Diesel Engine, Energy Audit, Pumps & Groundwater & Waste Management!!

Since our adventures in Pune we have been working solidly, we were even up preparing lessons until 11.30 last night but because the power kept cutting off we were working on our lap top batteries and head torches! It’s been good though and I’ve taught three succesful(ish) lessons from it.

Me in the office busy preparing lessons and enjoying my thimble of chai

The first was on Diesel Engines-you can tell I have been avoiding this one as my knowledge of diesel engines prior to preparing this lesson was slim to none! But I thought this would be a good opportunity to have a short lesson following my epic Smokeless Chulha lesson from last time.  So using the curriculum and the magical internet I managed to produce a lesson that at least informed the students about some aspects of a diesel engine! I do wonder if they knew I had no other background knowledge or if I pulled off looking like a diesel engine guru!  In the afternoon the teacher Wagoley ran a practical where they took apart a diesel engine and got it working again. He was very complimentary of the lesson and said ‘the students had good understanding’ because of it which made me pleased. 



Diesel Engine Practical Lesson-with a very fumey diesel engine!

He also asked that I add slides showing cooling systems which is great as it shows he not only was paying attention to the lesson but thinking about using it again.  So I added these and he taught these slides in my next lesson. I was very happy to see him use my slides.



Wagholey teaching my additional diesel engine slides

We worked through Saturday and rewarded ourselves with three cups of chai at ‘our local’ down the hill. It’s a great wee place with a large man who is lovely that owns it and fries the wadu bows (potato burger things) and pakora. And an even lovelier waiter who runs around giving everyone chai. I think they must think we r very greedy for having more than one cup of chai when we go but the cups are so small and it tastes so good!  We have also taken to having the (far too occasional) ladu. Which looks a bit like the hole from a do ring but with a lot more sugar. We googled it the other day and found out it is made from water, sugar and chickpeas! Its very tasty though but I do fear that they are going straight to my hips! L

On Sunday I gave an ‘Energy audit & electricity bill’ lesson. I initially thought this lesson was a bit of a rubbish topic to have in the curriculum but as I got involved with my presentation I realized how important it was. The electricity bills are in English-which I think is ridiculous-and they are very complex things to understand! I asked two of the teachers and still there were some charges we couldn’t figure out!  It got the students thinking about money and I got to include some calculations that they did together with the help of the teacher ok.  He helps them far too much sometimes and answers questions that I am trying to answer the students-I think sometimes he forgets he is not a student anymore!  I also got the students to carry out an energy audit of the school and sent them away to find out what electricity use was in different parts of the school.  They really seemed to enjoy this detective work! It turns out that the water pump which is on for two hours a day is the biggest user of electricity so I have suggested that they should take on a project to look at other ways they could pump water.   In this lesson my translator disappeared for 20 mins. This was a bit of a struggle but through the use of a very good student and Wagoley we scraped through two slides. I do feel for the students-they must find it difficult enough with a translator never mind with extremely patchy translation.

The next  lesson on the Tuesday was a pump and groundwater lesson.  I really enjoyed preparing this lesson as it was back to something that I had some background knowledge in.  Also it was very good for me to sit down and finally work out how pumps work! I was asked this in my other EWB interview and I couldn’t answer as I just didn’t know. I am now proud to say I now have good knowledge of hand pumps, centrifugal (single, multiple & submersible) and jet pumps! I’m practically a mechanical engineer! Hehe. It was great though but there was just so much information that I wanted to tell them that I omitted any calculations as these just take too long.  I did however include two activities where they had to make a positive displacement pump from a bottle and coin and a centrifugal pump from straws. (I got the idea from the internet) Although the first pump didn’t work I really think these activities helped with the students understanding-especially for the centrifugal pump.  I was really pleased I included these and got good compliments from the Principle teacher. 

Even 20 year olds like playing with straws & water!

When I was preparing this lesson I asked to see our water pump that the school gets its water from. Every alternative day we get it from the government storage reservoirs that are just up the hill a bit and the rest of the time we get it from an uncovered well next to the road.  I couldn’t believe this. And they wonder why we only drink the water from the chlorine filters? There were shoes floating in the well so goodness knows what else is in it that I couldn’t see.  We are lucky though at the school to have water. The village only gets water every 2 or 3 days as the rainy season has not been as rainy here as it is supposed to be.  Supposedly those that can afford it get water tanked in, I guess those who can’t take water from open wells like ours (another big source of contamination).  At the end of the lesson I got the students to carry out a survey of the pumps at the school including the head pumped and whether there could be any improvements.  I’m disappointed to say that they didn’t get straight away that the well should be covered despite me stressing this in my lesson. However upon suggestion they fully agreed. Again I hope that this will be a future lesson for the Environment class.



