Friday 29th July

The day started the same as always, Ms J ensuring that everyone was H-A-P-P-Y combined with sweet toast and egg: a perfect way to start the day. We then commenced our final day of teaching, activities included a morning of dance with Sophie and Alice accompanied by the sweet music from Zak’s guitar. After this Zak serenaded standard 4, which ended up turning into a mosh pit of raging 8 and 9 year olds. Paper aeroplanes were a huge success with Cara, Sophie and Benji with the huge class of standard one. Cara, Benji, Tom and Jay also finished off some sewing with standard 7. Sticker mania also occurred today with everyone dishing out the last of their stash, for once the question ‘two stickers?’ was not a problem.

Whilst the day was happening Mr Brett went to the bank on the back of Naveen’s motorcycle with no helmet, no jacket and Naveen manoeuvring through the traffic one handed whilst having a conversation on the phone. The height of Indian safety.

As our final teaching day came to an end we look back on all that’s happened, although the past two weeks have been challenging I think we can all say how much we have gained from the experience. A wider understanding of the struggles our teachers face and an appreciation for the work they do. Only now we realise how hard it is to control a classroom of screaming children; the smiles on the children’s faces are the most rewarding, and that feeling you get when you realise that you have actually taught someone something is something that most of us will never forget.

After the day was done we once again practised our dance for the show tomorrow night and a few songs were also performed. After this it was playtime and another game of squareball commenced, with the girls on the sidelines having their hair plaited and pulled. Afterwards we had another dinner of everyone’s favourite: tasty chicken, rice and samba. Now the day ends with everyone sat outside discussing the day’s happenings and looking forward to the show tomorrow night. However, everyone will sleep with one eye open due to the giant bush tarantula running riot around the home. Let’s just say we’re hoping no one gets bitten.

Alice and Tom

We leave Amala tomorrow morning. There will no doubt be some tearful farewells. The train journey across the southern part of India will take at least 12 hours, meaning that we shall get to the hotel in Kovalam very late. Consequently, there may be a slight delay with the blog. Thank you for all your comments, we have really enjoyed reading them.