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Annual day at theSpoken English AcademyLittle Angels - flying high

Hannah Katharina WildnerVolunteer from Austria

2nd Edition - 2017

'Marching trough march'

Laura Kristin BirkerVolunteer from Germany

February –a month full of events

Vanessa Jasmin Spor andAntje Marie Grobe

lVolunteer from Germany

2nd Edition - 2017

Annual day at the Spoken English Academy Little Angels - flying high

Girls wear their usually

braided hair open, school

uniforms get exchanged

through colorful outfits,

animal costumes and grand

dresses. Always busy teachers

fasten pins, ass i st with

makeup and rehearse one

very last time, the English

phrases that are so easy to

forget and so hard to learn.

Since 4 years the Little Angels School educates children between the age of 3 to 9 years. This

young school may only have the small number of 83 pupils and 4 teachers but surely knows

how to create a grand show. This year a fifth teacher -me- joined the preparations for this

annual event. My February days have been filled with song, dance and skit practices. Snow

White and the seven dwarfs an originally German fairytale has found it's way on the stage of

an Indian primary school and it's lines on the tongues of 5 year old queens, hunters, princesses

and mirrors. Furthermore our First Standard children (7 years old) and I worked hard to

present human pyramids. The attempt of 12 little angels to get closer to the sky.

Next to my long and busy school week,

which lasts from Monday morning till

Saturday afternoon there is only little time

left for other activities. However I enjoyed

spending my Sundays on the market

between all these colorful fruits and dresses.

February is over now and so are our last

minute preparations. Now all that is left for

me to do, is to cross my fingers, hope that no

dance steps get forgotten, that all pins

remain in place and to just enjoy the fruits of our all work.

- By Hannah Katharina Wildner / Volunteer from Austria

ICDE - INDIA / Newsletter - 2017 / 2nd Edition

Dear Volunteers,

Happy Holidays!

ICDE Team

April month started and almostall the schools are closed for

summer vocation. Now yourlong waited holidays are finallyhere, we would like to wish youall to enjoy other parts of Indiaand relax but don't forget to

take care of yourself.We shall meet soon after the

holidays.

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ICDE - INDIA

ICDE - INDIA / Newsletter - 2017 / 2nd Edition

2nd Edition - 2017

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I a m r e a l l ysurprised by howfast the time ispa s s i ng . I t i spassing away like– well, just reallyquickly. I will justrecall some majorhappenings wewere able to seed u r i n g t h i smonth. Marchstarted with a big

function in our school. It was "Graduation Day" – although thekids hadn't even finished their exams at that point of time. Youwere able to smell the spirit of "Graduation Day" already oneweek before the actual day was taking place. The childrenprepared their dances, a play and even a fashion show. In theafternoon it started with a speech which was held on a stage theybuilt on our school's ground. It was also the first time we werewearing our Sarees – feeling very fancy that night. It wasamazing to see everyone so cheerful and happy, only bywatching the dances. After that we had a little meeting with theteachers and our sisters (the two who founded the school and theLKG/ UKG place).

The weekend after offered another occasion to celebrate:I n t e r n a t i o n a lWomen's Day –Yay! For that, thesisters booked theT o w n H a l l o fM y s o r e a n di n v i t e d m a n ywomen from 35villages aroundM y s o r e . W ep e r f o r m e d adance on thestage, along with

the teachersand some oft h e o l d e rgirls of ourschool; it wasquite funny.Apart fromthat we hadsome majorp r o b l e m sunderstandin g t h econtent of the function's speeches – because all of them wereheld in Kannada only. Seems logical when there are onlywomen from the villages, but still – for us – a very repetitivemorning.

In the afternoon after the function Lara, Julia and I went toBangalore, celebrating Holi Festival. We met up with ourbeloved fellow volunteers who are staying and working inBangalore and enjoyed the time there a lot. It was so niceseeing all the colours being mingled up until every inch ofclothing was dyed in that reddish-brown tone. We got toknow some really nice people there and were laughing aboutthat part where they shout "Happy Holi" and just smashcolours in each others faces.

On monday eveningwe got back to Mysoreand went to bed beingreally tired. In schoolt h e k i d s w e r epreparing more andmore for the examsthey were going tohave. Each day adifferent subject – I amimpressed how mucheven the smallest inLKG UGK have toknow.

