A Devnar Christmas

Life at Devnar always seems to be a little mad but the Christmas period has been more hectic than ever. This is a really quick run-down of how 'Indian Christmas' went...

21st December
Festivities kicked off on Monday with the long awaited Christmas Show. Preparation for this had been going on throughout December and rehearsals of the Nativity took up most of the school days in the two week build up. Along with this, each evening Lottie and I had been teaching the kids dances. Due to the sheer number of children who wanted to be involved, we were forced to hold auditions for those who wanted to be in the show itself doing a dance to Frozen's Let it Go. On top of this, so as not to disappoint those kids who weren't picked, we also decided to teach a dance to Pharrel Williams' Happy. This meant that, between 5 and 6 each night of December, the second floor hall was complete and utter chaos with our students jumping all over the place with enjoyment and Lottie and I constantly trying to invent new ways to be heard. The day of the play itself was also manic, though luckily it evolved considerably less shouting. The only major hiccups were a complete reshuffle of the partners in the Let it Go dance during the morning practice leaving us with one too few yellow shirts and therefore, a quest to find some sort of white or yellow polo shirt that wouldn't make Mahesh look too out of place during he performance. Eventually, after many trips running up and down from the second floor with my sari held up inappropriately high so as not to trip, a white shirt was found just in time for me to be greeted by Nikhil, one of my LKG students who, at this point, was wearing no trousers and was attracting a lot of attention from the official guests. We had to hurry him into the office and put his trousers only to find that the button had gone missing. This left me no choice but to wrap him up in sticky tape before sending him on his way and and taking up my position as photographer for the event. While I attempted to discreetly make my way around the stage and audience taking photos of everyone, Lottie took her place as DJ blasting out obscure covers of great Christmas classics such as 'We Three Kings' and 'Silent Night'. At one point during the performance a drain located directly above some of the kids in the audience decided it was the right time to recreate a very localised monsoon over their heads so they had to be moved and, during our Let it Go dance, Lottie had to jump up from her post in order to make sure the kids didn't fall of the stage as the circle they were dancing in had grown a little bit too large for the space provided but other than that the rest of the show, songs, and Bible readings went wonderfully smoothly and I couldn't be more proud of our dancers or the rest of the kids.

22nd December
It is no uncommon for people and companies to want to 'give back' to the children and provide them with some sort of service. This can means days of fun lessons at the school, brilliant donated meals and, often, trips where the children can enjoy themselves and be fussed over while also partaking in lots of activities and performances. With this in mind, it came as no surprise that, each year, the older children are invited to spend the day at a five-star resort just outside the city for a Christmas party. Our older students, along with children from local orphanages and kids from the host's grandchild's class were invited to perform for each other. This meant bringing out some of the kids classic dances (ones that Lottie and I now know well) such as the Annual Day remix the boys from 9th and 10th class do but with new twists such as having one of the boys dress up in drag to be the love interest in the song.
As well as these performances, we were all also treated to an amazing lunch: Chicken Biryani, Veg and Non-Veg Manchurian, Noodles, curd and, for pudding, chocolate doughnuts with butterscotch ice cream and soft drinks. Once fed, we all returned to our seats for a magic show. From what I saw, the magician did seem impressive, however, we ended up staying in our seats at the back of the audience with someof the kids who couldn't see the performance and didn't want to hover by the stage to be picked as volunteers. This meant the afternoon passed with a good few hours chatting to our students as well as the resort staff which was lovely and relaxing- just as a Christmas Party at a luxury retreat should be! By the time this was over, and our lunch had gone down, Lottie and I were far more willing to get up on stage and join in with the group dances-both traditional Dandiya Rass dancing as well as to more modern Bollywood and Tollywood tracks. While we were boiling, sweaty and gross by the time the music stopped, dancing and laughing with the kids meant that that didn't matter one bit- we were proud of our pink faces rather than embarrassed. When the day came to an end the children were all given individually wrapped gifts by the staff; colouring crayons, pencil cases, tubs and other stationary, before we headed back home on the buses.Working at Devnar seems to involve chaperoning a fair few of these events but, due to the non-veg Manchurian and how happy our students were at the end of the programme, this one is up there with the best.

