Daya Dan
Today is Thursday! Which means today is my (and all of the volunteers) day off. What a pleasant feeling it is to sleep in! I got some laundry done, including the sleep sack that hasn't been washed since I was in the States, which is very exciting.
I wanted to spend a little time journaling on Daya Dan-- my work there, the people there, the children, etc. Now's as good a time as any for it.
It takes me a little less than 40 minutes to get to Daya Dan from the Mother House in the mornings-- about 20 minutes on the public bus, about 10 minutes in an auto-rickshaw, and no more than 10 minutes of wait-time and walking time to get to the auto-rickshaws and bus. Daya Dan itself is in a little alleyway along a somewhat major road. The first floor is all boys, most of whom are between 6 and 15. A good number of them have a mental or physical handicap, or at the very least Attention Deficit Disorder. They're all very sweet from the little I have interacted with them, and I would love to eventually find time to go volunteer with them. The 2nd floor has a small chapel where Catholic Mass is held every Sunday morning for the children. Even though I do not need to come on Sundays (Sunday is the only "weekend" day Indians recognize, so it is the one day a week children do not have school), I went to volunteer this last Sunday so that I could spend time with the children in a non-classroom setting. It was a really beautiful thing to see these children at Mass, singing their hearts out and trying to understand the message being given by the priest.
The 3rd floor is where I work, which is the floor for probably 20 or 25 girls and boys with moderate to severe mental and physical disabilities. Most of these children, again, are between the ages of 6 and 15. This is because there is another home, Shishu Bhavan, that takes care of children in their infancy through about the age of 5. The trouble with this, however, is that most of the children who get adopted from Shishu Bhavan are the ones who are not obviously "high maintenance"-- with a disability. Very few children from the floor I'm on get adopted, which is really such a shame because they are some of the sweetest children ever.
I would really like to continue this entry, but I have a lunch date with Melissa at 1 PM, and it is already 12:45. I will continue this later!
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It is Friday afternoon, and I'm finally getting around to finishing my entry.
I don't know if I specified this at all in previous entries, but all of the children at Daya Dan are parentless. Most have come from Shishu Bhavan, where they were dropped off in the middle of the night, or brought after being found wandering in the streets alone. Some are also dropped off or taken to Daya Dan, which is why there are several children under the age of 5 or who came there in infancy. A guard is posted at each site 24 hours a day every day for the sole reason of making sure any children dropped off are done so safely.
Only one little adorable girl on my floor has parents that the Sisters keep in contact with, but they do not want to take her back because she is too much work and they (were) a homeless couple. Piya, the little girl, is a 5 year old with the sweetest temperament, always smiling at you, always making the volunteers' hearts melt. Of all the children on our floor, she, ironically enough, is the one most people end up feeling they would adopt most readily (yet, she's the only one with parents that can be contacted). This girl, though, has the size, the body, and the muscle control of a 4 month old infant because of her muscular dystrophy. One of the volunteers, after falling in love with her and after finding out the conditions that her family lives in, ended up donating enough money to have a small home built for Piya's parents in a village outside Kolkata. Still, this is not enough for the parents to be able to take care of their little girl, so she will remain at Daya Dan for many more years, or until the effects of MD take their toll.
In the classroom, there are now 3 teachers-- myself, a Canadian named Heidi who has been at Daya Dan as a teacher since June (my best resource), and John McC from the Seattle group. The three of us teach from about 8:00 AM (or whenever we arrive in the morning, depending on the bus) until about 3 PM, with many long breaks in between for bathroom, singing class, lunch, showers, physical therapy, etc. Really, 3 teachers for 3 to 5 students is a bit much, but the three main students are at SUCH different levels that they really need individual direction.
