Picture captions

I had several requests to add more in-depth descriptions to my pictures. I spent the night doing that. considering the hour, the fact that I have school in the morning, and that I still have work to do, I've decided to make that my blog entry for the week. Their are also 41ish new pictures up, starting at 50 I think.
Enjoy!
Kevin
http://s975.photobucket.com/albums/ae233/crusader3629/Student%20Teaching%20in%20India/

I'm a stranger here myself

I just finnished Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, and I couldn't help the reference in the Title (its one of his earlier books). I apologize, but bear with me, its pertinent.

The title is a great disriptor of part of my experience here. I am a stranger here, and I never feel it more than on weekends. Kodaikanal is a popular toursit attraction for India's mostly for the cooler weather, but partially because of the international community created by KIS. This means that, because I am white, I am an oddity. This feeling is compunded on weekends when the tourists show up.

Last weekend was a shock simply becasue I had never experienced it before. First I went on a walk down by the lake to see how windy It was (some friends and I were thinking about going canoeing. That ended up happening yesterday, which I will get to in a minute). As I was walking a group of young men approached me and asked for my picture. Having never experienced this before, I was flattered and agreed to take a couple pictures with them. Its quite amazing how quickly that feeling wears off. Later that day we were walking back to the school from a local hike, and (I'm n ot joking here) an entire bus leadned out of their windows and were whistling at us and asking us what country we were from. Its difficult to say whether this was because all three of us were white, or because I was the only male there. Regadless, we all kept our heads down and kept walking.

Fastforward to this week. The three of us finally got out canoeing. As we are launching the canoe, five men come over to help us put the boat into the water. As we launched the boat another 10-15 came over to watch us, waving and snapping pictures as we went. This treatment continued through our canoe, prompting me to make a very interesting connection: Its not all that different to minnesota boating culture. In MN, if you pass a boat or someone sitting on a dock, its polite and friendly to wave and say hi to them. In action, things here are quite the same, although I can't help but feel that the intention is quite different.

The point of all this is that it has been a severe wake up call for me to not only be in the minority, but to have it pointed out all the time. From tourists takeing pictures of me (both discreetly and quite obviously), to merchants charinging me more for their goods (skin tax and my friend Dan called it), to spectators calling me "westman" while I play ultimate frisbee, It has been an eye opening expereience to say the least.

I don't Imagine it will stop any time soon, rather I will just have to get used to it. A number of my friends have begun charging for there picture. That way its a win-win, either you get left alone, or you get some dinner money. I haven't had that opportunity yet, but I surely plan on taking advantage when the opportunity comes.

Theres my speil for this week. I have my pictures posted from the last two weeks. I think they will go up in weekly installments as well. A quick note, I accidentally loaded them in reverse order, meaning you should start with the last picture (number 49 right now I think) and go backwords.

http://s975.photobucket.com/albums/ae233/crusader3629/Student%20Teaching%20in%20India/

Cheers,

Kevin  

Teaching

Since I am here for teaching, I might as well give you guys a taste of what my week days have been like.

This week has been very strange. Not just from the point of view of starting teaching for the first time, but because the music department is in such an intense state of limbo, its difficult to do much of anything. The culprit for this state of limbo is scheduling. I have quickly discovered that scheduling is the number one difficulty at this school. Students schedules are constantly being changed due to class conflicts. Because of this the music department has been unable to schedule lessons for students, only half of the band members have showed up to each rehearsal, and it is not uncommon for a student not to come to one class because they have a conflict. That being said, my duties here will eventually be teaching private lessons, helping with all three bands (mostly the advanced and intermediate, but a little work with the beginning band), and helping teach a 9th grade music class.Because we haven't been able to schedule lessons, my time here has been relatively free. Eventually this will become the largest part of my day. One of my host teachers, Paul Jaikumar, Has already agreed to give me 6 of his students. I have already been working with one of these students, a talented Euphonium player who is working up an audition of the Royal School of Music exam (RSM).The other host teacher who I've been working with pretty closely, Stu Potter, has also talked about giving my some of his students, although we haven't figured out details yet. I am also planning on helping at the elementary/middle school one day a week, but who I teach and how many students I take has not been determined yet. It has been a little frustrating to go a week without doing what will eventually be the largest part of my day, but it has also been enlightening watching and helping my band directors get the band program moving.
The second largest part of my day will be working with the bands. All three of the band directors have been extremely generous in how much they will allow me to do with there bands. On the first day I met Mr. Potter he asked me how I thought I could best learn and contribute to the program. My response to him was that I wanted to become as much a part of the team as possible, which he has graciously helped me accomplish. On the first rehearsal we had with his advanced band, Mr. Potter gave me 1/3 of the rehearsal time to read through a piece. It should be noted that he is new here as well, so for his to surrender that much time for me was truly astounding. Mr. Jaikumar has treated me very much the same with his Intermediate band. He gave me two pieces to read through with the band, plus the opportunity to teach them part of a warm-up. In the end I think I was on the podium in front of that band for almost 45 minutes. What a treat.
I am also co-teaching a 9th grade music class. This has been quite an experience. There are only 5 students in the class, and all of varying backgrounds. One student cannot read music, while another understands the musical component quite will, but doesn't have very strong English. None have any extensive theory background, but all (at least I believe) have showed a strong urge to learn it. It will prove to be a very interesting, and I think very rewarding challenge.