23rd December
This was the day of the Staff Party at Devnar school. This meant that all the staff had each prepared some sort of dish; rices, curries, chapati, curds or 'sweet' (as any pudding or sugary treat is referred to here), to create one big feast for all the staff. The variety of food as amazing. As we eat what the children eat there is not a lot of variety in the bulk curries we get at the school, which is fine because the curries we do have a superb, but treats like Double ka Meeta and battered onions are very very rare in Devnar's kitchen. Jothi Mam even brought a huge pot of fruit salad; apples, banana, custard, strawberry jelly, cream and ice cream, which Lottie and I made valiant attempts to eat with our hand until someone took pity on our incompetence and found some spoons.
Later that day we were paid a visit by several other volunteers as they made their way through the city to Christmas at one of the Projects in Ongole. We showed Callum, Alex, Katie and Sophie around the school before all heading off for Ice Cream at the local Cream Stones as a treat. Taking two Autos caused a bit of trouble when it turned out that only one knew where to go and the other lost sight of it however, with the help of a number of passers by (both wanted and unwanted) we eventually made it to the shop few a good old catch up over Chocolate Fudge Volcano Ice Creams before the others headed to the bus station and Lottie and I walked home.

24th December
This was the day for all the children who hadn't made it into the Let it Go dance, as, in the evening among lots of excitement, Grishma (the daughter of the school's Founder Chairman) came to the school with her friend in order to film the kids dancing and getting into the Christmas spirit. This coincided with a donation of Christmas cakes which the kids all lined up for under the 'Devnar School for the Blind' sign while dancing, jumping and clapping. We also had two of the boys dressed up in Santa costumes stuffed with bedding handing out the cake. It was a really lovely evening with music playing throughout- it started with Christmas songs and Happy but soon turned to Tollywood favorites so all the kids could join in.
After this, the L V Prasad volunteers, Anna and Jos came and the four of us took our first trip to Paradise- a restaurant that claims 'The World's Favourite Biryani'. Hyderabad is famous for Biryani so it is often the 'special meal' and the school when an important donor has a Birthday but so far, Parasise does, in my eyes, have the edge on the Biryani front. After our meal and banter with the waiters (we had got there late and were the last to leave the restaurant) we headed back to the school to wish our last 'Merry Christmas-eves' to the kids who were still up and then all get into mine and Lottie's hard metal single beds for the night (we didn't quite fit and I ended up sleeping on the floor).

25th December
Christmas Day went by very fast. There was the early morning exchanged stockings and little gifts we had made each other then we headed down for a breakfast of Umpa and left over Christmas Cake with the kids, were very excitable in the courtyard with them and took lots of photos. Following that, we headed up to the room to open some gifts from our families that had been sent out and then I attempted to tie everyone's Saris. While I am slowly getting better at this, we ended up going down to the dorms and the Auntie's re-did every single inch of my hard work. Maybe by my Birthday I will have it mastered. At lunch we handed out chocolates to all the kids and then, when it had finished, Jos and I stayed downstairs to watch the boys play cricket. At one point I even attempted to join in however, as I am not the best when in tunics, the Sari made it slightly impossible.
As there is no internet at the school, we made our way to LVP to use the wifi so Lottie and Anna could skype their families and I could call my parents. Unfortunately for me I couldn't hear my parents due to bad signal and ended up roaming the Eye Hospital so as not to disturb my friends. The view from the roof top of LVP is brilliant so I based myself there, reading the Lord of the Rings and wondering how long it would before I had another Christmas quite like this one. After some time we had to go back to the School to pick up all of Anna and Jos' bags as they had a bus to Kerala (or was it Goa?) to catch. This was a cause of some minor stress but we eventually sent them on their way. At this point my family were able to call my and I skipped dinner to talk to my lovely Parents, brother and Nana. It was weird not to be with them but if I had to pick anywhere else in the world to be it would have been Devnar so I wasn't homesick like I thought I would be- maybe I was too tired to think about it too much as I had only managed 3 hours sleep on the stone floor. Lottie and I ended the evening with me eating a watermelon to make up for the lack of dinner, her opening the last of her gifts (mainly chocolate) and my falling asleep while we watched the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

My Christmas View

Overall, Christmas was wonderfully different and I am so happy that we got to spend it all with the kids!