Our oldest student, Mongul, is 12 years old, and is very clever and "knows everything." He has no mental disability, only his muscular dystrophy that keeps him wheelchair-bound. He speaks, reads, and writes English and Bengali fluently, I think he also understands Hindi. He does not care for reading much and gets bored with it, but I went to a children's bookstore yesterday afternoon and bought some books on Indian mythology for his reading level that I hope will pique his interest. His interest generally lies in science and geography, and he is picking up quickly on country capitols. He is very good at math, but finds it boring. In all subjects except geography he is only at about a 4th grade level, but he's interested in learning which is the key. John has been working with him mostly, but I got to work with him some on Wednesday.
Megha is 9 and she is Mongul's sister. She also is wheelchair-bound and is a charmer... she has all the volunteers wrapped around her little finger and knows how to play them. Reading through her information, I found out that she has been at Daya Dan since she was an infant. I don't know if she's actually blood-related to Mongul, but they consider themselves siblings and interact like them. She is also very clever, but does not have as much interest in paying attention to her studies. I have been working with her the most, and she is definitely at a 1st grade level as far as attention span, learning techniques, knowledge of English vocabulary, and all subject levels. She speaks English fluently, and can read simple books well enough, but we are working on compound words and remembering the differences between the "b" and "p" sounds and the "d" and "t" sounds when reading. She doesn't enjoy math much at all, and is still trying to learn basic addition-- it doesn't help that Mongul sometimes just gives her the answers for these. John has a theory that Mongul is starting to reinforce the Indian gender roles between the two of them, with the man being the practical, gossipy, science and math whiz while the woman has no need for those subjects but should be good at language arts and English, and how to be a social butterfly. I wouldn't be surprised if this is true.
Our third regular student is Nisha, who is 7. She is a very hyper child with wild, wild eyes and hair-- while both Mongul and Megha have short buzzed heads, Nisha's hair is long and thick, I love it! Nisha is learning English. She understands it more than she can speak it, and obeys us when we ask her to do things in English, but her only real vocalization (at very high decibels) is something like "DA!". It is not the Bengali word "da," which means "go", but more like just a goo-goo-gaa-gaa sort of word. She can recognize and say the English names of colors now for the most part, but only after Heidi worked on it with for for over a month. Now she is working on the alphabet with her, creating a book with Nisha to illustrate what sort of things begin with the letter that the girl recognizes (her favorite is "baby", and ever since "B" has been coming up and shrieking "BABY!!!" at us). She's a lot of fun to be with but I'm glad Heidi has been teaching her, because I don't know if either John or I could have the patience or knowledge to keep Nisha paying attention for even a few minutes. She is a bright child, but I'm thinking she probably has a form of dyslexia, since she takes so long to get things down. But then again, English is a second language to her, and I know it is difficult to memorize words that sound so funny coming out of your mouth. Imagine how much more funny they sound at the age of 7!
Megha and Mongul have been pretty resistant to my teaching since I came, but I feel like they will start to warm up once they start getting used to the fact that I'm a different kind of teacher than Heidi is, or than John. Heidi is the ultimate soft-spoken kindergarten teacher, John's the nice Uncle (although gender differentiation in English is still hard for most of the children and they call him Aunty much of the time), and I am the teacher who makes sure work gets done, does not give in to cutesy faces or whining "Aunty, you read it to me, I can't!"s. That really irritated both Megha and Mongul, I know, because they both ask for John to be their teacher in the mornings. But, you know, you've got to have all sorts of teaching styles.
Saturdays, the other children do not have school so we get a lot of children in the classroom wanting to *do things*... so we usually have some sort of an arts day. Last Saturday was just coloring all day for most, and one of the Massis (Indian women hired by the MoC to work in the homes, kind of like in-home nurses but not nurses) brought in some pottery for the children to paint. Tomorrow we might be doing some paper macche, because it is almost Puja and we are seeing all sorts of paper macche statues all over the city. Actually, Louie sent me an email saying that he'd heard about a Hogwarts replica made for Puja that is getting a lot of attention-- if anyone has an article about it or has heard much about it or where it's at, let me know!