Supposedly our drinking water!



 Today I delivered a lesson on … Waste management! Yay! I managed to get it in somewhere! A whole 2.5 hour lesson on poo and rubbish! I was absolutely loving it! As the curriculum on covered septic tanks I took it upon myself to create this lesson so obviously I wanted to talk about everything! It was good as a fair bit of it was revision such as soak pits and biogas. I was pretty disappointed with the students though as when I asked them what a soak pit was only one student could answer. I suppose this demonstrates the importance of practical activities-they did not do one for this as I was told ‘there was not time’ as it was a few days before the school’s big open day.  I was happier when upon revisiting the soak pit slide they were able to explain how it worked etc so they hadn’t completely forgotten everything.  I also spoke about sanitary landfills and recycling. By stressing the time for materials to degrade and showing them pictures of animals eating plastic I think I managed to get my message across.  I emphasized the picture with a cow eating plastic as cows are regarded so highly over here due to their value on fields etc.  I think I almost exploded with enthusiasm at one point! It was when I was showing them an animation I had created to represent a news article I had read during my research about waste being illegally shipped and dumped in India. I really wanted them to know how wrong this is and how their beautiful country should not be taken advantage of by us ‘Developed’ Westeners.

Pabal market & all their rubbish!

I went to meditation on Tuesday as I hadn’t been in over a week and one of the teachers wanted to use my lap top as he was taking the session after meditation. So after a lovely 15 mins of silence and trying to think about the temperature of my breathing-that’s supposedly the first step in meditation-and not thinking about the rats rustling in the adjoining larder next door-the teacher led a session in English grammer! I couldn’t believe it!-what a meanie! He gave a presentation (downloaded from the net) on nouns and verbs (fair enough) adverbs, articles, conjuctions pronouns and loads of other grammer types that I cant even remember! I was genuinely struggling! I have no idea how the students managed it and am now not at all surprised why many of them do not like English if that is what they are taught! I was trying to explain to the students that if the exercise that was given at the end of the session was given to UK citizens at least half would not be able to complete it.  I’ve decided I will now only go to meditation on Sundays when the students sing so I do not need to feel so stupid again!

On Monday it was Krishna Janmashtami-the birthday of a God that liked to smash plates when he was a child. (why not?!) so to celebrate all across India pots filled with ghee or a rice mixture are ties up in really high places. Then people make human pyramids and try and smash open the pot with a coconut. J The school prepared one for the students and it was brilliant watching all the boys and staff get involved.  Whilst some are making pyramids the others are dancing (a lot of hip thrusting going on!) or pouring buckets of water over each other-yes it is all boys!  It was great to see but possibly the most random festival I’ve ever heard of.  Supposedly in Pune and Mumbai the human pyramids are 6-7 people high!

Human pyramid to crack open a pit with a coconut-I wonder why we dont celebrate this in the UK?

Tomorrow afternoon we are heading through to Pune again as we are keen to see some of the protests that are going on due to the Anna Hazare’s fast.  People are really excited here and it supposedly is the biggest movement since Ghandi.  We may also buy more sweets and take advantage of Graemes hot shower! Also I found out today that someone has been stealing my pants from our washing line with over half of them now gone! So a trip to Pune is very much required to restock!-I dont think you can buy pants in Pabal-thats probably why someone is stealing my ones! 

No Power, Smokeless Chulhas and Pune!

 I gave a lesson on Smokeless Chulhas and cook stoves today.  I thought it was going to be too quick and easy so I put in a couple of questions involving % of fuels etc.  Oops, it made the lesson last 4 hours! I don’t think the teachers were overly impressed.  It so difficult though as the students all have such varied maths skills. Some manage it in a few mins and the others take 40 mins to calculate 20% of a basic sum.  It’s something we need to clear with the director when he gets back.  The school needs to confirm one way or the other. Part of me thinks that students shouldn’t be able to ‘graduate’ from a school if they can’t do  2 x2 but the other part of me remembers what this school is all about and the importance of practical skills. It’s a tricky one.  I think that you would struggle in life without having even the most basic concept for numbers but perhaps here it is not needed.

Today was my first lesson for a few days. Power and internet was rubbish towards the end of last week then we were away to Pune at the weekend (Yay-first weekend off!) and then yesterday it was Independence Day so there were no lessons for the students.

