week? Nada.

Except Ruth came to visit briefly adn she said that she's been practicing her dance for 2 hours a day everyday. Heh......

This week this week this week
I ate a lot of bananas
Won a lot of gin rummy (obviously)

Oooh my favorite thing is that the Democrats took the house/senate and Phil is upset. And Britney and KFed breaking up!

Ugh Thanksgiving is coming up. I miss food. Like, real food. Food not fried in 50 liters of oil.

I stopped eating meat at SM's because of something Ruth said. She stopped eatingt meat here cause no one has a fridge so whereeeee do they keep the meat all that time? Day after day they eat the same meat and where do they keep it? They keep it in a shed out back, that's where.

Oh yesterday we didn't have school cause the kids had to practice "Drill" for Children's Day. "Drill" isn't actually a drill... it's this weird dance-like thing where they run around with rings to the beat of a drum. There will be photos. Trust.

I have been looking forward to the food I will eat today alllllllll week. I only eat bananas and masala sticks.

I really have nothing to say.

I want a sangwich. (too much dane cook...)

Hello again

What has happened in the past 24 hours? Hmmm... a lot of TV. Phil walked to the Mondochallenge office because we're giving them some money in order to save Children's Day. I was being lazy and Phil didn't mind going alone. He got to see Jiwan's house, which apparently is huge and beautiful. Santa wasn't there because he was driving the 2 other volunteers to Darjeeling. Yeah we were invited... not. It's to promote the trekking thing. Kind of annoying. Oh well.

Lunch and dinner were both Indian. They were good though. I even had a little rice... The soup was soooooooooooooooooo good. Ugh I don't want to go home to a lunch of peanut butter crackers :( I'm going to ask SM for soup for dinner though.

Oooh something fun happened. We cash our travellers cheques in this store called Soni Emporium. Turns out a bunch of (and I forget the right word for them in India... Gurka? Maybe?) transvestites live upstairs. We just read a big article about them the other day in some magazine. One came downstairs, and then we heard them singing upstairs.

We bought 4 new books. Phil got David Copperfield and some book about Vampires. I got the Da Vinci Code (much to Phil's dismay..................) and a John Grisham book.

Zee end.

Week 4

Hello all.

Now that Diwali is over we have finally gone back to school, but not without some town wide sports first! The sports days were rather dull all in all, the children competed, some did well, others did not. Sports where actually being played, it was rather exiting, but there were gaps of up to a half-hour between competitions in witch there was nothing at all to do. The second day was better, Ruth (another volunteer from England) was present and I competed in the pillow fight and the tug of war. I lost at both but had a good time nevertheless, no doubt Eliza will give you some of the details.

Then after a relaxing weekend (finished LOTR) it was back to school. The children had not attended for some time and they are still getting into the flow of things. Class I is doing well with time, but the concept of quarter-to, quarter-past, and half-past will take a great deal more review before they master it. Class II continues to be difficult, but they are beginning to understand when they need to use the past "to be" rather than the present. We introduced the idea of using phrases in the beginning of each sentance to aid them, and we hope that it will stick, so we can use a similar method when we tackle the future tense. Class III is doing rather well, as expected. They seem to have a great "gut sense" for the irregular verbs in the perfect and plu-perfect and it is not often that they ere, and when they do they always play it safe and follow the rules rather than guess.( "go" often becomes "had goed" rather than "had gone") Class IV is ok, but they are truly struggling with putting vocabulary into useful sentences. More often that not, they simply define the word (eg. "a cottage is a small house") yes, they are sentences, but not quite what Eliza and I would like of them. We are trying to help them in this, and if we succeed we may do the past tense with them as well.

Well that's all of the news here.... Although I have run out of interesting books, because Eliza is currently reading Oliver Twist.... So I am reading the Appedixes in LOTR.... Aragorn II got quite old eh dad? 210... And that is short compared to the older Numenorains.

Questions answered by Eliza

Can you describe the classroom--desks? blackboards? How long is your day? Are you getting any teaching supervision?

The classrooms are verrrrrry small. There is no electricity but a lot of light gets in by the door and windows. Lately, I have been decorating the rooms with posters and pictures. Each class has a big blackboard and 3 or 4 desks. Each desk fits 2 or 3 kids.

