Day 6: First day of teaching and Gausala

Yesterday, the kids went trekking in the morning behind the school to the Shankar Bhagwan mandir. Unfortunately dad and I missed it, but the kids and teachers were so excited about it when we got back! Partially cause it was trekking and so fun and partially cause it's channia bore season so the kids got to pick them fresh off the bushes as they hiked. They had their fair share of thorns in their hands but I don't think it really even mattered to them because of how much fun they had. 

Today Dr. Padhiyar and I met and he explained to me what he wanted me to teach. Starting today, I began teaching an hour class under the basis of psychology and how our minds works and how we should train it. Today I had the 7th Grade A and B classes ( I had about 50 girls and boys), I took them to the open grounds in front of the school for a change in scenery. I taught them what psychology is and what it means and the word's derivative from Ancient Greece of psyche (soul/mind) and logos (the knowledge/study of). I went on to speak about the three personalities, introvert, extrovert, and ambivert. I also explained the conscious, sub-conscious, and unconscious. Since it was the younger kids today, I didn't go too much into the actual psychology but continued with values and the meaning and importance of confidence. The biggest topic was however positive and negative attitude and how it affects everything and that was the topic that tied all the points together for today's lesson. It was nerve-wrecking for the first few minutes, I'm used to coaching on a field not usually on the academic level by myself and that too pretty much all in Gujarati, mostly the nerves were because I didn't want to mess up. It was fun, hard (7th grade boys are the same world wide haha), and rewarding, especially asking the kids what they learned in the end to go over the class lessons and them connecting a few hard English words and remembering them and understanding concepts, I was happy. Tomorrow I have the 6th graders and I'm excited.

Girls waiting for the tamarind to be handed out.

I was supposed to take all the girls to go play football (soccer) and cricket at activity hour today but all the girls got pulled into different things. So Dad and I went to the gausala (the cow dairy farm) with a few of the girls, which we had wanted to go to since the first day but hadn't had the chance to go yet. Five of the girls had to take pictures for the Pooja and another 45 or so tagged along and were elated when they found tamarind on the trees which Chetnaben, Manishaben, and Dad along with a few girls pulled off the trees and distributed to the rest of them. The girls' day was made. 

The school's gausala is located about a quarter mile right behind the campus. Each day's milk for the school is provided fresh by the gausala. The kids go there every once in a while, but it is run by people the school has hired to take care of the chores, milking, and the gai (cows) themselves. Dineshbhai and Purshotumbhai oversee the dairy and the workers. The dairy also grows a lot of it's own feed at the farm and also uses the dung to as fuel when cooking, so most of the different things are recycled and put to full use. It was a fun quick trip to see the gausala and also to talk to and get to know the people who put in the hard work to do the things that we don't even usually think of actively. 

10th and 11th girls after the pooja. 

At the gausala.

Sarju Bhai and Me!

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and starting to feel sad as today was the beginning of my final week here. 

P.S. I got to go on the mini-zip line they have at the playground here today! And the food is always good here but the daal at lunch was extra yummy! You would have enjoyed it! 

- Aekta