training, graduation, merekats
Last week was something of a filling in the gaps week and I'm now looking forward to finishing the training and getting on the plane out to India. Learnt some Hindi, though my knowledge is still tore tore and I should really be motivating myself to do a bit more work on it. Also had a couple of First Aid workshops which were useful (obviously) and quite enjoyable from the point of view of lying around pretending to have a broken leg, etc.
I'm sitting in the same room as Alison and she is asking whether I have been writing in my blog about how wonderful and amazing she is, so I hereby mention the fact. Also the greatness of the volunteer team, Sarah (who is also in the room) included.
At the weekend I went and graduated in Oxford, meaning that I now officially have a degree for the first time, and also, apparently, the 'power of lecturing', which makes me entitled and liable to leap up and start an oration at any moment. I had a very nice lunch in Balliol and received two small merekats, with whom I can apparently claim some distant kinship, as an unconnected present.
This week we've had 2 days of movement based work. Yesterday we used movement and drawing to explore ideas of peace and conflict which was quite strange and uncomfortable - today's session was a lot more fun as we explored things through group sculpture (doesn't mean taking a hammer and chisel to a group) and movement, which was more like conventional drama games. I got frustrated with some of the sessions which revolved around very very loose questions like 'what is culture?' or 'what is peace?' and the discussions were so broad they didn't have any substance at times. But we're now doing 3 days of groupwork - lots of stuff about the dynamics of groups as they form, respond to leadership, deal with conflict etc - and in Indian culture the expected ways of doing these things will all be different so we have a balancing act between riding with Indian cultural norms and creating an environment in which different norms can become acceptable. (e.g.: in state schools in Delhi hitting children is common as is caste discrimination, so we've got a challenge of establishing new norms around discipline and equal treatment in our project).
I'm sitting in the same room as Alison and she is asking whether I have been writing in my blog about how wonderful and amazing she is, so I hereby mention the fact. Also the greatness of the volunteer team, Sarah (who is also in the room) included.
At the weekend I went and graduated in Oxford, meaning that I now officially have a degree for the first time, and also, apparently, the 'power of lecturing', which makes me entitled and liable to leap up and start an oration at any moment. I had a very nice lunch in Balliol and received two small merekats, with whom I can apparently claim some distant kinship, as an unconnected present.
This week we've had 2 days of movement based work. Yesterday we used movement and drawing to explore ideas of peace and conflict which was quite strange and uncomfortable - today's session was a lot more fun as we explored things through group sculpture (doesn't mean taking a hammer and chisel to a group) and movement, which was more like conventional drama games. I got frustrated with some of the sessions which revolved around very very loose questions like 'what is culture?' or 'what is peace?' and the discussions were so broad they didn't have any substance at times. But we're now doing 3 days of groupwork - lots of stuff about the dynamics of groups as they form, respond to leadership, deal with conflict etc - and in Indian culture the expected ways of doing these things will all be different so we have a balancing act between riding with Indian cultural norms and creating an environment in which different norms can become acceptable. (e.g.: in state schools in Delhi hitting children is common as is caste discrimination, so we've got a challenge of establishing new norms around discipline and equal treatment in our project).