Today was a public holiday in India because of the Hidu festival Raksha Bandhan, which celebrates the sacred bond between brothers and sisters. The tradition on this day is for the sister to give her brother a decorative wristband. I knew nothing about this festival until I reach Reay Road on the evening bus. I was suddenly approach by lots of the girls who wanted to give me one of their decorative wristbands, some even went back to their homes just to get me a wristband. To cut a long story short I ended up with about 20 sisters to go with the 5 best friends I acquired the other day. It made a very decorative collection of wristbands on my arm as you can see from the photos. I think I will be removing them before I go out in the morning but will certainly keep them as souvenirs. This was my second experience of a Hindu ritual as earlier on in the day I saw a Hindu funeral procession. It was for a 13 year old girl who had died from ill health. The body is carried with the face uncovered to the place of cremation. Interestingly, it is only men who are allowed to walk in the procession.
In the afternoon, I ran another teacher training session where I continue with the phonics training and also did a self evaluation form with the teachers. This is a new experience for some of them and it was very interesting to see how they answered the questions. The day before one of the teachers, Ishwa had to step down from his teaching post due to other commitments. This was a slight concern as there were no other teachers available, so Rajech ask Punkage to cover for the time being. Punkage is about 19 and was rescue from the streets as a kid. He is very keen to learn English and for the last year he has been working at the teaching place in Juhu. He has been paying close attention in the teacher training sessions and tonight he decided to try teaching a phonics lessons. I decided to go on the bus to see how he got on and I was amazed to see how good he was. He worked so hard with the children in their pronouncing of the letters and they picked it up very quickly. There were a couple of errors that I correct but he was very close to being spot on with his delivery. He got the children to copy the letters onto their boards and practice sounding them out. This is when I got the chance to help the children. They were so enthusiastic and kept trying the sounds until they got it correct. I even gave some of the children some words to sound out which they did and we actually had some of the children reading - A major breakthrough!!!!! There is still a long way to go but I was so encouraged by what I had seen. The hard work is starting to show through. Today has been such a great day and I am now even more excited about seeing the next English lesson but you will have to wait till I return from Goa before that happens!
In the afternoon, I ran another teacher training session where I continue with the phonics training and also did a self evaluation form with the teachers. This is a new experience for some of them and it was very interesting to see how they answered the questions. The day before one of the teachers, Ishwa had to step down from his teaching post due to other commitments. This was a slight concern as there were no other teachers available, so Rajech ask Punkage to cover for the time being. Punkage is about 19 and was rescue from the streets as a kid. He is very keen to learn English and for the last year he has been working at the teaching place in Juhu. He has been paying close attention in the teacher training sessions and tonight he decided to try teaching a phonics lessons. I decided to go on the bus to see how he got on and I was amazed to see how good he was. He worked so hard with the children in their pronouncing of the letters and they picked it up very quickly. There were a couple of errors that I correct but he was very close to being spot on with his delivery. He got the children to copy the letters onto their boards and practice sounding them out. This is when I got the chance to help the children. They were so enthusiastic and kept trying the sounds until they got it correct. I even gave some of the children some words to sound out which they did and we actually had some of the children reading - A major breakthrough!!!!! There is still a long way to go but I was so encouraged by what I had seen. The hard work is starting to show through. Today has been such a great day and I am now even more excited about seeing the next English lesson but you will have to wait till I return from Goa before that happens!
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