Slum at Wadala
Albaz inventing his own game of badminton 
The new location - Majid Bunda
Today has been a very long day! I set of at 8.30am and travelled by taxi to Mahim with Mang. Lots of the children at Mahim are still out the city so the first main stop for the bus was Bandra. Here, Rajesh and I met with an English lady who was currently in Mumbai with her family and she wanted to come and see the work of Vision Rescue. Today was maths and Manoj was teaching the children to count up in twos. This was a good opportunity to use my newest skill of counting from 1-10 in Hindi. I sat with one lad who was Ok up to 12 but then struggled. I tried helping him every so often but as I did not know the Hindi for numbers above ten, I had talk to him about the order of the digits. From here he could work out the next number. Eventually, he managed to write in twos up to 50 - a great achievement!! There was a similar situation at MMRDA and again I used the same strategy as I did at Bandra to help a couple of children who were struggling. One child was not able to write the numbers one to ten so he needed some help forming the number shapes. Eventually, he wrote 1-5 on his own.
Lunch was taken, as usual, at the Mahim kitchen where I had the opportunity to partake in some badminton with the local kids. The racquets were small plastic racquets but we did use a shuttlecock, even though it was very old and tatty. Despite the equipment, it was very enjoyable and soon some of the other Vision Rescue staff were joining in. I wasn't totally sure of the rules, which Albaz had made up, but I just accepted it when I was told my shot was in or out. I did have a few problems with overhanging trees but seemed to be let off every time I hit them.
After a great badminton session I boarded the bus for the evening shift. The first location is Wadala. Ishwa, who teaches on the evening shift, was teaching the numbers 1 - 20 but getting the children to fill in missing numbers. Here, I experienced both extremes of children. Again, one child was unable to write any numbers, so by holding the chalk with her I helped her to form the numbers correctly. One boy, who attends an English speaking school, had already completed the task before Ishwa had finished explaining it. I observed while Ishwa gave him an extension exercise. He then completed this very quickly. He is obviously much brighter than all the other pupils who come on the bus but he is so enthusiastic to learn that they allow him to stay. I stepped in and went through some times tables questions with him. We got onto the 9 times table which he completed but it needed much more thinking power, so he was being challenged. I then showed him how to work out the nine times table using only your fingers. This was only possible because his English is quite good otherwise I would not have been able to explain it to him. I am not sure he totally understood the first time but eventually he followed the method and was then able to give me the answers by using his fingers. Another mathematical success!!
Onto Reay Road where I met up with Ommo. She is working for a few days in India but used to live in England and came along to see the work on the buses. It was great to see the children still wearing their red t-shirts, although some of them have lost them already I told Ishwa that I thought it was still important that they were allowed on the bus. I noticed that there were a lot more older children around than usual and perhaps this is a potential area to start some sports coaching. As this was Ommo's first experience of the slums, the cameras were out and Ommo even tried her hand at serving the food. After Reay Road, I was expecting to go onto VT station but this location has stop because the drug addicts have moved from this area. Instead, they now have another teaching location at Majid Bundar. I have not met these kids yet so it was a new experience. There were only about 20 children on the bus but they were very active children. These children are much harder to teach and are not as well behaved or as focused as the others. I also noticed that they were more physical towards each other. I think this is one location I will need to visit a few times and see what strategies we can put in place to help improve their concentration and behaviour. After the feeding at Majid Bundar, we headed back to the kitchen at Mahim where we had dinner and I got caught up in the middle of a game of tag which the kids were playing. This version of tag involved throwing a home-made ball at each other to tag them. On a number of occasions, I was used as a hiding place and had to avoid being hit. Today was very tiring but extremely rewarding and very enjoyable. Over the weekend I will be preparing for the first of the teacher training sessions on Monday.
Lunch was taken, as usual, at the Mahim kitchen where I had the opportunity to partake in some badminton with the local kids. The racquets were small plastic racquets but we did use a shuttlecock, even though it was very old and tatty. Despite the equipment, it was very enjoyable and soon some of the other Vision Rescue staff were joining in. I wasn't totally sure of the rules, which Albaz had made up, but I just accepted it when I was told my shot was in or out. I did have a few problems with overhanging trees but seemed to be let off every time I hit them.
After a great badminton session I boarded the bus for the evening shift. The first location is Wadala. Ishwa, who teaches on the evening shift, was teaching the numbers 1 - 20 but getting the children to fill in missing numbers. Here, I experienced both extremes of children. Again, one child was unable to write any numbers, so by holding the chalk with her I helped her to form the numbers correctly. One boy, who attends an English speaking school, had already completed the task before Ishwa had finished explaining it. I observed while Ishwa gave him an extension exercise. He then completed this very quickly. He is obviously much brighter than all the other pupils who come on the bus but he is so enthusiastic to learn that they allow him to stay. I stepped in and went through some times tables questions with him. We got onto the 9 times table which he completed but it needed much more thinking power, so he was being challenged. I then showed him how to work out the nine times table using only your fingers. This was only possible because his English is quite good otherwise I would not have been able to explain it to him. I am not sure he totally understood the first time but eventually he followed the method and was then able to give me the answers by using his fingers. Another mathematical success!!
Onto Reay Road where I met up with Ommo. She is working for a few days in India but used to live in England and came along to see the work on the buses. It was great to see the children still wearing their red t-shirts, although some of them have lost them already I told Ishwa that I thought it was still important that they were allowed on the bus. I noticed that there were a lot more older children around than usual and perhaps this is a potential area to start some sports coaching. As this was Ommo's first experience of the slums, the cameras were out and Ommo even tried her hand at serving the food. After Reay Road, I was expecting to go onto VT station but this location has stop because the drug addicts have moved from this area. Instead, they now have another teaching location at Majid Bundar. I have not met these kids yet so it was a new experience. There were only about 20 children on the bus but they were very active children. These children are much harder to teach and are not as well behaved or as focused as the others. I also noticed that they were more physical towards each other. I think this is one location I will need to visit a few times and see what strategies we can put in place to help improve their concentration and behaviour. After the feeding at Majid Bundar, we headed back to the kitchen at Mahim where we had dinner and I got caught up in the middle of a game of tag which the kids were playing. This version of tag involved throwing a home-made ball at each other to tag them. On a number of occasions, I was used as a hiding place and had to avoid being hit. Today was very tiring but extremely rewarding and very enjoyable. Over the weekend I will be preparing for the first of the teacher training sessions on Monday.
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