India Week 4 -- Kids, Music and St. Paddy's Day

Here are some of the students at Shanti Bhavan on their Sunday nature walk.

One of my little projects while I'm here will be to update the Shanti Bhavan kids' blog with some photos or little videos, so I should have something new posted here soon http://sbchildren.blogspot.com/

The kids are really fun to teach and play with. Every morning when I walk to breakfast I hear the piano students practicing Mozart and other songs and it is really beautiful and inspiring to hear and see what these children are capable of.


Here's me playing the sitar last weekend at a little music shop outside Pondicherry. I've been listening to some Indian music and I learned a Tamil (the local language in Tamil Nadu) song on guitar which I've been teaching to my guitar students. They are really excited to learn how to play some music that they already listen to and love, since most of the music that they typically learn from volunteers is just western music.

St Patrick's Day was this week and I did a little presentation and Irish music concert for the whole school which was well received. Steve, another one of the volunteers, also plays guitar so he learned a couple of the songs and tunes and played and sang with me which was great, and Amanda, another volunteer, played flute on one of the tunes... so we held what was probably the first ever Irish music session in this part of rural India! Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Shanti Bhavan, my first 3 weeks in India

It's been about three weeks since I arrived in India, and I have already experienced so much that it will be impossible to describe it all here in the little time I have before I have to go get in an auto-rickshaw and meet up with the other volunteers and teachers to head back to the school, Shanti Bhavan.

Shanti Bhavan, which means "haven of peace" is a school that was started about 10 years ago by the George Foundation, with the purpose of providing world-class education to children on the lowest caste in rural India. The school is a beautiful place and I feel lucky to be living and teaching there.

I'm teaching 6th grade English, 5th grade math, 8th and 9th grade history, teaching guitar lessons and playing soccer and basketball with the kids. They are amazing, bright, positive children to be around, and they behave well for the most part. I'm really enjoying being a teacher and finding it to be very rewarding work. Kids that were "destined" to be quarry workers or do other menial labor for life are now learning Beethoven and Mozart and talking about their college entrance exams and future careers as doctors and engineers. The idea behind the school, which has about 220 students, is to be a model of how rural education should look in India. The founder's vision is that if there are someday 100 Shanti Bhavans, where the students are educated properly and become successful, they will rise above poverty and oppression, take their families with them, and we will end the caste system. It is a profound mission to be a part of, however small my role here is.

In addition to the inspiration found in the students and in the cause of Shanti Bhavan, I have also been struck by the beauty of India and the Indian culture. I've been lucky enough to travel with the other volunteers on the weekends and we've seen the India Jones-eqsue ruins of Hampi, been blessed by a sacred elephant, swam in a beautiful hidden lake, visited Pondicherry and some other amazing places I will hopefully be able to post some pictures of soon. The Indian people have been warm, friendly and helpful everywhere we've been.

I'd love to share more but it is time to go. I'll try to post more next week (there is no internet at the school, but we're trying change that).