Katherine Mary Kelly (Tak) - Australia

I've been to the INCREDIBLE, AMAZING 'Dak' twice - January 2009 and January 2010. Here is a day in the life of Dak, with a few added tangents along the way....

At Dak you live by nature. You rise with the sun, and your day ends not long after its does (sunset). In the morning you can hear the farm animals throughout the valley awakening; roosters crowing, goats bleating, cow bells tinkering. The sun makes its dramatic entrance over the hills to the east, a spectacular sight that in my modern Western city life I rarely do see. I love that Indians structure their day around chai breaks, and Dak is no exception. Chai is the best way to start the day, as both the you and the sun try to beak through the morning haze. Breakfast is a quick affair and before you know it you can hear children, happy excited voices...boisterous babbling... giggles... singing. The kids love school so much that they come early to play - a small indication of their larger than life enthusiasm.

Assembly starts off the day and the national anthem is sang with gusto. The school day is challenging..... but always rewarding. The children are exceptionally respectful, bright little sparks with a colossal desire to learn - a stark contrast to kids in Australia - and as a result they are an absolute pleasure to teach. Some days run smoothly and fly by, other days you find yourself stuck on how to explain something, on how make things clearer, on how to answer the children's questions properly. But that's teaching - it's a mutual learning process shared between the teacher and their students. And if you haven't taught before, like I hadn't, you will without a doubt walk away from your time at Dak with a tangible new found appreciation for teachers and the work they do. It's not that their job is extraordinarily difficult, it's that their job is so important.....
This is the only meaningful education that most of the kids at Dak will ever receive. Due to the corruption in the local government school system the government teachers rarely show up, so the kids are left without an education. Basic education gives people a voice in this world that isn't made for the illiterate......

And that's the crux of it: Dakshinayan gives these children and education so that they may engage with the world around them and with the worlds beyond them. It gives them a voice.

Being a small-scale project, Dak has limited teaching resources - but - with some imagination, the creative potential for classes is endless. You are given a text book, the themes of which should be the basis for class... but the rest is up to YOU. My advice? Embrace it. Being given reign over a class as their teacher may seem daunting initially, but somehow the teaching just happens... it's almost like a natural instinct that you were unaware you had! And it feels fantastic to discover it!

Like to sing (or more aptly make a fool of yourself)? We taught songs like 'Old Mac Donald Had A Farm' and 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'. Art and craft? We took creative inspiration from Franca (an ex volunteer) and made murals with the children from the back of an old blackboard, coloured paper from food wrappings/old books, crayons and leaves. Bhola, one of the project members, was able to get us some glue from a local market, which made this activity possible. Creative writing? We organised for some of the children to write pen pal letters to a friend's primary school class in Australia. The children wrote about themselves and their life, and are now eagerly awaiting a reply from their new friends from the other side of the world.

It's certainly not all fun and games, but it I believe it is very important to be creative - not only does it keep the kids engaged, but it truly underscores what they have learnt.

School days consist of only three hours of classes as the children need to also work for their families on their farms and tend to their animals. Once the school day ends, lunch is eaten and the dishes are washed. In the afternoon there is time to essentially do as you please.... being so removed from the rest of the world there's plenty of time to relax or contemplate life, but there's also plenty to keep you occupied. There's a diverse collection of books that have been left by volunteers that are waiting to be read, there's dinner that you can help prepare - a wonderful opportunity to learn about regional food and cooking, there are fascinating conversations to be had with Siddharth, there's Hindi to be learnt from all of the project members, there are lesson plans that could be made, there's Bruni (the dog) and her brood to play with, there's a field to be walked or ran around, there's yoga and meditation to be practiced at Baba's temple and there are a myriad thoughts and feelings waiting to be written down and explored.

Not to mention there are countless self-designated projects waiting to be undertaken. In 2009 we painted the class benches and desks in bold colours to brighten up the white-washed classrooms, and in 2010 we painted new wooden boards with black paint (to be used as blackboards), and sorted through and organised the materials in each of the classrooms. Everything and anything you can do is a help...