We went to Pune on Friday afternoon after Abi’s lecture. Her lap top had broken so she was using mine so I was on a school computer.  This was a horrid taster of what it could be like working here without a lap top! I think within the 2-3 hours that afternoon when she had my comp we had 3-4 power cuts! You just don’t realize how common they are when on a lap top as you don’t lose all your work and have to restart your machine all the time!

Luckily we were travelling with a teacher as otherwise we woulnt have had a clue where to even get the bus from in Pabal.  It turns out it left from the other side of the village (the side we didn’t even know existed!)  As we were a bit late the only seats available were at the back of the bus. Turns out there was a reason for this-It was so so bumpy! It was genuinely like a roller coaster it was that bad! I couldn’t believe it. I reckon I left my seat every 10-15 mins and got flown into the air. Just crazy!

Our bumpy bus! Makes the no 38 from Linlithgow look classy!

We had to change buses in a town called Rajgurnagar.  Because it was a Friday evening the buses were v late and busy. We let ‘the crowd’ go and waited for one where we could fight for a seat. (found out where the term ‘Bagsied’ comes from-they just chuck their bags though the window to reserve their seats-what is even better is that they also chuck their babies through-‘Babysed’)

We finally reached Pune (after 5 hours of travelling instead of 2!) and found our way to Korregon Park where Graeme is staying. Graeme is also with EWB, he is working with Shelter Associates and is creating a website for them. He is a computer genius and fixed Abi’s lap top.  We went out for dinner to this place recommended to us called ‘Malaka Spice’. We thought it sounded nice but when we got there we were surprised to find out that is was South East Asian food and very posh!  It was lovely though and had a tasty meal that included a brownie and ice cream at the end and a sneaky beer J.  It cost us 10 pounds a head which is a lot of money here (normally the total bill for 3 people eating is 10 pounds!) but it was fun to see another side of Pune.

Our fancy meal in a 'Western' South East Asian Restaurant

Graemes apartment (room plus bathroom) is very posh compared to our accomodation at Pabal. He has beds that you cant feel the metal frame through and a shower! Whats evern more amazing is that the shower has hot water! It was amazing to have a warm shower!-Ive never felt so clean! I thought I was satisfied with my bucket of cold water every morning but it looks like you cant change a westeners habit that easily!

A warm shower! I had no idea I missed it so much!

The next day we headed to Kelkar museum which was beautiful and houses 20% of this dude’s collection.  There was lots of beautiful doors and old toys and kitchen ware.  We got charged 10x more than Indian people but it’s ok.  I think it’s important to support their museums as so much of their historic locations are not preserved and it shows that money can be made from preserving historic items.

Having fun at the Kelkar Museum

Then, from recommendation of one of the teachers here in Pabal we went off on our quest for ‘Sweet Home’ an Indian sweet shop. After filling 2 boxes with tasty treats with items that I’m not convinced contain anything but sugar we considered the stressful quest successful!

Us munching into our first box of Indian sweets ( Im sure they are made of rice aswell!)

In the afternoon we went to see Pataleshwar temple which is an old cave temple.  I was properly impressed with it. It was so quiet compared to the rest of Pune and so peaceful!  There was a man singing a prayer inside which sounded amazing and really added to our experience.

In the evening we had dinner at a restaurant (again recommended) called Georges where we ate too much then wobbled into an auto to see our first bollywood film!  We went to see Phirir, a ‘thriller’ set in Newcastle! Hehe-Newcastle!  It was very funny to see the UK (and British people!) portrayed through an Indian directors mind!  It was in Hindi but it was pretty easy to understand the plot. I was a bit disappointed that there was only 1 song and dance but the police in the film did storm a house to some funky music so that made up for it!  Before the film we had to stand for the national anthem and then half way there was an ice cream break. Oh and also to get into the cinema I had my rucksack checked 3 times. They are super strict after the German Bakery bombings in 2010.

Abi & Graeme binge on chicken at Georges.

On Sunday we checked out the western style supermarket. It’s crazy you can pretty much buy anything there and it felt very strange.  This confused me as at home you can buy things from lots of different countries and you don’t think twice about it.  We bought a loaf of bread and jam and some bleach for our skanky sink-proper treats!

After a lunch consisting of rice and more rice (unfortunate ordering of food-normally when we order things we don’t know they at least consist of something other than rice!) we hopped back on the epic bus ride to Pabal!  I have never had to push so much to get on a bus!-its ridiculous, you don’t even need to push-I think people just get excited!

