I finally had my last day at the Kindergarten on Wednesday. I was told that it would be a setback to lose me in the classroom, but they were understanding of the fact that it's just not the right time for me to be involved there. I tried to offer hopeful comments, like the fact that Auroville's tourist season is approaching, which always brings in lots of volunteers, but apparently finding a volunteer that connects well with the children is not so common. At least now I know I can interact with kids after all...
On my last day, we took a class trip to a local peanut farm. To be honest, I had never thought about how peanuts grew. They're smal plants in the ground, and when you pull out the plant, the peanuts are attached to the roots (One of the other teachers took photos. She is emailing them to me, so I will post them then). So you pull the plant out of the ground, wash off the dirt and sand from the roots, and then pull off each peanut individually. I never imagined the monotonous, aching work that goes into picking peanuts. The women in the fields did their work with remarkable posture; their backs were always straight, whether they were bending over at the hips, squatting on their feet, or carrying the large buckets full of peanuts on their heads.
The kids seemed to enjoy themselves, despite the fact that quite a few of them grew tired of the labor rather quickly; I suppose running away from the teachers and splashing in the puddles was just too tempting. In any case, it was a nice day. And when the head teacher told them at the end of the day that I would not be coming to help out anymore, the kids responded with a loud, "Awwwww," which was nice to hear...
