Friday, July 11, 2008

Our First Session: Chaos in Hubli

Today we conducted our first education session for our anti-gutka campaign. We worked at the Rotary High School which is an English school and one of the nicer schools in Hubli. We received permission from their school oard thanks to Dr. BR Patil who is a surgeon with a hospital and a cancer center in Hubli. It was him who allowed us to watch the fibula free flap repair and mandible resection. Details aside, we were given this great opportunity. I woke up early in the morning to go to downtown Hubli to search for something we could use as game pieces. It was hard finding a silver shoe, thimble, or car, so instead of basing our game on Monopoly, I decided to use buttons. When I returned, Crystal and I began to video tape students around school. Our plan was to leave to the school at one and in typical Indian fashion we didn’t get our printing until 12 and that was only part of the job. The other part would be dropped off to the school while we were on our way there.
When we got to the school we decided to split the 8th and 9th grade apart so that we could educate them separately. Thank god for that. The students arrived in the auditorium queit, in single file, with an excited glow about them. Jeff introduced the group (in a flashy Indian accent nonetheless) and we took questions from the students about life in the US. They did not ask us about Hollywood, music, or Disneyland. Nope. These 8th graders aare different. They asked us about career choice, attaining a green card and/or a visa, and about the process of opening a business as an immigrant. Interesting…Nonetheless, gifted them the comic which they all enjoyed. We then began to play the game, but at that point, due to a wave of excitement flowing through the hall, we lost all control of the students. No words from the students or us would calm them down. In fact no beating would calm them down. We saw kids getting ears pulled, getting slapped on the back of the head and getting whacked with a coarse rob of bamboo. It was fairly eye-opening. When we gave them surveys and accepted their individual thanks we we exhausted but awaited the 9th graders. None came. We had taken so long in teaching the 8th graders that school was almost over for the day. We will go back to the school another day. It was an exhilarating day in Hubli and there is at least another week of this. For now, we will talk to you guys later.Below is a video of a few kids playing our game.
-Sagar

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