L a r a a n d I w e r epreparing for our two

Marching trough march'- By Laura Kristin Birker / Volunteer from Germany

ICDE - INDIA

ICDE - INDIA / Newsletter - 2017 / 2nd Edition

2nd Edition - 2017

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months of traveling. It came out to be very stressful booking all ofthe trains andbusses. So we allhad something tod o , w e w e r eclosing our eyesand the monthwas passing by. Inour village wherewe are staying( c a l l e dGaligarahundi)there was a four-day-festival.

We saw the holiday lights hanging from one house to the nextone: blue, white, red, green. On one evening we just wanted totake a small walk through our village and look around, whenthere was a 10 year-old boy inviting us to his home. We met hiswhole family, strawling from one house to the next one – in everysingle house they offered us snacks and something to drink –although we were supposed to have dinner half an hour later."Just eat and relax", they said to us. So we did. They told us aboutthe former volunteers who stayed here in Galigarahundi and wefelt like little detectives on the tracks of our ancestors. After ourdinner at home we came back to the temple we have in ourvillage. It seemed like everyone was there, we saw some faces wealready knew from the bus stop, talked to some children andwatched the dance some guys were doing. Two people wereplaying the drums in a nice rhythm, we were sitting on theground next to some other women of the village. The men wererepeating the same movements over and over, making theirway around the bonfire that had been lit next to a tree in front ofthe small temple. Very happy and very tired, we got home andfell asleep. I have to say that it has been a really great month, andI feel very lucky being at that exact place here in Galigarahundi,where you have a very calm staywith nice Sisters to stay at,friendly people to whom you can say "good morning" whenpassing by and only a bus ride to the city. It is good to be here

February – a month full of events- By Vanessa Jasmin Spor and Antje Marie Grobe

Volunteer from Germany.

ICDE - INDIA

Our februarywas fu l l o fe v e n t s . W estarted th i smonth nearOoty at ourm i d - c a m p .A f t e r s i xm o n t h s w efinally met allour volunteerfriends againand spent a week together in a wonderful surrounding. WithICDE we were reflecting our past months in India and hadsome programme we all attended. Sadly Antje was half ofthe time in bed because she's fallen sick already before thecamp but wanted to go to the camp anyway. After the weekwe went together home to Ramasamudram in AndhraPradesh. We took a sleeper over night and arrived in theearly morning in Bangalore and after changing some morebuses we finally arrived back home.

The every day life was different than usually because the

ICDE - INDIA / Newsletter - 2017 / 2nd Edition

2nd Edition - 2017

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c h i l d r e n s t a r t e dpracticing for our School-

Day-Function on 23 ofFebruary. Furthermoreour hostmum's sonsurprisingly came to visitus for a month.

Currently he's living inItaly so we were all veryhappy about his visit.Daily we practiced for 33dances with the childrenof which were twocomposed to Germansongs. Spontanously

Avinash (our hostbrother) taught us also a dance to a Telugu andHindi song. The children enjoyed the 3,5 weeks of pracitcing andwere blossoming a lot. The day before the Function Nele and herfamily from Germany arrived to be there for our School-Day-Function. Nele is the previous volunteer from last year and wasreally looking forward to see the children again. Also Usha'sfamily as well as Felix and Julian , volunteers from Chintamani,came so that we were up to15 people these days. Wewere happy about havingso many nice peoplearound us.

Antje and I had to organizea lot for the function likewriting the papers, gettingcopies or making tea forthe dancemasters. All in allthe time went too fast andthe day of the functionfinally arrived.

On the day itself we madenice papercuttings with theother teachers and gotsome lights for decoratingthe school. The childrenwere happy to help us with

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everything. In the afternoon we practiced our dance for thelast time and then got dressed for the evening. We bhoughtnice sarees especially for this evening because it`s the biggestevent of the year. At 5 o'clock we met with all children andparents in school and went to the Vishnu temple were thestage for the dances stood. The stage was decorated by somepeople and it looked very nice. The beginning was a bitchaotic because we didn't now what to do but after someminutes we figured out what to do. We were happy that wewere able to watch most of the programme and enjoyed thedances a lot. The people who came seemed to enjoy it alsobecause they were whistling and shouting all the time.Especially the songs by the big heroes were liked a lot. Ourdance was almost the last one for that we had to change ourdressing since we're not able to dance in Sarees. We had a lotof fun dancing together with Avinash in front of the peopleand were happy about our decision to do the dance. Atalmost midnight we finally ate dinner and then went home.Punctually at midnight we sang happy birthday in Germanfor Avinash whose birthday it was. Within the next days allour dear friends went home to Italy, Germany or Chintamani.February will definitely stay in our minds.

ICDE - INDIA