Whatever we want time

Hosur was fun. Nikki, Molly and I took an auto into town. We internet-ed, sari shopped, fruit shopped, unsuccessfully looked for a tailor, grocery shopped and ate lunch. Then we headed back to S.B. We weren't gone for long and it was nice to be so efficient. The town was decorated for some holiday. They had erected decorative ceilings for the roads and they were cool. Huge white thatched banners featuring brightly colored symbols of peace and love. I've grown accustomed to seeing the swastika everywhere. I have to say, my favorite was the swastika circumscribed by the star of David on the side of one of the huts at our hotel in Hampi. Neither of those symbols mean the same thing here.

After we got back I broke open the box of fruit loops (!!!) I bought and ate them until my tongue bled. I watched a little Tamil TV, what I like to think of as TamirVision, with Nirmala. Then I went in my room and just read and slept from afternoon until morning. I needed the break from people.

Sunday was nice. No one was around, since almost everyone else went to Bangalore. I went to breakfast, read, relaxed, danced with Nirmala and Nikki and generally enjoyed my holiday.

I'm pretty pumped to get my stuff together for my trip. I've settled on going to Kochin, Jog Falls, Goa, Yoga Study, Mumbai, Bangalore, Dance Study, Shanti Bhavan, Bangalore, London and NYC!!!!! It's a pretty laid back itinerary. Generally I get up in the morning and take a bus where I'm going or I take an overnight train where I'm going. I will have, except for the first week, mostly several days in one place. I'm planning to go to Kochin for two days, Jog Falls overnight, then get to Goa and play on the beaches until my Yoga study starts there. After my yoga intensive I'll train up to Mumbai. I want to do a ton of touristy stuff there. I plan to stay for five days. Then I'll train to Bangalore, where I'm planning a study of Bharatanatyum dance. Then I'll go back to Shanti Bhavan for a week and fly to London. I won't see the Taj Mahal, but I also won't be too stressed out and I'll get to do a lot of what I came here to do.

There's a new volunteer named Nicky. She's really cool. She's 20, from London and she's studying visual art.

Monday brought an impromptu performance for "important" visitors. The visitors turned out to be Siva Something-or-other, inventor of email and proud recipient of four MIT degrees, and his wife a model-turned-classic-Indian-dancer. He's currently working on integrating classical Indian medicine and Western medicine. After our performance, at which the choir sang a song in Tamil, Memory from Cats and Hey Jude by the Beetles, the KG performed Rubber Ducky and the fourth and sixth grades did a dance; the guy gave a great speech, but offended our British volunteer by calling Memory and Hey Jude 'American' songs. His wife said she plans to return to teach dance workshops at the school.

In the KG class I started teaching them a dance to "I Just Can't Wait to be King." It's going to be cute. I'm trying to encourage them to move creatively, by telling them things like "the next step is to fly like a parrot." I think it's more important to foster a comfort in their own skins and a sense of rhythm than to give them perfect form. My tap class is doing so well. They're really learning quickly. I am constantly surprised at how good at learning dances these kids are. In fact, the children who seem slow to me, are probably actually still better than average. There are two kids in my tap class I keep getting frustrated by because their tap sounds aren't clear and I have to explain a step five or six times for them to learn it. In the real world that still put them way ahead of the learning curve. It's just hard to remember when you're surrounded by so much talent.

I was both excited to finally have my own space and really sad about Elizabeth leaving. She really helped me, we got along great, I learned a lot by watching her journey, but I think it was both time for her to get back to her life and time for me to try out what I've learned on my own.

Tuesday was Elizabeth's last day. While the fourth grade and I played denial, I spent most of my day trying to make sure Elizabeth knew how much everyone came to love her here at Shanti Bhavan. I got some really cute videos of the kids saying they love her. I taught the first grade some of their part of "I Just Can't Wait to be King". They're so cute and funny.

At assembly Elizabeth and Jack performed some songs. Elizabeth sang a song to the kids about them being in her heart, then they sang a song Jack wrote the music for after a tenth grader gave him a poem to work with. Then they sang a song Jack wrote about two lizards and an enormous spider living in his bedroom. The kids loved it. Arjun, Molly, Tony and Joe rapped while Steve beat boxed and Jack played a baseline. It was so funny. The Shanti Bhavan rap was a big hit for novelty and enthusiasm if not for perfection. I say Shanti you say Bhavan. Shanti. BHAVAN. Shanti. BHAVAN. Doctor. GEORGE. Doctor. GEORGE. Mrs. LAW. Mrs. LAW. Then we sang "Whatever You Want Time" which Jack and Steve wrote right after the last volunteer show. We'd been singing it the lounge quite often and eventually ended up all writing our own verses. We all sang on the repetitious parts in harmony. It's quite cute. It went something like this:

