We are now able to understand some of the 'pieces of the puzzle' that make Nagpur such a interesting and diverse city.
When we first saw the sign at the airport, “Nagpur –
Orange City!” in orange font, Katherine and I immediately thought of the
color, not the fruit. However, it turns out that Nagpur is famous for its loose
jacket oranges. They are usually sweeter than other oranges, looking and
tasting like a big tangerine.
 |
| You can always identify Nagpur oranges because they will be stacked in perfect pyramids! |
Outside homes in our neighborhood, we found many of these
chalk drawings. Today, one of the students told us that they were blessings.
Families did not have them for a special occasion. This is a year round
tradition!
 |
A blessing drawn in chalk.
|
A typical youngster at Nav Jeevan has one of these hats
that Katherine and I have affectionately termed ‘sock hats’. The climate of
Nagpur is dry and it has been between 50 degrees at night to 80 degrees during
the day. Most children are cold on their walk to school because they are not
used to this cold weather.
 |
| Katherine helps the Pre-school children sing their morning songs. |
Today, Katherine and I helped the grade 5 Hindi medium
(there are two classes for each grade at Nav Jeevan, one instructed in Hindi
medium and the other instructed in English medium) with their English lesson.
They absolutely loved to use the new crayons Katherine donated to write their
sentences.
 |
| The boys with their sentences and artwork. |
Also, today marked a break though with Ravi. We’ve really
struggled to teach him because he is fairly new to Nav Jeevan and has never
attended school or learned how to read or write before. However, we found that
he responds really well to computer videos of the alphabet. This is just one
way that technology is making a huge impact here at Nav Jeevan.
 |
| Ravi |
And of course, today we got lots of stamping and organizing done in the library. A girl, Estha even asked if she could take two books and return them tomorrow. It's amazing to see how an organized library makes children more enthusiastic to read!
 |
| Katie stamping books in the library. |
That's all for today. Tomorrow we will continue with our library work and attempt to come up with some creative lesson plans for the students.
 |
| Kids on the playground of Nav Jeevan. |
