Individuality Week

Last week we did lessons on the theme of individuality for a week in school. We decided on this theme because we wanted to get the kids to understand how important diversity and individuality are in the world and how we should celebrate them. The way that they children are taught by most teachers gives very little opportunity for them to give their own ideas and opinions, as they mostly copy answers from the textbook or the blackboard. We wanted to tell them how important they are as individuals, not just as a school statistic or an exam result. I’m not sure if we succeeded in any of these aims, but I really hope we gave them a bit more self-esteem and something to think about.

Lessons varied with the different classes, but the message was the same- we are all different and this is a good thing! With kindergarten, 1^st and 2^nd standard we used the storybook of ‘Elmer’ to introduce the idea of individuality. They drew or coloured in their own Elmer and then we created our own massive Elmer. Each child had a square to decorate, which we stuck onto the big outline that Izzy had drawn. All of their squares were different but they looked awesome together, which hopefully gave them the message that they are all different but this is a good thing! 1^st standard came up with an amazing list of the differences they had within their own class and it was really interesting; they had Muslims, Christians and Hindus, speakers of Tamil, Telegu, Hindi and Kannada, different hair lengths and styles and heights and much more. The next day we got them to draw a picture of their partner and write the words that applied to them on it. It was good fun!

The lessons with the older kids went a bit deeper into the issue of individuality. We started by sticking pieces of paper to their backs and getting them to write nice things about each other on them, I really enjoyed seeing some of the quieter kids reading their sheets and looking really happy. One girl in 6^th standard loved her sheet so much that she copied it out into her English book in neat writing! Me and Izz did it as well and got some really funny responses! After that we got them to do a personal profile and present it to the class, I found this really interesting, especially the amount of languages they speak- in 7^th standard there’s about 5 different languages spoken! In one lesson we had a debate about whether the world would be a better place if we were all the same, this led to some good discussions about whether there would be less bullying if we looked the same. 

At the end of the week we got the kids to write one thing that makes them different from everyone else on a sheet of paper and we took a picture of them holding it. We then sent off the pictures to a charity called Inside Out, they are going to enlarge them and send them back so we can stick them up in the school and the community.  

We’re really excited to see the pictures and stick them up and I think the children will be so proud to see their pictures on the wall!

Praise the Lord!

We have just returned from spending a week with a travelling medical clinic in Andra Pradesh. It was an interesting experience and definitely one of the weirdest weeks of my life!

It all started by being woken up at 4am and ushered downstairs where this big jeep was waiting for us; it had red curtains and playboy stickers on the windows, multi-coloured led lights in the back, tassels and a disco ball hanging from the ceiling and stickers all over the dashboard saying things like “Jesus loves you” and “Jesus is coming, are you ready?” When we got in we thought we were in some horrible nightmare because it was so early in the morning and the disco light was flashing green and orange. Later someone asked the driver why he had playboy stickers on his windows, as they seemed to clash a bit with the Jesus stickers, and he said that they were there for decoration because he liked rabbits. We then had to explain what they meant and he very quickly took them off!

We drove to a church where Vinay gave some baptisms and we met the four American people who were running the medical clinic: Lynn, Lynne, Evangeline and Andy. It soon became obvious that they were all very strong Christians and they came from the ‘bible belt’ in the south of America. They were using the medical clinic as a way to spread the message about Jesus and to try and convert as many Indians as possible, this made us feel quite uncomfortable, as we really don’t agree with this kind of thing, and I’m sure the Indians are very happy being Hindus and don’t need Jesus forced on them!

We finally arrived at our hotel at about 1am, then we had to eat, so by the time we had got into our room and eradicated all of the lizards and cockroaches it was about 1:30am- quite a long day!

For the next 3 days that we were there we travelled to a village in the morning, set up the clinic in a church and then the Americans spoke to all of the patients. They told them about Christianity and then asked for people to put their hands up if they wanted to “accept Jesus as their saviour.” Then they noted down the amount of people who’d put their hands up as the ones who had been “saved.” It was really odd and I think the Indians didn't really understand what was going on at all! After that, we opened the clinic and helped the patients as much as we could, Izzy and I spent most of the time chatting to the village children and teaching them songs and games. At one village the children were very quiet and looked quite upset and tearful when we spoke to them, we asked why this was and were told that they had never seen white people before, so they were shocked and scared by the way we looked! The kids loved playing with our hair and they picked flowers for us, which was really lovely!

In the evenings we went to church services called ‘crusades’, where the Americans did testimonies and there was lots of singing and praying. On Monday night we went to a service in a Pentecostal church, it began with lots of singing and drumming and we quickly noticed that one lady was acting very strangely. She was breathing really heavily, shouting out random things and walking towards the front, knocking other people out of the way. It was really scary to watch and when we asked what was going on, they said that the Holy Spirit was speaking through her. During the next song, the same thing happened to another lady as well, it was very disturbing and overwhelming, and we were relieved when the service was over and we went back to our hotel. None of the other services were like that, and we enjoyed seeing the different churches and speaking to everyone afterwards.

Although the week was very intense and an odd experience for both of us, we made some great friends and it was very interesting to see the way of life in the rural villages compared to Bangalore.