That it for now, I really need to go have a weekend.

Take care,
Kevin

Traffic

I finally arrived in kodai last night. It has been quite a rush just getting here, and from the little I've seen of KIS, I think this expereience will be one for the ages. The campus is beautiful, the city is very unique and will be a ton of fun to explore, and the people I've met here are amazing.

However, between Incredible jet lag, Culture shock, language barrier, and all the new sights, sounds, and smells I'm expereiencing, I am very much on sensory over load right now. In light of that, I've decided to focus these blogs a little more. Rather than try and recount all of my stories and experiences here, I will focus on one expereience or event, and talk about it a little deeper. 

Todays topic is traffic. On the flight over, I stumbled across a short auto reveiw show called "the Autocar show." In the episode that I watched, they reviewed a new, economy class, Toyota that was coming out soon. One of the comments that the host made was that the car sacraficed smooth and comfortable ride for stiffer suspension that made it easier to dodge in and out of traffic. At the time I didn't think much of this, but as soon as we got into the taxi in delhi, I realized how important that it. There are lane markers on some roads here, but there really more like decoration, and the stop lights are very much optional. At one point our taxi driver made a right turn from the left "lane" with about four rows of cars in between.

When I got out of the taxi in Delhi, I though it was a very exciting and unique ride, but I never would have classified it as terrifying. That title belongs to the cab ride we took from Coimbatore to Kodaikanal. To give you a reference your sharing the road not only with other cars, but (in order from smallest to largest of course); Buses and trucks, Buffalo and cart, just Buffalo, Horses, Rickshaws of every variety you could imagine, Motorcyles (thousand of motorcycles), Bicycles, Pedestrians, and Dogs. Initially, when traffic is really tight, its not a big deal because you don't drive that fast. If there is an intersection ahead with cross traffic, you just nose your way though. The really adventure is when you get out into the country a little. Traffic thins out a little, roads get narrower, and you go much, much faster. At points I noticed we were going upwards of 105kmh, On a road that Americans would call barley larger than a on lane highway.

Here's a hypethetical situation for you. What do you do when you get caught behind a slow moving rickshaw going about a left hand bend? Do you be patient and wait for a safer straight away to pass him. Nah. Patience is for the weak of heart. You toot your horn a few times, gun your underpowered four cylinder SUV, and give your very white, very American passagners (especially the one in the front seat. That was me) a moment of pure terror they will never forget. OH NO! There's a a bus on the other side of that corner heading straight for you and your both gong 100kmh. Do you slow down and retreat behind the safety of the slow rickshaw? of course not. Real men don't back down. You honk your horn, and squeeze between the on coming bus of death, and the rickshaw, with enough space to make your passengers wish they had braught there brown pants.

The kicker is that this taxi ride wasnt a quick 10 minute jaunt acorss down. It a four hour treck out of the city, through the plains, and up the mountain to Kodai. It was easily the most terrifying driving experience I have ever had.

It occured to me once we had arrived safley at Kodai, and I had pried my own death grip from the seat cushion by my knee, that this traffic represents two parts of india that have shocked me the most.

The first is the general sense of controlled chaos. There don't seem to be any strict traffic laws here. If it makes you move forward, you do it. The only common factor is the drive to get to your destination, and you do pretty much anything to acheive that. Talking to some of the Indian teachers I have met here that really manifests it self in the government. There isn't such thing as zoning, you just build whatever needs to be built wherever its most convenient to build it.

The other thing the traffic reflects about India that shocked me was the pragmatic and entrepreneurial spirit of the Indian people. They seem to use whatever they can to achieve there goal, and more often that not that goal seems to be entrepreneurial in nature. There are millions of small privalty owned hotels, shops, resteraunts and bars around. Its quite remarkable. I get the sense that this country could be very wealthy if everyone didn't constanly cut each other off and get in each others way. At the same time, like the traffic, the way they do things here is working to some extant, and maybe that really what matters.

 

 Thats itfor now, gotta go eat lunch with my host teacher,

 Kevin

It all begins

Believe it or not, but this great adventure begins tomorrow. Kind of.
The first leg of my trip take me to Denver (via Omaha to visit my uncle) for my cousins wedding. As hard as it may be for me to keep myself from totally checking out during the wedding, which is on the 4th, I'm actually really looking forward to it. Seeing that side of the family again will be wonderful, plus it will provide a good warm-up for the next 15 weeks.
Bright and early that next morning, 6am to be exact, I take a flight to Chicago. I have a couple hour lay-over in Chicago where I will meet up with Eric and Midori, the two other student teachers who will be flying down from Minneapolis. At 2:45 we all board an Air India flight for a marathon, 15 hour journey directly to Delhi.
As much fun as that flight will be, The real rude awakening will be the 14 hour lay-over we have in Delhi waiting for flight to Coimbatore. We have booked a hotel, which will at least give us a bed to sleep in, but with the time change, and a 7am flight the next morning, I don't expect any of us to get much rest.
At 7am the next morning we fly south to Coimbatore, with one mystery stop on along the way. We've been promised a cab which will meet us at the airport and drive us all the way up the ghat road to Kodaikanal.
All in all, this will prove to be one heck of a journey, which should lead to one heck of a 3 months.

Here's grand adventures,
Kevin