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Roused from our peaceful slumber by the hellish screaming of one of our fellow inmates, our Tuesday morning had begun. After a phenomenal weekend of adventures – exploring waterfalls, seeing monkeys and eating meat, it was time that we returned to doing what we came out here for, making a difference, teaching.
We had lessons with Year 4, 5, 6 and 7s ahead of us and we were quite nervous as it had seemingly been a while since we taught them last. Listening to their prayers and fables in the assembly, we embarked upon our mission. Later, having completed our lessons effectively, we continued to our next mission: learning to sing a song for the end of week celebrations.
After loudly chanting Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive” for a solid fifteen minutes (perhaps the resultant loss of voice granted the teachers well needed respite), the students of Sri jayendra taught us a verse of “maya ayaya”- a song popular in Tamil Nadu. The foreign pronunciation and meter proved a difficult challenge for us but we managed to learn the first few lines by the end of the session.
After a rousing rendition of maya ayaya, to our delight we were carted off to Dominoes where we yet again over ate spectacularly after first visiting a church which was built 190 years ago by the English. The distinctly Protestant design harkened back to the age of British influence on the subcontinent. Moreover, the vast difference in design with the Hindi temples we had visited previously gave us an insight into the diversity of worship in Tamil Nadu. Having returned from our routine religious enrichment, turned escapade into western cuisine, we finished off the night with a brief planning session before some stayed awake to watch the football. Watching England thump panama 7-1 at 30,000 feet, we were expecting a bit more when we were on the ground. We were devastated when we saw Mina score a fortuitous header taking the game to extra time. Eventually England managed to win the game with a brilliant save from Jordan Pickford and the people who stayed up till 2am to watch the game went wild waking up most of the neighbourhood.
