Following on from our recent post announcing that Barry Charlton is in India (click here to read full article) we are pleased to announce that he has arrived at the orphanage in Andhra Pradesh.
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We received a “postcode” in the form of an email only today from Barry – all is going well by the looks of things:
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Well I’m still here, the 5.30 alarm, the the hot sweaty nights, the curry and mosquitos have not driven me away. Today was like yesterday, 6.00am off fishing but our 2 companions from yesterday decided that Badminton was more interesting than fishing, I’m not sure why but we were disappointed because they had promised to dig up some worms for us.
However, we were not going to be put off and were prepared to carry on using the difficult bait that had proved a failure yesterday, I think the words are try try and try again.
Halfway across the playing field, well that’s what they call it, I would describe it as waste ground but it’s where the kids play in the morning. We were joined by the vice principal who had been shown a picture of my 4inch fish and decided he should come along and try his hand, so this time 2 became 3. Not a lot more to say about that because when it was clear to him that some skill was needed, he thought he better go back and get breakfast!
Going back to our 6am start it’s still quite dark, and all around us are these energetic 5 to 15 year olds in their pyjamas doing there chores. Everyone when you pass stand and says “good morning sir” in a very pleasant and respectful way.
If you remove your phone from you pocket they will line up and invite you to take their picture. The smiling faces are at your every turn, no one could fault what is being done here.
So back from fishing into the shower and down stairs for breakfast, I think now they have the message that I not going to have curry for breakfast, because now we are presented with apples, banana and pomegranates, not sure if I have said they make nice coffee, so also coffee.
My time table is not too arduous, not sure if that’s because they want to not frighten me away or because they just grateful for western input.
Nevertheless today I took my first Graphics class, my observations of the other classes and teachers took me back to my old teaching days, and in the lead up to taking this class I had decided a few fundamentals were needed from my old experiences of those days at the inner city school that I taught.
I know first impressions count, and start off as you mean to go on, anyway that’s enough to about that.
My class was great and I’m so looking forward to teaching them tomorrow Forgot to say the vice principal sat in on my class and he took part just like one of the students, and after the class he was very keen to learn more about Graphics and wants me to teach him. I’ve invited him to sit in on all my classes and I will give him extra lessons, in return I have asked him to provide drawing boards and tee-square for my future visit.
Power cuts !!!!! I have forgotten to mention those, they are frequent and very inconvenient, I had 2 during my lesson and it’s dark at 5pm here and I taught between 6.30pm and 8.00.
The students coped with it better than me, taking my “duty of care” response I gave assurance to them to remain calm and in there seats whilst I decided to switch on the torch on my iPhone to give some light to the room, that work fine and after a couple of minutes the power was restored and I turned off the torch on my mobile and returned it to my pocket. They are great thing these iPhones, mine was suddenly giving the class a rendition of Jonny be Good by the Rolling Stones. First I was confused who was playing music, you know I have mono hearing so I did not realise it was me playing the music, but I looked around and I soon realised that I’m the only Stones fan in the room.