Making Friends

Now, this might seem like a really weird thing to write about but it's not something that I thought about before coming to India and it's only really started to dawn on me now that I making friends is something that I am doing here. Having been living at Devnar for over three months now I am friends with the teachers, Aunties, Uncles and especially the children but I guess, when I imagined my year I thought my friendships would be almost exclusively connected to life at the school- especially as I live here. It seems silly to me now that I thought this because I do properly live here now (I have Indian residency) and, with the number of people in Hyderabad, it's not like there is a shortage of people to get to know.

The other week Lottie and I were sat in the food court of a local Mall when a lady came up to us and asked if she could sit at our table as there were no other spaces. Of course we said 'yes' and we ended up talking for far longer than we intended to stay in the food court. Padmini told us all about her family and passion for Yoga as well as her involvement with helping the elderly and in return we told her all about Devnar and the kids. What I mean to say is, we hit it off which was a wonderfully pleasant surprise in and of itself, but then Padmini invited us for a free Yoga session the next morning before she headed back to her home in Delhi. We hadn't gone out with anyone outside of our project while in the city so while saying yes might not seem like a big deal it was a little bit of an adventure for us.

The next morning we borrowed some mats from the school and headed to a lovely park that we had seen from afar in a school trip with the children once and Padmini taught us all about her passion for Shivananda Ashram Yoga. While we did attract some attention, ignoring people and enjoying first ever Yoga session was easier than expected. After that we went for a rather swanky lunch followed by ice creams which was very surreal in the sense that 'hanging out' was both familiar and very new to be doing out here. While Padmini left to go back up North to her home, it is nice to know that we now have a friend that will look out for us on our travels through Delhi next summer and it's mad to think that that came about simply because there was a spare seat out our table in GVK1!

We are also starting to make friends within Hyderabad itself. Two months ago, at the Sight Walk awareness event we met Divya who is a medical student in the city and we got on really well. It wasn't until the beginning of December that we actually got our act together and planned to meet up. Lottie had wanted her nose pierced for some time and I (not being brave enough to go for the nose) wanted some more earring so this became an excuse to get Divya and her local knowledge to take us to the best jewelers. Divya's boyfriend, Dr. Santosh Kiran, ever so kindly picked us up and took us to a big jewelers next to Hyderabad Central where we got our piercings for the equivalent of 2 pounds 50! Divya then took us to her favorite Chaat place to educate us on the best Indian street food. We had Samosa Ragada, Dahi Papdi (I really liked this one because of the yoghurt), Bhel Puri, Pani puri and then we took home a parcel of Pav Bhaji which we ate sat on our little bed while obsessing over how good it was. This little food trip has sparked a love affair with Pav Bhaji and it's now our go-to street food lunch when we go out for the day. We also took an evening stroll around KBR park before Divya kindly invited us back to her home to meet her Mum and be reunited with her sister, Shreya, who we had also met at the Sight Walk event. 

Overall, these were both really good days- neither of which I imagined happening when I was picturing my year here but I am ever so glad that they happened. I hope there are many more like them!



(I will put some more photos up when I can!)

Trips and Trips and Trips

At Devnar, School Trips are a very common occurrence with there often being one (or even more) per week. Last week alone Lottie and I attended three functions with our students and I thought it would be worth noting down what these trips will often entail...

Wednesday was National Pollution Prevention Day and to mark this occasion some of our students had been working on a science presentation ready to present at the Pollution Prevention offices in Hyderabad. This required us filing into the mini bus (as always it was at over double capacity) before we headed across town to a rather fancy office building complete with a number of conference rooms and central exotic garden. There were a few other schools attending, all of whom had won prizes for their science projects. It was a little hard to understand what some of the projects had as their focus as most of the presentations were in Telugu. This left Lottie and I a little confused but that is nothing out of the ordinary since we are still working on the language barrier. After these, the boys dance troop performed their much loved Annual Day Remix dance, and the girls performed their more traditional Indian dance. There were also a few songs to lighten to the mood before the conference delved into what seemed to be some pretty serious talks about the environment. After this many prizes were handed out and photos taken with the attending politicians before we all bundled ourselves back into the bus in time for a very special donor dinner complete with pots of ice cream! 