We introduced Graeme to Vigyan Ahram and Pabal and also the rules of meditation and dinner.  We were going to make him work them out for himself but we aren’t that mean!

The Monday was Independence day so we stood in the procession and saluted the flag when it was raised.  It did feel a bit funny seeing as they were celebrating being independent from us but there wasn’t even a hint of this which was lovely.  Then we watched the students give a variety of performances from drama (no idea what it was about!) to dance (traditional and bollywood style) and singing. It was very good and almost every student performed. So we were called up to do something. What do 3 Brits pull out-yes it can only be the Hokey Kokey! Hehe. They seemed to be entertained by it and we even had to stop at putting our left foot in as it was getting too rowdy!  I love it-when I was in South Africa the kids at the school absolutely loved it!-turns out it can cross countries and ages groups really quite easily!

Bit of bollywood dancing!!

Who needs the Edinburgh Festival when there is drama at Vigyan Ashram?! (No I have absolutely no idea what it was all about!)

These boys made pretty good Wise Medicine Men-they also had a chicken!

So the next few days I will be preparing a Diesel Engine lesson which will be a learning curve J lets just hope there is internet!

Solar Cookers, Atoms and lots of Henna!

 On Friday I gave a lesson on solar cookers.  I was informed just before I started presenting that this was a cross curricular lesson so my class size doubled to include home and health as well as my class.  The lesson was ok but I feel my other lessons have been better. Although I tried to make it as interactive as possible I didn’t include any exercises and instead it was really just informative.  I’m ashamed to say that I caught one or two of the home and health students snoozing, but I put this down to the big class size and not everyone being able to see my slides clearly J. What did add extreme value to it though was the tour of the ‘Solar Park’ on campus afterwards.  This was constructed in 2010 and supposedly all the cooking for the students takes place here in summer.  I had used these solar cookers as examples in my lesson and the students reacted really well to seeing them in real life and seeing demonstrations with newspaper.  I’m not going to lie-until I saw a piece of newspaper go up in flames after about 5 seconds on a relatively cloudy day I had my doubts about solar cookers! But they must be pretty powerful things in summer!  The students were able to identify how they worked from my lesson so I was pleased with the outcome.

Following my lesson, me and Abi headed into town for a Friday afternoon market treat! Most of the market had packed up but there were still a few stalls left so we stocked up on bananas and pomegranates.  As we were making our purchase we were once again asked for our photo and were snapped away at as if we were celebrities!  Then we headed for that well awaited ‘Thumbs Up’ otherwise known as 14p cola. It was tasty after the long week-that’s our first fizzy juice since being in Pabal-I was very excited!  Then we (obviously when in India) got chatting to the owner and his wife in a mixture of mahrati and splatters of English.  From the sounds of things everyone has sons and daughters that are engineers.  And everyones father is a farmer. It’s a definite trend!  I complemented her Mindi (Henna) even though it was pretty scuffy but just trying to make chat as know we are drinking tea.  And she grabbed my hand and got her ‘cone’ of henna and started decorating away! Abi got an ‘A’ in the middle of the hand and I got a big ‘S’.  Then a passer by who came into the café sent his daughter round to decorate us properly and she did a beautiful design on the backs of our hand!  I loved this experience and am looking forward to heading back for another ‘Thumbs Up’ soon!



Us dancing with the girls!



That evening after dinner the girls invited us back to their room for dancing! It was great we danced to 1 song from their phones repeatedly-it was very much fun and I tried to learn some Indian moves! We also both got henna’d again. I got a beautiful design up my left hand this time with flowers and leaves.  It was really lovely to spend some time with the girls as none of them are in our classes and obviously during meal times etc we have to be quiet. That evening after being henna’d on our hands we tried out designs on our feet. I don’t think I’ll have a blank body part when I come home! 



 

My beautiful henna

 

Abi squeezed on the back too! who needs a car?!





The students of Depuk's old school



On Saturday we finally had our first proper morning off.   It was great, we went to Depuks  (computer teacher) village (3 on a motor bike=quite a squeeze but very entertaining!).  First we went to his old school where we ‘presented’ to the pupils. They couldn’t understand a word we were saying so it was a bit random and Depuk was translating but I’m not sure he was actually translating what we were saying! I spoke with the boys after and Abi with the girls-there was very much a divide!  They were all lovely and we spoke about the favourite topics of Indian children, families and cricket!  Depuk announced that we must return to survey some of the student’s houses.  I’m not sure what we are supposed to be surveying but he didn’t seem to understand when we enquired over this!  We were offered rice from the school and we ate it with our hands! We were both very pleased with ourselves that we had mustered a new skill until we stood up and realized how much mess we had made in the progress!

