My German stomach hath not failed me. Zoe: 1, Indian microbes: 1 (not so bad....)

Let me educate you on some important phrases with which you can converse with the Indian children:

• If you headache, you say:

"My head is PAINING!!!!"

• When you think it's going to rain, you say:

"Rain is coming!"

• When you smell something particularly awful, for example, a very strong ammonia smell from a man openly urinating on the side of the street:

"Smell is coming!"

• If someone asks you how you are, always, ALWAYS:

"Fine."

Never more, never less, than "fine."

• When you first meet someone, ask their name, then directly ask the name of their mother and father.

And now, I leave you with a picture of the small boys "swimming" in the "swimming pool." How they didn't all kill each other, I don't know. Why I took them "swimming" by myself, I don't know, either, but I nearly stroked out....

I just ate Indian street food, followed by Indian street ice cream, and proceeded by holding many hands of many children, and not proceeded by hand sanitizer, for the first time. The street food was amazing. The street ice cream.....let's just say they could learn a thing or two from good ol' Umpqua Dairy.

But everyone else was doing it.

Wish my stomach luck in the coming hours.

My birthday was quite wonderful. I received some really, realllllly wonderful cards from the children at school, a new (custom made!!) punjabi, and a sari!!! Too much from all my wonderful friends!

Presents that can't be bought are sometimes the best...

When I figure out how to wear the sari, I'll post pictures... it might take a while.

I find it ever so satisfying writing on a chalkboard with chalk. The kids find it ever so amusing that I'm left-handed.

Today, in school I was without an "assistant" in my 4th grade class. Read: chaos. So, I got angry.

Yes, ZOE was angry. I yelled and they were quiet for about 27 seconds. The chaos resumed. I yelled some more. Yelling was proving ineffective.

So, I left. For about two minutes. When I was done fuming and pacing, I returned, and lectured them about respect and being quiet. They were perfect.

Instilling fear is quite a rush, I must say. I could be a hard ass if I wanted to be....

It's been quite hot lately. HOT. Until the heavens pour. It's cool for about ten minutes before the rain, and you see these really dark, menacing clouds quickly build. Then it rains like you wouldn't believe, for about half an hour, leaving behind lakes and promoting the spread of typhoid, malaria, and this mysterious "fever" which all Indians seem to have this time of year...

Lake after the rain...this is literally after only half and hour....

No post for a while. Sorry 'bout that.

I think with the combination of half-yelling all day in order to be heard by classes of 35 eight-year-olds and the extreme differences in temperature between outside and A/C, I'm developing nodes on my vocal chords.

However, I AM enjoying teaching to the children. It's definitely a challenge, but but one that I embrace. After another four or so months (yes, I've been here almost a month now!!), I really hope to have made a difference. Everyone keep your fingers crossed...and I mean EVERYONE!

Oh. This means that I have to tell everyone that I'm using the A/C regularly these days. I turned it on one day, and it was sooooo nice that I decided I could no longer sustain my masochism. It's so heavenly. SO heavenly. What a luxury not to wake up drenched in sweat. It really is.

My birthday is tomorrow. Every child in school knows about this, somehow. All day today, they've been shaking my hand and saying, "At once, happy birthday!!" Apparently this means, "Congratulations, it's your birthday tomorrow!" Don't ask me how "at once" was derived, because I honestly have no idea.

An important thing about which you must know the difference. Let me educate you.

Cow=white, bony animal

Water buffalo= black, bony animals with horns

Don't mess it up, or you WILL be corrected. Every day, the cows and water buffalo are taken to pasture, and then in the evening, they return and are given a bath. Just like children. The buffalo might be more important than the children, actually.... I take a bus to the other children's home, Butterfly Hill, every Friday, and the bus is always held up by myriad herds of cows and buffalo. "Honk, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk," goes the bus. Does this affect the bovines at all? Of course not, except for perhaps slowing them down...

A few evenings ago, I took a long walk with a some girls to "tour" the countryside. They were quite excellent tour guides. They knew just enough English to warn me about the snakes in the rivers. I told them not to worry, that I wasn't about to set foot in any river (yes, Dad, I remember what you indefatigably warnings about the water here).

