September Second Saturday
I woke up with a bad throat and unable to talk properly today. I think I have laryngitis, which is a bit rubbish as it's second Saturday today so there will be over 100 children to deal with...
I went down to the school hall to help with second Saturday, and began again by organising the ID badges so that the chaos would be reduced and finding their badges would be quicker and easier for the children. I had to get get Balaji the head teacher to help me talk to the children as my voice was so bad!
I knew that the program for the day was due to involve the children making Christmas cards ready to send back to the sponsorship donors in Australia, but this seemed to take a while to get started and for ages the children were sitting in the hall and entertaining themselves. One of the very sweet little boys from our school asked me to sit by him, but I said no as he was sitting near the entrance and I didn't want to get in the way. He must have thought I didn't want to sit because the floor was dirty, because he used his bare hands to clean the floor for me and invited me to sit again! This was too sweet for me to be ungrateful, so I sat with him and he and the other small boys in that spot whiled away the time by playing with my watch and my camera. The children here are so sweet and honest, I can safely let them use my things (as long as I have shown them how to) and they will be very protective of my things if other children try to take them, and they will always return my things when they are finished or when I ask.
After a little while, the paints, paper card, sponges etc required for the Christmas card design were brought. We laid out newspaper over all of the tables around the dining hall, and distributed the paper to each child. There wasn't enough paint and sponges to give to each child individually, but Rasool (the education coordinator), Balaji (the head teacher at Ananda Vidyalayam), Dhananjai (the maths teacher at Ananda Vidyalayam), Anil (a previous sponsor child who still lives as the SEDS hostel, and who helps out on second Saturdays), and I each took a dish of green paint and a triangular sponge and took them around each child so they could make their Christmas tree prints on their cards.
The other adults were mainly doing the work for the children, but I did my best to get round to as many as possible and guide the children to do it themselves. I felt particularly gratified when I would show one child what to do, and then when it was the next child's turn, the previous child would show them what to do, and so on. It was really lovely to watch them work together like this, sharing what they had learned and helping each other out.
The Christmas trees for the cards were made using a triangular sponge to print the Christmas tree shape, then painting a tree trunk and adding decorations. For the decorations, some children used paint with brushes, some used their finger tips to print baubles, and many of the smaller children used colouring pens to add details.
After the card making was completed, there was quite a lot to tidy up! I helped with all the clean up and then joined the children outside for some games time. Some were playing with footballs, others with a cricket bat, and many of the small children played on the playground equipment.
It was really good fun but the heat was a bit fierce and I soon felt dehydrated once I finished my water, and then I just hit a bit of a wall and felt too ill and tired to continue. I excused myself to walk back to the house to get some more water, but I was soon overtaken by running children as lunchtime had been called. The children were given lunch at the mess, and were hungrily tucking in when I continued past them for my own lunch.
It was already 2.30pm by the time we broke for lunch, so I had missed George and Kannegi leaving, which was a shame.
I tried to get some rest in the afternoon as I was feeling kind of terrible by then. In the evening some new visitors arrived. There were 4 men, all of whom seemed very nice and friendly. Unfortunately I felt too terrible to talk much by this point, and I didn't even manage to learn their names. I ended up having to excuse myself for an early night after dinner, in the hopes that I'll feel better after a good rest.
I went down to the school hall to help with second Saturday, and began again by organising the ID badges so that the chaos would be reduced and finding their badges would be quicker and easier for the children. I had to get get Balaji the head teacher to help me talk to the children as my voice was so bad!
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| The ID badges laid out in groups, instead of in one big jumble... |
I knew that the program for the day was due to involve the children making Christmas cards ready to send back to the sponsorship donors in Australia, but this seemed to take a while to get started and for ages the children were sitting in the hall and entertaining themselves. One of the very sweet little boys from our school asked me to sit by him, but I said no as he was sitting near the entrance and I didn't want to get in the way. He must have thought I didn't want to sit because the floor was dirty, because he used his bare hands to clean the floor for me and invited me to sit again! This was too sweet for me to be ungrateful, so I sat with him and he and the other small boys in that spot whiled away the time by playing with my watch and my camera. The children here are so sweet and honest, I can safely let them use my things (as long as I have shown them how to) and they will be very protective of my things if other children try to take them, and they will always return my things when they are finished or when I ask.
After a little while, the paints, paper card, sponges etc required for the Christmas card design were brought. We laid out newspaper over all of the tables around the dining hall, and distributed the paper to each child. There wasn't enough paint and sponges to give to each child individually, but Rasool (the education coordinator), Balaji (the head teacher at Ananda Vidyalayam), Dhananjai (the maths teacher at Ananda Vidyalayam), Anil (a previous sponsor child who still lives as the SEDS hostel, and who helps out on second Saturdays), and I each took a dish of green paint and a triangular sponge and took them around each child so they could make their Christmas tree prints on their cards.
The other adults were mainly doing the work for the children, but I did my best to get round to as many as possible and guide the children to do it themselves. I felt particularly gratified when I would show one child what to do, and then when it was the next child's turn, the previous child would show them what to do, and so on. It was really lovely to watch them work together like this, sharing what they had learned and helping each other out.
The Christmas trees for the cards were made using a triangular sponge to print the Christmas tree shape, then painting a tree trunk and adding decorations. For the decorations, some children used paint with brushes, some used their finger tips to print baubles, and many of the smaller children used colouring pens to add details.
After the card making was completed, there was quite a lot to tidy up! I helped with all the clean up and then joined the children outside for some games time. Some were playing with footballs, others with a cricket bat, and many of the small children played on the playground equipment.
It was really good fun but the heat was a bit fierce and I soon felt dehydrated once I finished my water, and then I just hit a bit of a wall and felt too ill and tired to continue. I excused myself to walk back to the house to get some more water, but I was soon overtaken by running children as lunchtime had been called. The children were given lunch at the mess, and were hungrily tucking in when I continued past them for my own lunch.
It was already 2.30pm by the time we broke for lunch, so I had missed George and Kannegi leaving, which was a shame.
I tried to get some rest in the afternoon as I was feeling kind of terrible by then. In the evening some new visitors arrived. There were 4 men, all of whom seemed very nice and friendly. Unfortunately I felt too terrible to talk much by this point, and I didn't even manage to learn their names. I ended up having to excuse myself for an early night after dinner, in the hopes that I'll feel better after a good rest.
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