Me attempting to pretend I knew famous cricket players!



Us at the almost edible temple

Then we zoomed off to his farm and met his extended family-it was very confusing trying to work out who everyone was but they were all very lovely!  Then he took us to this amazing temple which looks edible! There is a big festival here in March.  Then (again randomly!) we went to the local government office and drank tea while looking at pictures of the village.  I think Depuk wants us to write a blog for the village and was trying to get all the information for us.  Luckily they could not get us this information on a Saturday. I didnt point out to him that we weren’t able to ready mahrati script but he didn’t seem to think that would matter!.

When we got back to his home (2 rooms=kitchen and bedroom/living room-I asked how many people slept in the room but couldn’t really get an answer) his mother was in the process of making us a lovely lunch of crazy crisps, chapatti, bajis and this chilli dip thing. It was very tasty and exciting to have something different.  She then filled our bags with ground nuts and we zoomed back to Pabal!

Depuk's mother making our lunch

I had such a lovely time on this visit. I was just overwhelmed with the kindness of Depuk and his family. I think we are going back another time and look forward to it!

Us with Depuk and his lovely mother



As it was rainy on sat afternoon we just worked away-I needed all the time I had to get my head round atomic bonding!  I was supposed to be preparing a lesson on solar panels but the details in the curriculum skipped so much  to p and n type semi conductors that I had to go onto BBC Bitesize standard grade chemistry and revise my covalent and ionic bonding! So instead of completely overwhelming the students I divided the lesson into two. The first which I delivered today was all about atoms and bonding and Wednesdays lesson will be on semi conductors and solar panels.  I was dubious as to whether this was indeed valuable for the students so seeked advice from staff.  I was informed that it was necessary and the students would benefit from it.  I delivered my atom lesson today and I admit I had resigned to the fact that the students wouldn’t understand a thing and half would be asleep.  However they were fully engaged and keeping up with me. I was so very proud of them and pleased. Turns out when you give atoms smiley faces, arms and legs they are less scary! I briefly went over semi conductors and totally lost them but thats ok as I will focus on that in the next lesson.

It is difficult to gauge the understanding of the students before hand. Some can’t do 2x4 and then others were able to tell me what and ion was!  We are going to suggest to Yogesh the director that the classes should be sorted into groups of levels.  Before this wouldn’t have mattered but with theory we think it is necessary.  Also I’m keen to find out who on earth made the curriculum and decided that it was a good idea to teach about semi conductors without any background.

Today we headed into the village with Mukesh and Sidart for a snack. It was great we had a potato burger thing (like what the kids made last Saturday) and this selection of spiced rice and noodle things and tea. Per head it was 25p. We tried explaining that at home it would cost closer to 5 or 6 pounds per head and they finally clicked that’s why we need to get paid more in the UK!

Im pleased with how my lessons are going.  I’m trying to deliver what we have been asked for and what I consider is easily replicated when we leave.   Abi is packaging her lessons into a big project which is a great idea but I don’t feel that the energy & Environment lessons really fit into this.  Yesterday I was called by a student to come and see their wind turbine.  I had no idea that they were building this and will need to do some investigation work on what other ‘projects’ they appear to be doing. It looks like you don’t get told anything unless you ask a couple of times!  I try and include interactive excersises and questions into the lessons but am still keen to keep the hands on practicals for the teacher as this has been his job for the past 10 or so years.  I do feel like I have gained his support and respect now which Im very pleased about. He has given me advice on my lessons such as the atom one and asked to get copies of the slide shows to date.  I have learnt it is necessary to be patient with him and our conversations which can be difficult due to the language barrier.  Now that I now he thinks I’m ok I’m no longer worrying about him shouting and not smiling-that’s just the way he communicates!

I am a little concerned with how much time I seem to spend in front of my lap top preparing and researching lessons when one of things I had been looking forward to most was getting outside and doing physical work and communicating with lots of people.  We were told by one of the senior management the other day how he couldn’t do what we do and sit in front of a computer for hours on end and how great it was that we could do it.  This helped as again it reinforced that they are grateful for what we are preparing and presenting.  It does make me feel very proud to think that the presentations will be used again. Even if its just some of them used some of the time I think our project has been successful. I’m going to have a look through my ICE workbook later this week and start thinking about my objectives that I could be working towards while I’m here.  It’s a pretty selfish thing to think about but I think it is an extra thing that help me stay motivated.

