Hello!!! I‘m  Pia from Germany.  Here, I want to share my life for the last 6 months in India. I changed my project at the end of November into a completely new project. I am the first volunteer for my host family and my project, and the first foreigner in my small village called Giliyaru. That is why the first week was very exciting for everyone.

 In my host family, I live together with my host parents, their 2 daughters and the sister of my host father. They are all really kind and the food is tasty. In the evenings, I spend time with the family – talking to them, playing with my host sisters or just relaxing in the living room. It’s always family time. They also took me to some temple festivals, for some prayers and, for this region, famous Yakshagana dances. I stay in a big room with my own bathroom. I feel really good and happy in my host family.

My new working place is a primary school not far away from my home. It took some time to settle down there. Teaching English is completely new for me. I didn’t know how good my students already are in English and I had to teach from my first day. There was no time to come into my new role as a teacher. But it was getting better day by day.

I found a way to communicate with the students so they could understand me. Every day, I come to school at 9 o’clock and talk to my students. At 9:30 am, school officially starts with some prayers and the national anthem. After that, I begin teaching. Daily, I teach 4^th-7th Stds. There are 2 more classes with the children from 1^st-3^rd Stds. Here, I teach the children with a method called Nalikali. It means ‘learn with play’. I can always take a small group of the students out to teach them. I teach both classes once a day.

During lunch time, I get food in the school. It’s always rice with different sambar and really tasty. In the last period, I play sport games with some older students outside. That’s one of my favourite tasks every day. They teach me some new games which are popular in India. The staff are also really friendly. They can all speak a little bit of English.

 Sometimes, they expect I can teach the students more than I can. I should teach prepositions and some high level grammar. But the students can’t even build one sentence alone. That’s why it’s impossible to teach them what my school expects. All in all, I feel much better at my new place. The people are friendlier, I have some work to do and I have a lot of fun with my students and my host family.

 Sometimes, they expect I can teach the students more than I can. I should teach prepositions and some high level grammar. But the students can’t even build one sentence alone. That’s why it’s impossible to teach them what my school expects. All in all, I feel much better at my new place. The people are friendlier, I have some work to do and I have a lot of fun with my students and my host family.