Some of the things which I was lucky to do during my time at Dak include; going on a walk through the farm land, jungle and hills to the school in Cheo which is another project under the Dakshinayan Trust, enjoying weekly bonfires on cool starry evenings (I went during winter both times), being taken on a guided walk by Bhola around the village (Roldih) which enabled us to gain a fascinating insight into the lives of our students, going to the local markets which were always intensely colourful and wonderfully chaotic. I also was lucky to be at Dak on the festival of Saraswati Pooja and on Republic Day in 2009 and 2010. Both days involved celebration through relative speeches, poojas (prayer) and prasad (sweets offered to the Gods), and of course playing, dancing and singing with the kids afterwards.

Coming from Australia where aside from Easter and Christmas, only football is celebrated, I was intrigued by these festivals - in India there are just so many! Moreover, I felt particularly fortunate to be in an area where culture has yet to be transformed or exaggerated for tourism. In Roldih and its surrounds there is a strong tribal culture and tribal festivals are also celebrated. During the week long tribal festival of Shakrat I loved listening to the drumming, singing and dancing echoed throughout the valley day and night. The area is so culturally rich and I couldn't help but be envious of the many meaningful traditions and reasons to celebrate that they have.

Something that really attracted me to Dak was
that cultural sensitivity was emphasized as the prerequisite which was paramount to being a volunteer. It is vital to understand that you are not going to Dak to use your own culture to change or influence these children, you are going to participate in their education in their own cultural setting. And indeed while you do share your culture with them, it is done in a context where they are sharing their own culture with you synonymously.

Development is a big money making industry and in framing the developing world and people as backward, underprivleged and thus in need of help, development/volunteer programs are often designed to tug at the heart strings of those 'privledged' enough to come from developed countries. Accordingly, opportunities to volunteer often cost a fortune and are based upon this culturally imperial notion of a 'Westerner' coming to 'save the downtrodden'. Dak refutes these norms and makes no attempt to exoticise locals or their culture nor glorify or indulge the volunteer - you join as a member of a pre-existing team that quietly and resolutely works to give children a basic education.

Your experience at Dak depends on you coming with an open mind and open heart. Despite having class six days a week, I guarantee that you will learn and gain so much more than you could ever teach or give. What I learnt about is easy (and long) to list; teaching, development, grass roots activism/development, Indian culture and identity, local culture, Hindi, the caste system, Indian festivals, corruption, food, traditional cooking, Indian politics, Indian history, Hindu mythology, cross cultural communication, the physics of water retrieval in a well, yoga, meditation, myself.... the list goes on. What I gained, aside from this new knowledge, is harder to explain. It's more elusive, yet undeinably profound at the same time.

And that is not say that you don't make a difference - you do. One month is not enough, but it is something. I know that things I taught the kids stuck with them, because I've been back and they still remembered a year later. I've seen the difference that a year's worth of contributions from differnt volunteers makes to their education - it's real.

Just before dusk you hear men chatting while riding home from work in groups on their bicycles and shepherds returning to their villages with their herds of noisy animals that they had taken out to graze. I loved listening to one particular shepherd as he walked past Dak every evening - a whistling magician who could whistle with such volume and with such spellbinding Indian melody, talent unlike anything I've ever heard before. Accustomed to the sound of the TV and traffic in my own home in Australia, I was incessantly mesmerized by and appreciative of the little things.

It's dark before dinner and in the evenings the project and the surrounding valley falls blissfully quiet. The moon is so incredibly bright that it casts a moon-shadow behind you as you walk back to your room after dinner. With the new solar panels reading or writing comfortably until you fall asleep is now entirely possible. But I think it's best to go to sleep early so that you can fully appreciate the stunning sunrise in the mornings - the memory of which I treasure.

I CANNOT recommend it enough - Dakshinayan is a very special place, Siddharth is a very special man, the project members Bhola, Suman and Shanku are wonderful, and the children............... well...... you'll just have meet them to understand.

They are why I went, why I returned, and why I will return again.

PLEASE contact me with ANY questions about Dak, I will be happy to answer each and every one of them: k-m-kelly@hotmail.com

Be the change you wish to see in the world - Mahatma Gandhi