Monday, June 24, 2013

Week One In Bangalore

I have been in Bangalore two days and a week now, with hardly a minute to spare to begin this blog. Finally, I have taken a moment to post my first report, and I have too much to say all at once. Some details will have to remain in my journals and memory and my work may just have to speak in detail for itself.

I have come to India to teach English at Deepa Academy, a small residential high school for visually impaired girls. I teach two classes every day from Monday to Friday: level one for about two hours in the morning and level two for an hour and a half in the afternoon. The level one students are 8th, 9th, and 10th standard students with a fairly low level of spoken English skills, and the level two students are in 1st and 2nd P.U.C. and have a slightly better grasp on the language but are not quite fluent either.

My name is Alex Bilodeau, and I am an undergraduate student from Skidmore College in upstate New York. I am working on a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies and Asian Studies with a focus on South Asia and Indian religion. I have completed three years of my undergraduate education and will be embarking on my last year in September. Last summer, I worked for an education non-profit organization in New York City called Donorschoose.org. Previous to that, I tutored Buddhist monks in two of Chiang Mai's Buddhist Universities while studying abroad for a semester in Thailand.

Growing up, I moved around a fair amount. I was born in Weymouth Massachusetts, but after two years relocated to a Native American Reservation in Southern Arizona. Four years after that, my parents and I moved to South Korea for six years and then came back to the states for a year before moving to Qatar for three years. I finished my last two years of high school back in Arizona, before heading east to attend college. My parents are not in the military, they are not diplomats or business-people, nor are they missionaries or activists. They are simply school teachers, K-12 qualified, who discovered early on that teachers are needed everywhere, and the demand for American teachers to teach at international schools across the globe is high. This afforded them a lifestyle of travel and adventure, that most teachers only dream of.

I haven’t decided whether I will be following in my parents footsteps. My dabbling in the education non-profit field has happened by chance. Working with non-profits or NGO's has intrigued me as a means of continuing my travels and of doing work that is useful to more than just myself.

My first week at Deepa was challenging and overwhelming, but it was also very rewarding. Already, I am beginning to develop a rapport with the students who are all friendly, lively, and enthusiastic. I now have an understanding of what I need to do, which I could only gain by getting to know the students over the last week and seeing first hand, how much English they can each manipulate.

I have settled in quite nicely to the girls hostel where I will be staying for the next seven weeks and for the most part I am adjusting smoothly to a South Indian diet and climate. Every morning and afternoon I enjoy the 10 to 15 minute walk to and from Deepa Academy and over the weekend I was able to explore the Iskon Temple and Sankey Tank park that are not too far away, with the pleasant company of several of the Academy’s lovely staff. There are many dangers present in India, as I had been made more than well-aware of prior to coming here, so my guard is constantly up when I am out and I am limited somewhat in what I can do, where I can go, and when. But so far it has not been a major issue, since most of the time I am busy preparing for my classes and trying to figure out the best way to teach the most English in the short amount of time I have here.

For now, this is all I have time to say, but there is certainly more to come.