Mullur village

Last weekend, the girls and I took a tour of the Mysore Palace, which is very beautiful, and visited the Nandi bull on Chamundi Hill a second time. We also visited the Mysore Zoo, famous for its' white tiger, and did some shopping. Mysore is famous for its' silk and sandalwood, which is believed to be watched over by the gods and will last a lifetime!

Yesterday, I visited a rural school, Vinayaka Jhana Vidya Sare Mullur School, in Mullur village. I went by bus, together with a female teacher, and many students from different villages got on as we got closer. The building itself is a lot bigger and nicer than the schools I have visited previously, but still needs a lot of improvement. There are 400 students and six main subjects, of which three are languages (Kannada, Hindi, English). The school has a computer room, a TV and a collection of educational books, DVDs and CDs'. The students clean the school themselves and take care of a kitchen garden. Although many students are below the poverty level, according to an article in the principal's office, they seem very successful. One student scored 90% on the SSLC, a yearly Indian exam for 10th grader, and all 39 other students passed this year.

The principal showed me around the school and I visited every single classroom, starting at the pre-school level to the 10th grade. The students seemed very excited and some were confident enough to show me their talents. Girls and boys danced, sang, or acted.

After lunch, I taught a 9th grade class for one hour. The students have taken three years of English, so they were able to ask me questions and answer mine. After about an hour, I had to leave and almost all of the ~50 students ran up to me to get an autograph. I felt like a celebrity! Fact is, children in rural India aren't any different than elsewhere- they run around, play volleyball, laugh loudly, cry when they get hurt, behave some of the time and get a little too wild at other times.

I went to the "Mysore Mail" daily newspaper today and got introduced to the manager. I will be working there until Friday and will start at a national newspaper next week. I can't wait to learn more about the newspaper system here!


PS: My new favorite breakfast food: Kesari Bath. I have no idea what it's made of, but I will try to get the recipe =]