The Horror? The Horror?I am a man of many hats here in Kottayam. The easiest thing to do is break down what I do by day of the week. This will maybe give you a semblance of what I've been up to!
Monday: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I teach classes to students in CMS College's Department of Communicative English. Concretely, this means that I give them small reading assignments and class readings, lead them in discussions, and explain vocabulary words. Mondays are for the first year students--college students who are 17 or 18 years old. These students are pretty bright, but also 17 or 18 years old. If you get my drift.
Tuesday: On Tuesdays I catch the early bus out of town to the nearby village of Pollum, where I teach classes in two different schools. The first of these is the Buchanan Institute girls' school, which houses both an Upper Primary (5th-7th) and High School (8th-10th). In the afternoon I go to CMS Boys' School, which is actually a serious misnomer, because they educate both boys and girls. Both Buchanan and CMS Boys students frequently come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and many of them are 'Malayalam Medium,' meaning they are educated primarily in Malayalam.
Wednesday: On Wednesdays, I take class with the second years in Communicative English at CMS. This is the class that I have seen the least, because, for some reason, student strikes and holidays always seem to fall on Wednesdays. My theory: they just want a break in the middle of the week.
Thursday: On Thursdays I go into Kottayam town to the Baker School complex. The Baker School is a group of schools for elementary- and high school-aged children, that comprises people of a lot of different backgrounds. I work at three schools here: Baker Girls school, which is an upper primary (5th-8th) school; Baker LP school, which is a lower primary (1st-4th) school; and Baker Vidyapeedth, which has 1st-12th grades. The students here come from a mixed set of backgrounds. In Baker Girls and LP, students are often from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and can be educated in English or Malayalam medium. Vidyapeetdth is sort of a 'College Prep' kind of school--here I've had the somewhat strange experience of meeting the children of professors, CSI priests, etc. that I've known in other contexts.
Friday: Fridays I take class with the 3rd years (seniors) in the Communicative English department. NB: 'To take a class' here means 'to teach a class', the opposite of its meaning in the United States. Visitors are thus advised to be prepared with a lesson plan when asked to 'take a class', not just show up willing to learn.
Saturday: The biblical sabbath and day of rest. No official duties, but I am often roused from inactivity by the hordes of students that still come to school on their day off, traveling dozens of kilometers to sit in the campus and do nothing.
Sunday: Church services, which bear a whole post of their own!
Ongoing projects: Other than my teaching duties, a number of other projects are coming down the pipe, including: Computer literacy courses, taught by me!; extra-curricular English club, led by me!; other independent tutoring!
I also am involved in the campus in a multitude of other ways. One of my favorites is my membership in the college choir, which is in the process of preparing for its Christmas music program. This is a really common and popular activity here; Malayalees love to go to choral concerts, and love to participate in them even more. Christmastime is the season in which these musical events come out in full force.
Other miscellany: Have you seen my flickr page, with various pictures of the goings-on in Kerala? You should!
Serious promises: New blog post soon!
What are you wearing Cameron? Well what ever it is, I'm diggin' it, haha. I hope you're having an amazing experience and it looks like you are. I want to see/hear some audio from this choir of yours. Take care amigo!
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