journal post

On Friday night, I was pretty bummed out. I had had a difficult day with the children, and in retrospect I was lonely because there are no other volunteers to hang out with. I was like, what am I doing here.

I decided to go into Chennai on Saturday, because the children have very few toys and games, so I wanted to get some more things for them to play with. For 93 kids, there is a small shelf with a small selection of random puzzles and a few other things, which are not really geared for the preschool/kindergarten age kids that I teach in the morning. I also wanted to get some better medical supplies for them. (No luck there, though…it’s hard to find quality medical supplies, even bandaids in different sizes.)

When I got into the city, I called Krish, the local volunteer coordinator, who told me that two other volunteers were having lunch and that I should join them. I had met one of them already, Michelle, and the other volunteer is Jin. Both of them are really cool and were a lot of fun to hang out with. They are both in college, Michelle doing pre-med in Boston and Jin in medical school in London. They are volunteering at a hospital in the slums that caters to patients with leprosy, TB, and AIDS.

We had lunch together, then went to Spencer Plaza, that crazy mall I mentioned earlier, to get the supplies I needed and a few other things. After that, we went to a hookah bar, then had dinner. It was really refreshing to hang out with them and share stories about our volunteer experiences, talk about the idiosyncrasies of life in Chennai, and whatever else. It really reinvigorated me to spend the day with them.

Another thing…not to freak you out, but Jin had just recovered from malaria! Back in London, every pharmacist said that the area was low risk, and to just make sure to use insect repellant. Well, he got malaria, and said it was absolutely horrible for a week. The pills they give you cause some horrible side effects. Don't worry, I'm taking pills to prevent malaria.

Jin was telling us stories of traveling in Kerala, and now I definitely want to go there during the two weeks I have at the end. Kerala is a state in the southwest part of India, and is way more laid-back than Tamil Nadu, which is actually a pretty conservative state. It is full of beautiful beaches and backwater areas that you can take boat trips on. I am going to get in touch with the volunteers at other placements who will be here at the time and see if anyone wants to travel with me for a week or two.

I decided that I really just need to get out of here on the weekends and have some fun, so I will go back to Chennai next weekend, and stay overnight on Saturday. We are going to go to one of the expensive hotels because there is a club inside and we want to see what that’s like. We were talking about going to see a Tamil movie too, but they may have done that already.

I also want to go to Pondicherry which is a little bit south from here, and is a former French colony, oui oui. Jin said that the driving there is not hectic like it is here, and he rented a scooter for a day and it was a lot of fun, so I will do that some weekend.

Sunday was chill, we took the children to the “grounds” which is a big open area at the school with a few playground structures. They LOVE going to the grounds and especially love having me push them on the swings. They all say “uncle me next uncle” or when I’m pushing someone else they say “uncle enough uncle” so that they’ll get their turn faster. I obey a strict no cutting rule. You cut, and it’s back of the line. And they all think they’re sooooo clever by just waltzing up to the front casually, like I won’t notice.

Monday was a lot better with the kids, I am starting to learn how to discipline them and am also learning each child’s names and personalities. The prize system works great, although I feel like a horrible person denying stickers to some of the kids.

There is one kid that is really bad –I call him Voldemort. Not to his face, just to myself and to you. After making two girls cry and scolding him all morning, I took him into the other room, put him in the corner, gave him the business, then attended to the crying girl. When I got back he was sitting down and crying. Man oh man did I feel like a horrible, soulless person. I was prepared though – my sister said to me that sometimes this will happen. It’s not like I hit him or verbally abused him, I just sternly told him what he did was wrong. Regardless of the reason, it’s still hard to shake the terrible feeling you get after making a kid cry.

Monday night, something happened that was really sad. Every night before dinner they have an evening prayer. They all sit up and pray individually but out loud, sort of quietly. I don’t really get it, but that’s what they do. Anyway, there is one child who is fairly new to the center and very young, and although he is full of energy and all smiles, he is not very social. Many of the children have siblings at the center, but he doesn’t, and he hasn’t really made any friends yet. I think he's still kinda scared and very lonely, and he barely talks at all. When everyone else was praying, he just sat there quietly with tears streaming down.

Yesterday was a holiday for them, don’t know why, but I had to go into Chennai to get my luggage (yay!) and when I got back I helped the kids. I hung out with some of the teenagers, and they are really cool. They are most girls, and they like to listen to music and dance. I helped some of them with their homework; what a relief to explain mathematical sets – unions, intersections, subsets, complements, rather than the usual alphabet/reading and addition/subtraction that I teach the other kids.