This past week has been one of the most memorable for me so far on the trip. We arrived in a tiny village about 2 kilometers away from Jhadol, and after being told this may be a difficult home stay, I was pretty nervous.
Our bus pulled up to our center base where we would be eating meals for the next week, and immediately as we got out there were a ton of little girls swarming and wanting to know our names and to talk to us as much as they could
. These were just some of the children we would be teaching English to during the day, and they were absolutely adorable!
I was teaching third grade and the kids ranged from around ages 8 to 11, and although their English was limited, they really wanted to learn, which made it a lot easier. After teaching them for a little while we would then head outside to the school yard and play games with our classes. After about 100 games of duck duck goose, and losing our voices trying to sing the hokey pokey, we would head in for a vegetarian lunch and a small break.
After lunch we were working on making a wall for the orphanage below the center. To cover the wall we would sort of just fling masala (cement) with a shovel thing and then go smooth it out after. It was definitely a different style of construction then I've seen, but it seemed to work, so that was very interesting. After construction we would then go up to the center and have some tea to help us relax a bit before heading back to our home stay families
.
My home stay family consisted of young parents and four kids all under six, one of whom was a very adorable, very drooly 6 month-er who only stopped crying when you bounced him with your arms. Needless to say I definitely developed some impressive biceps keeping him happy. The other kids were a little nervous to have Ellie and I in their home but by the end I think they warmed up to us.
Our home was very rustic and super simple. It was only really one room which was open and more like a porch. Our six person family shared two cots which seemed unbelievable to me but it was their reality. Although the family's didn't have a lot, they seemed content and happy with what they had which was pretty nice to see.
We got to help with their daily chores, which included getting water from the well and carrying it on our heads, and sweeping the dirt off a dirt path, which I still don't quite understand.
It was an amazing week and I think we were all sad to leave the school kids and our home stay families, who we definitely bonded with a lot.
Yesterday we arrived back in Udaipur and decided to have a mini Halloween party and celebrate Nick's birthday. This included getting make shift costumes, carving pumpkins, eating cake and eating maybe too much candy.
Today we had a fair bit of time to roam Udaipur and reflect on our crazy week, as tonight we have an over-night train to Agra (to see the Taj Mahal) which will be a different adventure altogether.
Jackie
The village of Jhadol and Udaipur
Friday, November 01, 2013
Udaipur, Rajasthan, India
Other Entries
2025-02-15