Walking through the school hallways, with flashcards in our hands, Loren and I were excited and a tad bit nervous to go in and start teaching English. However, they quickly padded our egos… as Americans walking through the halls, as soon as the children see you through the windows they literally start screaming your name, and jumping out of their seats and running to the doors, swarming you with “come in! how are you? what is your name? what country!?!!” We kept joking with each other that we were the rock star celebrities of Home of Hope.

We also found that the children were so far along in their English, that it was best if we helped with the younger children, the 4-6 year olds. We mostly used flashcards of objects, and had them repeat after us. We also tried to reiterate a lot of basic conversational phrases, and we enjoyed letting them teach us Malyalam, their native tongue, as well.

Their teachers were really wonderful, loving women, in beautiful saris, and it’s so nice to see how much they love the students, and how proud they are of them. I really admire these teachers. It has been strange not seeing more career women in Kochin as most are homemakers, and not educated. More later on reflections of women of India…