Our schedule is like this:

First class 9-10:15
Break 10:15-10:30
Second class 10:30-11:15
Third class 11:15-12:00
Lunch 12:00-12:45
Fourth class 12:45-1:30
Fifth class 1:30-2:00

No teaching supervision at all. We were just kind of thrown in in the beginning, and SM rarely talks to us about what we're teaching.

The end.

Chicken parmesean

I would really really like a chicken parmesean.
But lately I have been eating a lot of crackers with peanut butter on them and that has been filling. (This is Eliza, by the way).

Ummmmmmmmm.... uneventful past week. We had school everyday (sometimes it can be pretty irregular). Phil got to ring the school's gong. I don't know if this has been mentioned, but at the following (very random) times, a man in the village rings a huge gong for varying (very random) lengths of time. 6:30 am... 3 times? 7 am (and I am not lying) one hundred times. The best one is at noon. Anyway, Phil's dream is to ring the gong. We even went on a field trip with a drawing class to see him ring it. He got to ring the school one the very next day. It was hilarious.

(Most of) the kids are really cute. Some of them are bullies. There is one little girl in class 2 who has some kind of learning disability. It's sad because they really don't know how to deal with it. I don't know how she is in class 2... She's cute though. Yesterday she seemed to be warming up to me and would hold my hand and what not. Her sister, Divya, is soooooooo adorable. I don't think I've ever seen her not smiling. Yesterday during "Games" (a 90 minute period of just games... usually the boys + Pragya play cricket and the girls do whatever) the girls had a dance competition and I had to judge it. They made prizes out of trash from around the field. It was so cute.

Speakiing of competitions... sports day! Well, days. Last week, on Wednesday and Thursday there were 2 days of sports competitions for children AND adults. There were races, balloon bursting, dance competition, high jump/long jumping, etc etc. The first day was uneventful really. It was fun to watch though. The second day, Ruth (the other volunteer) came. I saw her from across the field and I was like, "Why does that person have blonde hair?" and it was Ruth. It was good to talk to someone who speaks English fluently.

Well the best part of the day was the pillow fight. The pillow fight is exactly how it sounds except worse. Two guys sit up on this huge bamboo thign and wack each other with pillows til one falls off. Phil had a little too much "Tiger Milk" I think and had a teacher sign him up to do it. Hhahahahhahahhaaaaaaaaa. I was soooo scared for him. Some of these guys are ripped. Hahahha. Ha. It was hilarious. He lost but he put in a good fight.

Then he did Tug of War with Jiwan's brother (and Ruth's headmaster) and SM. I was sooo sure they would lose. And they did lose the first time (it was 2 out of 3). But the 2nd time they won! They lost overall, unfortunately. So funny to watch.

I had way too much candy in those two days. Ruth also said SM was really bossy towards us about food. I, as usual, had barely touched the rice and he was like "You have compti! You must eat rice!" etc etc. Maybe he is bossy? I thought it was just the culture. What else.... oh Ruth is 26, much older than I thought. OH I forgot the worst thing.... We were supposed to go visit her in Bar (Barra?) Number the day after Sports Day and.... we didn't. When we woke up, though, SM wasn't there and so he couldn't show us the path! Not our fault... the worst part of it is: it was her birthday! Ugh. And SM went to a PTA meeting in Bar Number the other day and was like, "Oh Ruth was waiting for you a long time." I feel sooooooo bad. We were totalyl intending to go. We even were making her a gift of a chocolate bar and toilet paper. Oops.

The night we got back from Kalimpong during Diwali was pretty awesome. It was a huge partay. These guys came by with drums and what not and sang a song to us for seriously half an hour. They were so drunk. Then they came in and got mroe drunk and sang more and I got to play the drum. SM was pretty drunk too and danced with one of the guys. Great pictures.

Then these teenagers came by and danced. They danced for maybe an hour and then everyone was like "You dance! You dance!" to Phil and me and we were like "That's ok..." but then they broguht out music they thought we'd ilke to dance to (Barenaked Ladies and Alanis Morisette) and made us dance. It was fun. Lots of good pictures of that night.

Oooooh the backpack I brought wtih me is the same one I brought the last time I was in India and I found all the UNO cards I'd left in there. I think they belong to my cousins... We've been playing UNO a whole lot. Pragya lvoes it. Also, I am really amazing at gin rummy.

Finished Lord of the Rings. Read like 7 other books since then... I'm almost done with Oliver Twist and after that I am out of books. We foudn a bookstore though. I might read Harry Potter.

That's all. Looking forward to some goooooooooood food and some goooooooooood TV today.