On the way back, walking through the tiny village (not the village to which I must bike...this village doesn't even have store), I saw half of my "students" and staff that work at Care and Share.

I ran into one of the women who works at the small boys' home, where I'm living. She invited me back to her home to meet her family....as I understood, there were about 5 adults and 3 kids living in two huts.

They made me sit down in the one chair they had. Sitting is a big deal here. Everywhere I go, somewhere stands up, or presents a chair to me, and forces me to sit. In most situations, it's quite awkward, because I'll be the only one sitting. It's a type of honor, I guess. Anyway, here I sit in a plastic chair in rural India, with about six people standing around me who don't speak a word of English. The baby started to cry when she saw me. I'm scary looking.

Soon, I was given the honor to view the little statues of Hindu gods that were housed in the cows' manger that was connected to the huts. I was channeling Jesus and Bethlehem as I stood admiring the Hindu gods in the manger.

A very interesting experience, indeed.

I am proud to say that I've survived my first intestinal bug, and hopefully my last?? Thank you, Herman Hesse and Pepto Bismol for helping me through this harrowing experience.

I would like to start a dictionary of the Telugu I know. It's the language spoken here--many of the locals don't even speak Hindi (the "official" language of India). India has 22 "scheduled" languages spoken--crazy, right? I gotta give these kids props, though, they learn Telugu, Hindi, and English (that's three languages!) concurrently starting in kindergarten. I think most classes for older kids are in English, though.

Hindi Alphabet

Telugu alphabet --it's really different!

Anyway, so my dictionary is, thus far (spelled phonetically, of course):

Ni par en ti? What is your name?

Na per u Zoe. My name is Zoe

Ba gu na va? How are you?

Ba gu na nu. I'm fine.

Man chi ga undu! Be Good! (I try to use this actually make the kids be good. Mostly they just think it's hilarious that I'm trying to speak Telugu.)

Ku cho! Sit down!

Aca Sister

Boma Doll (some of the older girls call me this...at first I thought they were trying to call me "mama.")

I'm on my way to becoming fluent in an absolutely useless language. I think I speak more Telugu than I do German at this point.

Variations of the name "Zoe":

-Zooey

-Z

-Zoo

-Joey

-Joe

But never Zoe, hahaha!

The flies may drive me mad one of these days. They're not normal flies. They're giant, mutant ultra-pests. And they're everywhere. I was expecting mosquitoes, which don't seem to be so prevalent, so I suppose the flies are better.

What else has been happening....

Went to a Christian wedding, which was probably the most hilarious thing ever. Gold lame abound, and Jesus wore a lei. I did, however, get to eat ice cream at the reception, which made terrible organist and choir and two hour ceremony worth it.

I received the "time table" of classes I will be teaching--and it's quite a full schedule.

English: 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th grades

Science: 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th grades

My music class will be taught to 7th, 8th, 9th classes (about 100 kids!) as a two-hour Powerpoint presentation once a week. I'm also to give a presentation on Oregon at some point, so please send me suggestions!!

I'm going to put together a project organizing data from the children and babies with HIV. This is one of the saddest things about being here. There are three small babies here right now with HIV. I was talking to the Indian doctor that visits the campus twice a week, and he told me that, even with the drugs available today, these babies only have about a 50% chance of making it to adulthood.

The method of education here is not so great. Everything is taught by rote, and the state-wide tests administered come directly from these texts. None of the children learn to think critically and answer questions themselves, as they are simply copying the answer that the teacher writes. I attempted to have 13-year-olds write full sentences to answer simple reading comprehension questions. It was somewhat of a disaster.... I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I'll have to figure out some hybrid method. The textbooks are another problem. Every single page of the English textbooks has several grammar mistakes. They're probably not worse than those mistakes that an at American would make when writing, but....for a textbook this really isn't acceptable. But I must work with what I have!

I am so desperate for exercise that I am playing football (soccer) with the boys. The 9 and 10 year boys with whom I play are way, way better than me, and I think they just let me pretend to play because they want to see the awkward, tall white girl make a fool out of herself...but I'm okay with this.

I am hard at work putting together a Photobucket album, such that people can see my photos more easily. It's taking forever to upload, but I will post the link when it's done!