Thursday started with our first visit to Sai Junior College. This is where most of the Devnar students go to continue their studies doing First and Second year Intermediates after they graduate 10th class here. It was surreal to see a place that was so much like Devnar (the same uniforms, colour schemes, even some of the staff work at both institutes) yet completely different. Here there were no tiny children to tug at my trousers and ask for chocolate, no one jumped on me and the place was oddly quiet but pleasantly peaceful. We were there because we had been invited to accompany the Junior college students on a trip to the airport (though at first we didn't know what this would entail). The hour long journey to the airport was made by two buses- one for the male students, the other for the females ones- and this time nearly everyone had their own seat which was nice. 

Every year, during December, the Five Star Novotel next to Hyderabad Airport will invite the students for a to the hotel for an afternoon of speeches, performances and eating really nice food.  The students were invited to performs songs and dances inside one of the hotel's restaurant rooms, before the staff (some reluctantly) did the same. It was great to see the number of students who were willing to stand up and sing and dance in front of all of their peers and strangers, especially the solo performances. Their confidence put Lottie and I to shame as we almost had to be dragged onto the stage before we agreed to perform the Pharell Williams 'Happy' dance we are currently teaching the younger students at Devnar each evening.  

Following this, we were served one of the nicest Chicken Biryanis I've tasted since coming here along with exotic new peach and date puddings that are were far more luxurious than most of the food we get at the school. The students, naturally, had a really nice time and seemed to have a really nice time joking around with the hotel staff about who their favorite Hero was and what their plans for the future were (most want to be accountants, it seems.) 

The school bus dropped Lottie and I back to Devnar only to be welcomed by another set of hotel staff from Hi-Tech City who had come along to mark International Day of Peoples with Disability. They had divided the children into small groups and had seated them out in the courtyard where they were given crayons and a big sheet of paper. 'Village life' was the theme for this particular drawing competition and the entries were really impressive with their bright green grass, blue skies, clouds and houses of every colour in the pot that hadn't already been used. Prizes such as rucksacks and water bottles were given to the winning students which they seemed more than delighted with.

On Friday we accompanied another trip to The Hyderabad Special School for Children in Need of Special Care. A talent competition was being held here meaning both Devnar's dancing groups were in attendance, as were a number of solo and group singing acts. 

While the shows were lovely, the most interesting part of this day was meeting other children from schools around the city. There were a few schools for the deaf such as the Sweekaar Special School for the Deaf in Bowenpally. It was really interesting to see the different ways in which these children overcame their different disabilities- for example, rather than clapping after an act, the students from the deaf schools would raise and shake their hands instead. Seeing these schools made me feel very sentimental as I could picture my Dad's students from The Holy Land Institute of the Deaf in Jordan (his own Project Trust Gap Year Placement) being very similar to these students. Furthermore the similarities between those students and my own made me realise how similar the experiences my father and I will have had by the time I finish this year. Living at Devnar I have become somewhat desensatised  to the children's visual impairments but this event allowed me to rerecognise how brilliant these children's communication skills are. Before coming here I wouldn't have considered the possibility that visually impaired students could properly befriend the deaf students yet this day proved my ignorance as I saw my students signing 'thank you' and 'sorry' to the deaf students who had given up their chairs for them. What was equally lovely to see was the Special School for Children In Need of Special Care itself. Everything was beautifully brightly coloured and the courtyard was filled with flower beds and plants to encourage the children to engage their senses. There was also a sensory garden complete with stepping stone paths, climbing frames, fountains, wooden shakey bridges, sand pits, models of zebras, parrots and elephants and even a modest but beautiful Hindu temple. 

This was one of the most enjoyable programmes I have attended since coming out here. The pride I felt for not only my students but all the students who performed was more significant than I could ever have imagined it to be and, on top of this, every single person we met was a delight to be around. It wasn't really important whether the students couldn't see, hear or walk, they were all simply wonderfully happy, funny and enthusiastic children and that was what made them Special.