Friendship Day

I know it’s been a week since I last posted a blog. This week was another pretty busy one. Wednesday was one of the new staff, James’ birthday. So that evening we had 23 people at a restaurant called the Tavern in the bazaar. We pretty much took up the whole place! Thursday was “friendship day” at Woodstock. This meant that the seniors all had a freshman that they had to dress up in ridiculous costumes. Some of the costumes I saw included pokemon, a giant foot, an i-pod, a tea pot etc. It was pretty funny to see all the ninth graders dressed up for the whole day. But I was not very happy when 10 of my band students skipped band during the lunch period to continue to take part in the friendship day festivities. I will be having words with these kids at our next rehearsal, which unfortunately isn’t until Wednesday because we have a shortened class day due to teacher meetings on Monday morning…
We also did not have class yesterday. Instead we had an assembly in the morning. Apparently there have been some violent actions taken against Christians in Orissa (which really isn’ t very close to us). But all of the Christian schools in India were taking a stand and protesting by not having school yesterday.
So far I have had two Hindi lessons from Zeenat – the hindi instructor/assistant. She is really nice and a very patient teacher. At our first lesson, two Thursdays ago, we went over a basic introductory conversation – here’s what it looks like with Arabic letters (I don’t know how to use sandskrit on the computer)
Namastay -Hello
Aap Kaisay (see) hai? - How are you?
Mai theek hoo – I am fine
Aur aap kaisee hai? And how are you?
Aapkaa naam kyaa hai? - What is your name?
Mayraa naam Jennie hai - My name is Jennie
Aap kahaa say hai? -Where are you from?
Mai US say hoo? - I am from the US
Aapsay milkar khushi huee - Nice to meet you
Phir milenge - see you again
This past week we went over the vowels and consonants and Zeenat had me practice writing some of them and putting them together for pronunciation practice and then she would tell me if it was a word or not. Some of the words I stumbled on through this process were, cut (which sounds exactly like it does in English), juice, a sound that means talking – kind of like blah blah blah, the buzz that a bee makes, lost, desert and hair. It was actually kind of fun… Yesterday I came home after our morning assembly and our ayah was still here working in our house, so I tried to use some of limited Hindi to communicate. It kind of worked, but I think I need a lot more practice!
Yesterday and today we went jogging up at the top of the hill on what’s called the Chuker. It’s a figure eight road that has a bunch of amazing views. I guess once the monsoon is over, you can see the some of the snow covered peaks of the Himalayas from there. The students (and teachers if they want) have their big cross country race up there on Wednesday. The school is divided up into three houses for sports (kind of like Harry Potter, but without quidditch). The houses are Merlin, Condor, Eagle. Megan and I are both in Merlin. Each age group has a different distance to run. And if they make it in a certain time, then they earn points for their house.
Today we are also going to go down to the bazaar and pick up a rolling pin, baking pan, some groceries and other things. I am going to attempt to make chocolate chip cookies too! Everyday either at 9:35 or 10:30 we have a minute tea time. The music teachers all take turns bringing snacks for that tea time. So far I have only brought snacks that are packaged, but if I can figure out how to make cookies in our toaster over, then next time I’ll have a homemade snack to bring!