From Payasam to PT: Moments That Made My Week

This past week, I’ve really enjoyed working as a teacher’s aid in the Kindergarten classroom. It’s always a highlight of my day - some days I work one on one with students, and other days I help out with the whole class. The students are currently learning to write both uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers from 1 to 50.

Alen from the Kindergarten class identifying vowels.

In assembly, we said goodbye to two volunteers and welcomed a new one! At Shanti Bhavan, there’s a sweet tradition where two students give a short speech about the volunteer during their farewell assembly. The kids also make a drawing/thank-you card to give as a parting gift.

Another highlight of my week was tutoring 3rd grade students in math. We focused on practicing their multiplication tables.

This week, I supervised the boys’ PT in the mornings and watched as half of them played dodgeball on rollerblades while the other half played soccer - all on the same court, at the same time. They had absolutely no fear of colliding with each other or the pavement, and it was fun to watch them all get along so well despite the chaos. On Sunday, everyone also got haircuts from the aunties.

Here are a couple more photos of me with the kids! On the left is me and Heshrita during virtue practice. On the right is me and Nikshith after the bedtime story. One of the aunties said we looked related! :)

A few of my meals from the week! The first is mashed rice and chutney with chai for breakfast. The second picture is another breakfast of dosa and curry with chai. And the last picture is rice, paneer, and a salad, which was very spicy but my favorite meal here so far.

Snack time with Gowri and Anushiya! They were eating Payasam which is a traditional dish served at festivals and consists of milk, rice, and hazelnuts.