(Jack)
It's not time for P.T.
It's not time for drinking tea
It's just time for being me
It's whatever we want time, whatever we want time

(Nikki)
It's not time for working
It's not time for playing
It's not time for sitting 'round in one place
It's whatever we want time, whatever we want time

(Steve)
It's not time for poetry
It's not time for those pesky short stories
It's just time to (...)
It's whatever we want time, whatever we want time

(Elizabeth)
It's not time for sleeping
It's not time for weeping
It's just time to sing my blues away
It's whatever we want time, whatever we want time

(Joe harmonica solo)

(Amanda)
It's not time to teach math
and it's not time to have a bath
it's sure not time for writing lots of stuff on the board
It's whatever we want time, whatever we want time

(Arjun)
It's not time for music
It's not time for bruisin'
It's not time for chemistry, gasses and all-a-that jazz
It's whatever we want time, whatever we want time

(Jacques)
It's not time for Janani
It's not time for triple five chick-y
It's just time for balls of ragi
It's whatever we want time, whatever we want time

(Jack and Steve guitar solo)

(Elizabeth)
Now it's time for leavin'
and I'll soon be grievin'
but for now (...)
It's whatever I want time, whatever we want time

(All)
It's whatever we want time, whatever we want time
It's whatever we want time, whatever we want time
And we can do whatever we want

I went to P.T. to spend some time with the kids and actually ended up watching the fourth and fifth grade boys play basket ball. It was so cute and funny. They all wanted to impress me. After about twenty minutes I went up to sit on our sunset rocks, write in my journal, watch the kids and read my book. I finished reading A Language Older Than Words, which Kleveland lent me before I came here. I taught the choir a round called Zum Gulli Gulli. It's a traditional Hebrew song. It's a great teaching round.

Wednesday was my first day back to "taking fully the fourth grade." I taught 2nd grade beginning of "Two Worlds", Taught third grade beginning of "You've Got a Friend in Me" it's sweet, they're doing little vignettes in front of the dance. I ended up staying up really late my first night alone. I couldn't sleep. I was restless. Stuff was strewn about the room in a chaotic manner left over over from the shock of half of the room's occupants leaving. I sorted through clothes. I made a pile of outfits. I started to pack my back pack for my travels. I put souvenirs in my suitcase that will stay at Shanti Bhavan while I'm away. I'm already feeling emotional about it. I watched The Last Unicorn twice and started Spirit before I finally got sleepy enough to fall asleep.

Thursday Kleveland's package arrived. A neighboring village was having a chariot festival and one of the maintenance crew took some of us volunteers. It was so cool. We arrived and the whole village was out, throwing bananas at the top of this enormous stone chariot, decorated in colorful fabric soaring 40 feet into the air and sporting a statue of some Hindu deity. After trying to hit the top of it with our bananas, we went to a local temple to be personally blessed. They did a special service just for us, including our names and blessing us with garlands. Well, blessing the boys with garlands, they handed the garlands to us girls, if they had put them on us, they'd have been marrying us. The priest also wouldn't touch us to put dots on our foreheads, whereas in most major cities they did. It was really cool, we were blessed with coconut water, flame, ringing bells, rice and chandan (the dots). The village leader made a speech about Dr. George "He is very helping my village." We were invited back to his house, where they fed us popol, yummy crunchy deep fried bread, SomethingIdidn'tcatchthenameof, a bread filled with sweet crumbly goodness, and Pakora, deep fried vegetables.

When we got back I watched the Ramayana in Hindi with the fourth grade. It was funny because they were so amused by what I looked like. That evening we had an end of tenth grade exams party. It was really fun. We danced and laughed and ate western food. The kids had their first cokes. It was so funny to watch! I made the mistake of having diet coke AND green tea close to bed time. I stayed up all night watching Top Chef.

Reading "The Giver" to the fourth grade is really great, we'll finish it Tuesday, no doubt. The kids are really getting into the library books I picked out for them. The turn over rate on those books is getting better. I think they're starting to realize how cool a good story can be.

On Thursday I had fourth grade for theatre games, we selected puppets, learned about characterization and the basic hand movement for puppet. In choir we did "Zum Gali Gali" in three sections, "One Bottle of Pop" starting on different sections, learned "The Goose Round" and did exercises on listening and singing as a choir as a whole. We did "Hey Jude" standing in a circle holding hands with our eyes closed singing quietly as possible. It really worked.

Friday I finished Top Chef between classes and started Three Cups of Tea during quiet work during class. We started writing the plot of our fourth grade puppet show. I started teaching the fifth grade a lyrical/ line dance piece to "Life's a Dance". (thanks Kleveland) The CD is great. That care package was like a little shot in the arm of home. It's working wonders.