Since Puja is coming up, millions of Indians are swarming to Kolkata. Hopefully in my next entry I will be able to give you a taste of what the holiday is like.
Until we meet again,
Jenn
I wanted to spend a little time journaling on Daya Dan-- my work there, the people there, the children, etc. Now's as good a time as any for it.
It takes me a little less than 40 minutes to get to Daya Dan from the Mother House in the mornings-- about 20 minutes on the public bus, about 10 minutes in an auto-rickshaw, and no more than 10 minutes of wait-time and walking time to get to the auto-rickshaws and bus. Daya Dan itself is in a little alleyway along a somewhat major road. The first floor is all boys, most of whom are between 6 and 15. A good number of them have a mental or physical handicap, or at the very least Attention Deficit Disorder. They're all very sweet from the little I have interacted with them, and I would love to eventually find time to go volunteer with them. The 2nd floor has a small chapel where Catholic Mass is held every Sunday morning for the children. Even though I do not need to come on Sundays (Sunday is the only "weekend" day Indians recognize, so it is the one day a week children do not have school), I went to volunteer this last Sunday so that I could spend time with the children in a non-classroom setting. It was a really beautiful thing to see these children at Mass, singing their hearts out and trying to understand the message being given by the priest.
The 3rd floor is where I work, which is the floor for probably 20 or 25 girls and boys with moderate to severe mental and physical disabilities. Most of these children, again, are between the ages of 6 and 15. This is because there is another home, Shishu Bhavan, that takes care of children in their infancy through about the age of 5. The trouble with this, however, is that most of the children who get adopted from Shishu Bhavan are the ones who are not obviously "high maintenance"-- with a disability. Very few children from the floor I'm on get adopted, which is really such a shame because they are some of the sweetest children ever.
I would really like to continue this entry, but I have a lunch date with Melissa at 1 PM, and it is already 12:45. I will continue this later!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is Friday afternoon, and I'm finally getting around to finishing my entry.
I don't know if I specified this at all in previous entries, but all of the children at Daya Dan are parentless. Most have come from Shishu Bhavan, where they were dropped off in the middle of the night, or brought after being found wandering in the streets alone. Some are also dropped off or taken to Daya Dan, which is why there are several children under the age of 5 or who came there in infancy. A guard is posted at each site 24 hours a day every day for the sole reason of making sure any children dropped off are done so safely.
Only one little adorable girl on my floor has parents that the Sisters keep in contact with, but they do not want to take her back because she is too much work and they (were) a homeless couple. Piya, the little girl, is a 5 year old with the sweetest temperament, always smiling at you, always making the volunteers' hearts melt. Of all the children on our floor, she, ironically enough, is the one most people end up feeling they would adopt most readily (yet, she's the only one with parents that can be contacted). This girl, though, has the size, the body, and the muscle control of a 4 month old infant because of her muscular dystrophy. One of the volunteers, after falling in love with her and after finding out the conditions that her family lives in, ended up donating enough money to have a small home built for Piya's parents in a village outside Kolkata. Still, this is not enough for the parents to be able to take care of their little girl, so she will remain at Daya Dan for many more years, or until the effects of MD take their toll.
In the classroom, there are now 3 teachers-- myself, a Canadian named Heidi who has been at Daya Dan as a teacher since June (my best resource), and John McC from the Seattle group. The three of us teach from about 8:00 AM (or whenever we arrive in the morning, depending on the bus) until about 3 PM, with many long breaks in between for bathroom, singing class, lunch, showers, physical therapy, etc. Really, 3 teachers for 3 to 5 students is a bit much, but the three main students are at SUCH different levels that they really need individual direction.
Our oldest student, Mongul, is 12 years old, and is very clever and "knows everything." He has no mental disability, only his muscular dystrophy that keeps him wheelchair-bound. He speaks, reads, and writes English and Bengali fluently, I think he also understands Hindi. He does not care for reading much and gets bored with it, but I went to a children's bookstore yesterday afternoon and bought some books on Indian mythology for his reading level that I hope will pique his interest. His interest generally lies in science and geography, and he is picking up quickly on country capitols. He is very good at math, but finds it boring. In all subjects except geography he is only at about a 4th grade level, but he's interested in learning which is the key. John has been working with him mostly, but I got to work with him some on Wednesday.
