Sunset walks, popcorn and grinding millet- beginning to feel like home.

This week has been good fun but definitely a busy and intense one. The grade 10's have been sitting their exams so it has been interesting to learn about the different system. All the year groups have exams three times a year. The first set are in July, then November and the end of year exams are in March but the grade 10 exams are in February. The exams are in the same format for all the year groups and are mainly based around comprehension for English and seems to last 3 hours. This amazes me as most of our classes struggle to concentrate for 45 minutes! Our grade 4 teacher was telling us about this subject, health. It seems to be a random mix of human Geography, Science and healthy living. We looked at the exam which proved highly entertaining... it turns out there is a plant that cures cancer! He was also telling us about a government initiative to help increase literacy rates called 'eachoneteach'. Each grade 10 pupil has to take on at least one pupil from the younger classes and teach them to read and write. If they don't then they cannot pass grade 10. He was also telling us that you have to retire by the age of 60 which explains why all the teachers are young and apparently this applies to all jobs which I found surprising.

Our different classes seem to be making progress which is encouraging. Our grade 2 class have been surprisingly well behaved but we expect this is down to the absence of Sarun, one of the naughtiest boys. We have taught them emotions this week and tell them that they are bad when they are naughty which they now find hilarious. They also managed to combine stationary and colours easily this week which is exciting given they couldn't do it with clothes and colours when we first arrived. We have also been doing more comprehension with grade 5 to help them with their exams which is good but they can be very frustrating to help! I was trying to help one of them with superlatives by asking her a question and she responded by saying 'namaste' which was very infuriating. The combined class have been a bit of a nightmare this week and really don't understand the concept of time. The biggest challenge with them is to teach and keep occupied such a range of abilities. Overall, it's quite satisfying and exciting to see our classes make a bit of progress however frustrating it can be!

The children are gradually getting to know us more thus meaning we don't seem to have any time to ourselves. They love to come after school which is nice but they have also started coming in the evenings as well. We tried to get rid of them for a bit so we could go for a walk but instead they came with us and were extremely excited to show us their village. We ended up playing football with them until it got dark which was good fun although we were terrible. We have also enjoyed exploring the area more and ended up going for a walk at sunset with amazing views of the hills and mountains which was very special. The children are all very sweet and they make us feel more included in village life but it can be quite intense sometimes.

We have got to know our neighbour, Amrita and her children more which is nice. She is very generous and brings us lots of fresh vegetables however she speaks very little English which is hard sometimes. She invited us over for tea and popcorn a couple of times which made the children very excited and happy. We also had a turn at grinding millet by turning these huge stones which made me realise how strong the local ladies are!

It has been a very busy week but it has been so interesting to learn more about the culture and I feel quite at home in our village now.