Chinnarangala 4,5,6

Action continues. The children still come to school. They run around.... fight majorly....play or climb trees...... and when tired stop, sit, listen to the teacher - write/paint. Thats children, at their very best!

With each passing saturday, I take out my camera less often. The kids & their actions are no more novelties ;-))

We have had good support from other groups.

Firstly, it was the Reuters gang...they came...they saw...they played.....and left behind a lot of crayons/books/stationaries and hazzar clothes for the kids. This coupled with the cloth collection, we had from other donors was distributed 2 weeks back. Except for a few kids, almost everybody got 1/2 clothes. Somehow, more of girl clothes than boyz.

TI had a cloth drive as part of their Annual day. And, pushed them to us. Here, we had clothes of all ages, and in the children category have ended up with clothes for very young girls & babies.

Then entered FSL India, and after a good look-around, they were clear 'bout what to do....A medical camp.....and a day of funNGames.

So, last saturday was medical camp. Dr Anand lead. It was over 40 kids I think.....most of them very diagnoised with some hygine related disorders. Each kid a toothbrush/paste/soap and some multi-vitamin tablets.....to be given along with their lunch at school........and ofcourse, the prescribed medicine. Lotz of very young girls were crying & totally uncomfortable in seeing a doctor. My job was to talk to them...get their names....and their ages....had to guess majorly......and their sex....had some problems with a young children with long hair. You think...itz a girl...until they announce their names.....and you look startled......then ask the surrounding kids...'Hey, is this a boy!'...YES, they declare....I take their word. The camp went eventless until a 4 year old girl slapped me for pestering for her name!!! The other volunteers took the weight, height, pulse & temperature. And, the doctor, who was very enthusiastic checked them up. Lot of Telugu speaking kids....so he needed the teacher to translate. Pretty good medical camp. The doc's came back after a few days with the prescribed medicine & passed them on with neccessary instructions.

And that afternoon, we had one of our expert volunteer joinig us. Meet Mr. Chaitanya, a 12th std student, he was keen on having some drawing/painting for children. Charcoal painting. And, off kids went in drawing a house, trees, clouds etc. And, then using charcoal on it. I had never seen such stuff before. The kids got going.....once they get in...itz tough to stop them.....they draw...they paint/color....and then most of them get so carried away they color/draw all over the place ;-)

Today...the FSL gang came carrying in lot of things.....a crayon box/pencil/drawing book for each kid. And, 2 footballs......and hold ur breath....2 cricket bats...stumps...3 tennis balls.....the kids were overjoyed.....they have been pestering me for cricket bats for weeks now.....I had been evasive.....now they were maha-thrilled. They somehow think I am behind it ;-))

So, we started with the painting session....the kids soon settled down to it....and furiously got going.....they crayoned colorfully. Some of the volunteers drew pictures/scenes for them to color up. And, met up with Pooja....a volunteer with FSL...a 2nd year BBM student......she zapped me with her push....asking those searching/uncomfortable questions. She wanted that proactive approach. And, as we parted, she said 'Once, you come to volunteer, you should not stand and laze around......start doing things'......wow! thats volunteerism for me ;-)

Yes...we got the kids to kick the football......the kids chased the ball like mad.

Guyz...thats how Chinnarangalla is progressing, we are seeing a good turn out, after 6 weeks too. And, hope to get them to continue with the regular school. We have a couple of saturdays to go, interested, join us.

Coolie inda skoolige

-RS

Chinnara Angala 3

Chinnara Angala, Chalghatta School May 6th. 30++ kids, 2 teachers, 7 volunteers.

Morning sessions had children enacting stuff. Most of the young kids were shy to speak out and enact things. Children need lot more exposure. And, with we big guyz around, with our high voices wonder how they find us ;-)) And, the vocab we use........becomes very important.

Megha was painting lovely little flowers using the children's fingures. Unfy I didn't capture them. Outside, some games happened. Interesting was Tug-of-war where the boyz shyed away to hold on to the girls ;-) Getting the kids all excited was Vinay with his train......the kids happily ran with the chikubuku train.

The teacher Bhuvaneshwari quickly seized the opportunity, got the train to stop at various stations kannuru(Eye station)...mooguru(Nose station)....kiviyuru(Ear station)....and gave some hygine funda's .

Joining us in the morning were other school DSF chaps Shridhar, Avinash, Vinay & Megha. And, greeting us were lot fewer kids than I am used to. Apparently, the previous day, lot of chaos in the class, so one kid was chided/beaten by a teacher.....he immediately got his 'gang' togather......and lo...they happily marched out of the school ;-)) So....this morning, with poor attendance, the HM had to send a teacher to get the gangsters back!

The kids had their mid-day meals. And, we went out to have our meals. Bad idea. By the time we get back, half the gang had vanished ;-)

With the elder kids, I got to teach/test some maths. Priya & Santhosh were getting the rest on to painting with crayons. Priya drew some fundu outlines, and the kids colored them amazingly.

Nagaraja seems to be highly talented, here are his creations. This is a 'Jeebuba' in the making.

Well, we have just 4 saturdays left, need to get in lot more and newer activities to make school real attractive for kids. Remember, many of these kids will not continue with schooling, so need to make the school, a great place on Earth.

Interested ?, Join us, Saturday's 10:30 am onwards.....

Chinnara Angala 2

Chinnara Angala@ Chalghatta school, April 30th. 60 kids, 4 volunteers.

Rajarshi went to check up other migrant labour sheds with a school inspector. Santosh down with fever, didn't turn up.

The kids got new notebooks, and got to write all that they know, and the new ones got to practise kannada alphabets. Sudhakar & me hung around. Rohit pulled out some disinterested kids. and got them playing games.

Later, the teacher was getting the kids play Dog 'n Bone.....itz a hit game anywhere...... I soon ran out of ideas.......and ended up putting them thru some simple Kalaripayattu jumps, kicks & poses. Here the kids try a peacock stunt.

Terribly short of volunteers, join us on saturdays 10:30am onwards. Clothes & toys badly needed.