PuneXpat

Today I visited the rural community I volunteer with through the small NGO, Ashta No Kai.  As I was planning this week's lesson I really tried to focus on what I could impart to the girls that would be of value and in keeping with the mission of the charity: empowering young women.  They attend "life skills" classes provided by Ashta No Kai, and have English lessons in school.  They are already far more proficient in English than I expect I will ever be in Hindi, so while it is useful for them to practice conversing with a native speaker, I feel that there is more I can offer.  My fellow volunteer, Laura, and I with the girls from Standard 9 class. Based on my observations from previous lessons, I thought they could do with a short lesson that revisited converting infinitive verbs to simple past tense.  I designed a lesson in which we could practice the rules governing regular verbs and try to memorize the irregular ones.  Not particularly electrif...

Only a few days after Dad & Claire returned to England, our next round of visitors arrived... this time, Clem's mum, sister and nieces!  Unfortunately, they were only visiting for a week and came with a list as long as your arm of things they wanted to see and do whilst in India.  Surprisingly we managed to squeeze most of what they wanted to do into the week ... a busy but fun-filled adventure!  As you will see from some of the pictures, we visited some of the same places as we did with Dad & Claire (the Aga Khan Palace, Kasba Peth, Tambat Ali, and the Lohagad fort) but we also tried some new places as well, such as the Shivaji Market.  Brilliantly, they all came with me and volunteered with the girls in the village school that I have been teaching at ... a busy, but very worthwhile day. We also had a great time celebrating together... first of all Danie's birthday, but also Halloween with costumes and Trick or Treating! Aga Khan Palace Clem and hi...