So tomorrow I will finish my solar panel lesson. Then on Friday afternoon we are heading to Pune to see Graeme. I am looking forward to having a full day off from work and my lap top! We are hopefully going to see a Bollywood movie and go to the zoo and to a museum. Im excited about a few days in the city but I’m sure I will be itching to get back to the quiet of Pabal by Sunday! Also very excited about the rickety buses that take us there!



Surveying and sweet things with my spicey curry!

Today, like the past other few days has gone really quickly. It’s pretty crazy what a routine can do!  I’ve been prepping a solar cooker lesson today which I will deliver tomorrow. Since my last update I have given another two lessons and we have had the big Vigyan Ashram day! 

Food Lab students selling their produce to visiting school pupils

Saturday was admittedly pretty crazy and I was very impressed with how much all the staff and pupils had pulled everything together.  Everyone was dressed in their finest saris for the open day that hosted around 1500 people-many of those school children.   The new (not quite finished yet) building was set up with chairs and stalls.  The stalls exhibited some of the pupils work in previous years and also sold some produce they have been making in food lab. Obviously we supported the students in this and almost cleared them out of biscuits and toffee! 

We were hoping to interview a few students who studied here last year yet were only able to interview one due to being pulled away all the time.  The guy we interviewed was not a typical ex student! He had previously applied to NASA and had reportedly cheated in his exam so the media turned on him big style and all his funding for uni was dropped.  Vigyan Ashram took him in an obviously he performed very well. Now he is awaiting confirmation of his funding to an American university. It was such an interesting story but a shame that we didn’t get any others to compare it against.  It was funny though as when were chatting with him we constantly had a group of about 50 school pupils around us-I think they must have thought we were an exhibition!

We also planted some trees and got our photos taken for some publicity thing, Then in the afternoon we showed round a group of Americans who were over for a few months learning hindi. It was lovely to show off the campus and the students work to them.

Gora planting trees for publicity stunt!

Since then its all quietend down a bit. I gave a lesson on Monday on ‘Maps and Plane Table surveying’ which I think most of the students got so I was really pleased. I was also impressed with myself for teaching a lesson on something that until a few days ago I had no idea what it was!  I sat in on the practical and was a little disapointed with the lack of structure around it. Its difficult as they only have one set of equipment so the majority of the students didnt have anything to do. Then the teacher set everything up for them anyway so they didnt have to really think.  I tried suggesting things to him but he wasnt taking any of it in which was a shame.  Ive recorded my experience and hope to talk it through with him and a translator soon. I also need to try a bit of research and see if I can source another plane table from anywhere!

The level of understanding between the students is so varied that it suprises me every lesson. There are some students that get most things than some who cant even do 2x4.  We are going to suggest to the school that with the introduction of theory lessons they may need to think about grading classes so that people dont get left behind or get bored. 

The students setting up the plane table

The students using the alidade to spot a distance

That evening we went to a teachers home for dinner. It was so lovely, we had so much food including rice patty things, this coriander and coconut chutney and a sweetened bottlewort which is like a HUGE marrow.  Her neighbours were in helping cook so we ‘chatted’ with them and showed our photos and things. I think they were surprised to see a photo of my mum and dad in shorts and not long trousers and saris!





Me having dinner at Ranjid & Palavi's home-not all the food is laid out yet!



Then on Wednesday I gave a lesson on ‘Dumpy Level Surveying’. Again I was really pleased with how this went as most of the students showed to have a good understanding at the end of the lesson. I was also extremely pleased when the teacher came today to ask me for print outs of it so he could carry out the practical.  This proved to me the value of what we are doing, as material is needed to help with practicals. I was very pleased!

We had planned on heading to Pune this Saturday (our day off) but I think we r going to hold off till next week when other EWB volunteers will be there too. This sat we are hopefully going to visit one of the teacher’s villages which is about 8km away. Also we think we may have been invited round for dinner on Saturday at another teacher’s house but we are not sure.

Just an update on the food situation. I had spicey wheat stuff and crisps this morning for breakfast. It was tasty but it was definitely random! Then a few days ago for lunch we had a thick daal, spicey rice, red curry, chapatti, sweet wheat stuff and crisps! I almost exploded I was that full! We have also had a couple of these jelly sweet things with our curry. They are a bit odd but make for a very interesting combination!