Megha is 9 and she is Mongul's sister. She also is wheelchair-bound and is a charmer... she has all the volunteers wrapped around her little finger and knows how to play them. Reading through her information, I found out that she has been at Daya Dan since she was an infant. I don't know if she's actually blood-related to Mongul, but they consider themselves siblings and interact like them. She is also very clever, but does not have as much interest in paying attention to her studies. I have been working with her the most, and she is definitely at a 1st grade level as far as attention span, learning techniques, knowledge of English vocabulary, and all subject levels. She speaks English fluently, and can read simple books well enough, but we are working on compound words and remembering the differences between the "b" and "p" sounds and the "d" and "t" sounds when reading. She doesn't enjoy math much at all, and is still trying to learn basic addition-- it doesn't help that Mongul sometimes just gives her the answers for these. John has a theory that Mongul is starting to reinforce the Indian gender roles between the two of them, with the man being the practical, gossipy, science and math whiz while the woman has no need for those subjects but should be good at language arts and English, and how to be a social butterfly. I wouldn't be surprised if this is true.
Our third regular student is Nisha, who is 7. She is a very hyper child with wild, wild eyes and hair-- while both Mongul and Megha have short buzzed heads, Nisha's hair is long and thick, I love it! Nisha is learning English. She understands it more than she can speak it, and obeys us when we ask her to do things in English, but her only real vocalization (at very high decibels) is something like "DA!". It is not the Bengali word "da," which means "go", but more like just a goo-goo-gaa-gaa sort of word. She can recognize and say the English names of colors now for the most part, but only after Heidi worked on it with for for over a month. Now she is working on the alphabet with her, creating a book with Nisha to illustrate what sort of things begin with the letter that the girl recognizes (her favorite is "baby", and ever since "B" has been coming up and shrieking "BABY!!!" at us). She's a lot of fun to be with but I'm glad Heidi has been teaching her, because I don't know if either John or I could have the patience or knowledge to keep Nisha paying attention for even a few minutes. She is a bright child, but I'm thinking she probably has a form of dyslexia, since she takes so long to get things down. But then again, English is a second language to her, and I know it is difficult to memorize words that sound so funny coming out of your mouth. Imagine how much more funny they sound at the age of 7!
Megha and Mongul have been pretty resistant to my teaching since I came, but I feel like they will start to warm up once they start getting used to the fact that I'm a different kind of teacher than Heidi is, or than John. Heidi is the ultimate soft-spoken kindergarten teacher, John's the nice Uncle (although gender differentiation in English is still hard for most of the children and they call him Aunty much of the time), and I am the teacher who makes sure work gets done, does not give in to cutesy faces or whining "Aunty, you read it to me, I can't!"s. That really irritated both Megha and Mongul, I know, because they both ask for John to be their teacher in the mornings. But, you know, you've got to have all sorts of teaching styles.
Saturdays, the other children do not have school so we get a lot of children in the classroom wanting to *do things*... so we usually have some sort of an arts day. Last Saturday was just coloring all day for most, and one of the Massis (Indian women hired by the MoC to work in the homes, kind of like in-home nurses but not nurses) brought in some pottery for the children to paint. Tomorrow we might be doing some paper macche, because it is almost Puja and we are seeing all sorts of paper macche statues all over the city. Actually, Louie sent me an email saying that he'd heard about a Hogwarts replica made for Puja that is getting a lot of attention-- if anyone has an article about it or has heard much about it or where it's at, let me know!
Since Puja is coming up, millions of Indians are swarming to Kolkata. Hopefully in my next entry I will be able to give you a taste of what the holiday is like.
Until we meet again,
Jenn