Tuesday, June 5th.
Today was work at 2 different project sites—WIN and ESSS. After updating our lesson plans and creating a better schedule for time management (and updating plans on the go due to unfortunate illness), we had a much better time keeping to schedule and making sure every small group was on the same page. We were fortunate that our activities of drawing and dancing today (WIN and ESSS respectively) went over very well!! Now we just have to edit timings, especially timings between rotations, based on what we learned today about built-in breaks and space at each project location. Excited to learn about 2 more project partners tomorrow (and maybe eat out for dinner)!! Oh, we also went out for MORE masala dosas at a place near POD tonight (and saw a water buffalo).
Wednesday, June 6th.
Today we planned for an icebreaker for the Chullackal project (technology and computer lessons) as well as lesson 1 for this project site, and planned for an icebreaker + feedback retrieval session from last year’s SDPY student cohort—a few hours after planning we rushed to these sites to present our lessons (which went reasonably well despite having to cut out certain activities due to time). We went out to Sutra for dinner (for Mexican food!!) and then I learned some new card tricks from Phoebe after having a music/art discussion with her and some others.
Thursday, June 7th.
Today we went to Chullackal again to present our first lesson, and I (struggled but finally found a way to) time all the groups despite differences in rates of completion of the lesson plan—thank you to Phoebe and Tessa for keeping me together even when I started panicking. Afterwards was revising WIN lesson plan and writing ones for ESSS, and then Arjun and I planned for our Weekly Leader seminar and workshop—excited for it to hopefully go well tomorrow (and only start at 10 am—I think the doxy is getting to me and giving me headaches again).
Friday, June 8th.
Weekly leader workshop / seminar went well (at least I hope so)!!! We started with Split Splat, then did a good/improve/funny workshop, worked on what we’d like to see in Kochi in terms of a GVI-project partner relationship as well as project participants’ ideal learning, and closed with a game of (I think it’s called) Honey I love you. Went to POD cafe (the cafe next to pod with the water buffalo) for another masala dosa (someone asked me if we eat anything other than that and the answer is no), had pub quiz (second place, Dosas and Mimosas) and packed for MUNNAR TOMORROW!!! More photos of our adventures coming soon :).
Apologies that these entries are a bit shorter; most of our work went into planning and then reflections on what needs to change.
Best,
Arthi