Sooo the internet hasn’t been great here but I really wont use
that as an excuse for not posting because to tell the truth I have just been so
busy that I haven’t wanted to take the time to post. I am writing this blog in
my bed before I go to sleep again so I am planning on it being shorter than the
other ones but we will see how that works out…
After we came back from New Delhi (the most exciting part of the
airplane ride was the pizza that we got in the airport because it was the first
completely American food that we had had since arriving) we all went to sleep
early because Thursday of last week was our first day of work! Thursday morning
Sean, Kristen, and I got up at 8 so that we could head out to work at 9:30 with
Baishakhi. All three of us were both excited and nervous and before we left we
got a “first day of school” picture complete with Sean wearing his backpack.
Even though Manovikas is only a few miles away from where we live the insane
traffic makes it so that what should take 5 minutes ends up taking 25. Once we
finally got to Manovikas we went straight to the office of the woman who is in
charge of our work at the school. My first impression of the building was that
it was much bigger than I expected. The white and blue outer walls sprawled
back away from the street and were encircled my a large lawn that was dotted
with toys and a few pieces of jungle gym equipment. For our first day all they
had us do was take a tour of the building, which was extremely eye-opening. The
first floor was mainly younger kids and the first room that we walked into was
a sensory room and it was filled with tools for children suffering from various
disabilities. Then we visited a room where a woman who has Cerebral Palsey was
sitting on the floor and the woman who was giving us the tour explained that
the woman had CP but here parents married her off anyways and when she had a
child, he was born with even more severe CP. The last room on that floor was
the “Early Intervention” Autism for kids 5-7 class. The second we walked in all
I could think was that the sounds in that room reminded me of my childhood.
Some of the children were screaming, others were banging the walls, and one was
even singing to himself. The second floor of the building was mostly for older and
higher functioning kinds. These children were being trained to do simple jobs,
such as cooking, baking, or working a loom, and all of them were more than
happy to show us the products of our labor. The last floor of the building was
both a school to train special education teachers and a laboratory that focuses
on searching for a cause and eventually a cure for autism and other diseases.
After this tour we headed back to the manager’s off ice and she explained how
she wanted our “project” for the next seven weeks to be to create a manual
explaining the major types of disabilities, describing their symptoms, and
coming up with management plans for all of them. So after we headed back home,
eager for the next day to come so that we could start our first real day of
work.
Friday rolled around and we headed out at 9:30 so that we could get to
work right on time at 10 (it was decided that we would work with the kids form
10-1 and then go back to where we are staying and work on the manual). When we
first arrived we were led around and placed into different rooms. Mine happened
to be the screaming room from the day before, which didn’t bother me too much
because I am used to the noise and honestly after living with my brother, very
little that children do surprises me anymore. The teacher of that classroom was
very welcoming and we chatted while the speech therapist was talking to the
mothers and she asked me about where I was from while I grilled her on the
classroom logistics. Soon after, the therapist left and I got to work with two
of the children. The task was simple: have the children take turns pulling pegs
out of a board and putting them into a basket. Sounds easy right? Wrong. You
would think that I asked these kids to kill their beloved pet rather than do a
simple task. There were tears shed, walls banged, arms scratched, and hands
pushed away. The little girl on my right was given a cookie by her mother and
when she set it down I tried to give it back to her (thinking it would stem the
tears) and after about a2 second pause, the shrieking increased and I saw the
cookie come hurling toward my face. Approximately 3 minutes later, the same
girl decided to bite my hand while I was trying to prompt her to take the
stupid peg off of the board. Even though it was a tough day (the rest of it
went on in a fashion very similar to this) I really enjoyed working with the
teachers and every time a child would react to doing a task correctly (which
was a limited number of times but that just made it more special when they did)
I felt like just maybe I am making a bit of an impact. I can tell that the job
is going to be trying but I also know that our main purpose here is to create a
manual that Manovikas can use as a reference for parents and new teachers who
are presented with symptoms but do not necessarily know what disability they
fit.
I am going to try to post
again either tomorrow morning or afternoon but I am just getting too tired
right now… Tomorrow is going to be another day at work and I am excited to see
what comes
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