7 days later

Well, a week has passed, and much has happened!

Firstly, I have realized that teaching English, while difficult, is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be initially. I have Graham, who took a teaching course and so knows the ropes a bit, and once we got started we relaxed more, because we were actually having fun. Standing up in front of people I have always enjoyed, and the kids are so happy and energetic it’s hard not to get swept along! It is tiring trying to keep up your energy level during class to make it fun, as well as trying to account for a range of abilities within each class, but I think we’ll be fine.

I cannot tell you much about what the slums are like yet (we’ve been teaching lots!), though I have seen a house that is 8 foot by 10 foot, and the others do not tend to be much bigger. Also, at the Mayapuri slum where we teach two days a week, the air is so polluted there that your head and face start itching within minutes of being outside. Most of the adults we see on the way to the centre are covered in black soot and grease from the work they are doing. While we only teach about 40 kids there, in the entire slum live about 10,000 people.

We are cooking for ourselves too! It is lots of fun because you can’t always get what you want but you realize that the next best thing still tastes good when you’re hungry. Speaking of which, red powder, while obviously spicy, is about 8 times stronger than chilli powder in England. We found that out the hard way!

Warm Regards,
Jon