Today being a Sunday, i as usual was looking forward to my visit to Maninagar.Visiting the people there and teaching the children has become a weekly routine.We were a little late in leaving the campus as most of us were tired after the farewell party yesterday.We took a different route this time round which turned out to be shorter. Anshum who was visiting the first time was a little enthusiastic,but after spending some time with his "students" there he was all worn out.this was primarily because he was not used to handling so many children at a time.
This time the number of students was a little less and i found quite a few new faces as well.The enthusiasm that they show towards every activity that we have there is remarkable, be it learning ABCD or singing or coloring ,everyone participates.It seems that they are a little bored of the usual study pattern and learning ABCD...the entire time they kept asking about when the coloring activity would start and yeah they did have a great time coloring and we had a tough time teaching them how to color and managing the crowd.I taught a nursery rhyme "twinkle twinkle", the girls were fascinated to learn only because we were singing it ,when it came to reciting it they had lost all interest.It was good to see that even if they were not able to pronounce the complicated words correctly ,they were successful to a great extent in copying the sounds.I was happy to see that a few girls were exceptionally fast in picking up the words and memorizing them and am hoping that they will learn it by next week ,because songs have always enchanted people more than poems.A few couldn't even pronounce 'twinkle' they were pronouncing it as 'pinkle',but then the confidence which they exuded was praiseworthy.There is this really bright girl named Rinky who has studied till class 3 and she is really quick at grasping things.we had never thought that we would come across somebody like her there so we had nothing to teach her,but then this week we will make sure that she has something new to learn.
Seeing the interest that the kids showed in coloring was a real booster,but then we noticed that they were neglecting studies because of it so we have decided to make it a weekly activity than a daily one.also that we dont have much funds to spend on colors or photocopies.they are so excited over coloring that a kid colored my capri when i was sitting next to him. :)
Then there are kids who still dont know how to spell their name ,which is a little disappointing but then their enthusiasm to attend the teaching sessions on a regular basis enhances our efforts to teach them.there is this kid whose name is sandeep when asked to write he confused s with 2 and wrote 2andeep.we had a great time laughing over it.
All in all it was a good trip.although there were just three of us there,but then we did manage to handle the children and teach them something.
