The Final Few Weeks in India

I am pleased that my twelve weeks here in Kerala are coming to an end. The weather is heating up and the brothers are doing end of year exams. I am correcting this morning’s exam and sitting in my classroom with a cool breeze coming from the overhead fan set on high.

I am looking out the window at the picturesque view of the river through the trees waiting for my students to arrive.

I am much better than I have been in the last few weeks. My chest infection and rash have both gone and now my only real issues are some heat rash and delaminating feet and hands from the psoriasis.

On Wednesday we will go into Cochin to help the MSC sisters celebrate their feast day.

Once I have finished my exams tomorrow and corrected and returned them I am free until Monday evening which is my farewell party. There will be priests and nuns there from the parish and other institutes. We have engaged a cook and I have sponsored the event. It will be held on the lawn with lights overhead. Then I leave early on Tuesday morning to fly to Bangalore and catch a bus to Mysore for two days. Then on Holy Thursday I will catch a train back to Bangalore for Easter.

In  hindsight, my teaching here has been effective. I have been comparing the exams as I correct them with what they wrote on my first day here and and for most there is observable improvement.

Of the 9 students here when I arrived only 5 are continuing next year for one reason or another. Of those five only four have a reasonable grasp of English and have made any real improvement. The other one had very little English and will repeat first year. When Br McCann arrives to begin the next group in June there will be a new batch to join them, all with very little English. When they say they have learned English in school you have to understand that there is very little that they know, taught by teachers who know only a little more.

I have toiled hard to get them to use the definite and indefinite articles correctly and the mysteries of tenses has baffled most.

If they could structure a complete sentence and manage these two issues there would be a real sense of achievement. I have had them reading copious books as well and writing reports. I correct these by rewriting the sentences which they then have to rewrite and read back to me.

I was discussing the issue with the priests at lunch today and would say that I realise that while it is my job to water and weed this crop, I am neither the sower nor the reaper.

I am excited to be starting the next and final part of my journey. I love the idea of spending time in Mysore and then Easter in Bangalore. They will spoil me in both places and I will renew many acquaintances and friendships. Then I fly to Cambodia on April 8th to spend a week with Liam. It will be hot.

Once I get home on April 14th I have a week before I go to Melbourne for the Anzac Day weekend and then to Cadet Camp the next week.

Having completed these two tasks I am looking forward to two months of restful dissipation.

Gerard in Kerala.