Debbie's Placement in India 2018

Mondays seem to be coming around faster and faster! Today we went out with Mani for the final parts of our cultural exposure program and seeing more local economic activities. Main had carefully planned the day, and she was very disappointed when some rare heavy rainfall interfered with her hard work! I joked that at least the farmers would be happy, but Mani pouted and said that it wasn't even a good time for rain right now - rain is good when it comes and fills the water tanks, but now this much rain might just spoil any crops that have been growing. It really made me think about what a difficult and precarious life rural people here have to live. Mani made a few more phone calls, and with her excellent planning skills she was soon able to reorganise the day. First of all, we met with Radha in Somandepalli, and went to a factory where incense sticks are packaged for distribution. The packing is all done by hand by local women, just working on the floor of an otherwise empty ...

Unfortunately, the field trip that we had rushed back for today ended up being cancelled. This at least gave an opportunity to catch up on some uni work. I feel as though I say I do a lot of uni work, so I do want to describe some of the difficulties. There is not always a good enough internet connection to access the lecture recordings for INDH7107, so I'm currently still behind on those. I'm also never going to be able to get caught up on all of the lecture material as much of it is inaudible on the recordings. I can't download or stream any of the longer videos that are part of the module work, because there is not sufficient data allowance for that kind of thing. It can take a long time to download the readings I need to complete. I do the readings, but I'm not able to print anything so the reading is not so easy for me as reading from hard-copy is. I am behind on the assessment items, I think a big part of the reason is that not being part of the tutorials and l...

Planes , Trains, and Automobiles This morning Augustine came around again, and he went through first Alex's and then my mid-placement evaluation.  I had already my stuff first thing in the morning, and when Alex was ready Augustine kindly drove us to the nearby train station so that we could catch a train back to Penukonda, and he made sure that we knew which train needed and from which platform before he said goodbye. Arriving at the station According to the ticket, you can report unsavoury situations during the journey... Waiting for the train When the train arrived, there was very little 2nd class general space on the train, and it was just one carriage right near the front. We had to walk much further down the platform than we had realised to get to the carriage, and Alex started to get concerned that we wouldn't make it in tie, and suggested that we got on and walked down inside the train instead. I had been happy to keep walking along the ...

There has been no internet for a while now, which is kind of frustrating. I do like not doing uni work (come on graduation!) but having it still hanging over me is a bit stressful... After breakfast I went to spend the morning in school with my class. They were very excited for 'a.c.' - arts and crafts - which was after break, but I didn't have any ideas coming to mind. To be more precise, I had plenty of ideas, but not necessarily ones that I felt confident could be done with the resources available, or that I could communicate to these children with their different expectations and different ability at English language. But in a rare case of good luck, for the first time ever my phone got a data signal while at the school site! This meant that I could use the Pinterest app to search for children's craft activities, and then allow the children themselves to choose what to do. I really enjoy supporting the children here to come up with ideas and make some decisions o...

We had a lazy day today. I think the tiredness of several long days, and actually living on placement (no crashing on the sofa and binge-watching a good series at the end of a big day) is catching up with me. Rashna and her Alex arrived at the farm from Bangalore too, and in the evening we all - Rashna, me, Trisham, and both Alexes - decided to go and camp for the night at the top of Sanipalli Hill. This was a really bad idea from my perspective, as I was really tired before we even left, and I definitely needed more than a couple of hours of broken sleep before teaching at school on Monday morning!! Trying not to accept the fact that it was time to get up...

Today Mani told us that Alex and I would be heading out separately for our field trips today. I tried not to be envious of Alex as he headed off on the back of a motorbike with a big happy/smug grin on his face, and although I didn't get to see or do as much as he did, I had a really nice day. Mani and I travelled into Penukonda in the jeep with Shammy, and although I had hoped to have a day with Manni so that I could work on strengthening our relationship, it turned out that she had other work to do instead. She dropped me off in Penukonda to spend the day with another field worker, Govindamma, and checked if I was comfortable with catching the bus back afterwards before heading off to do her own work. Govindamma took me walking down some of the roads of Penukonda, until we came to a small area where all of the households were engaged in pottery work. The pots which have holes in the bottom - these holes are plugged later once the main part of the pot is dried We went...