Balwadi

 Every day at placement for some reason or another we always end up at the Balwadi. A Balwadi is basically the equivalent of preschool or kindergarten. There seems to be quite the range of children there I'm guessing they are between 2-5 years old. The purpose of this post is to give you an idea of what "child care" is like in India, at least within the two Balwadis I have spent time in. The first pictures are from the Balwadi located in Puddupakam village. This Balwadi is very simple and has a few paintings and posters hung about. There is one teacher and a woman they call "grandmother" (the word is a Tamil word) that run the Balwadi. The main teacher is actually never around so the grandmother runs the show. This woman is quite the character. Not only does she not understand any English but she has very poor hearing so barely can understand Tamil. Most of the time she is doing charades with me and whispering Tamil to me like it's witch craft. I just nod my head and smile at her. She brings me tea and biscuits (cookies) almost every time and recently has stepped it up to bring me the above snack (you can see her in the corner). In order for you to get an idea of how kooky this woman, I will give you one example. On Thursday the Balwadi teacher's phone was ringing. Edward told the grandma about it so she grabbed it, looked at it, and put it to her ear. The woman is standing in the middle of the room holding a phone to her ear that is BLASTING an obnoxious Hindi ringtone. I think she thought she was making a call or something, this woman is a looney one.

Despite the nutty grandma, the kids at this Balwadi are to die for. To the right is a picture of one of the kids, Prakosh, chowing down on his lunch. He is a riot and leads the class in many antics. I'm not really sure of the purpose of the Balwadi is besides a place to send the kids. It doesn't seem like the kids learn much besides songs and stretches. Most of the time they sit around and get threatened by a big stick if they are not sitting properly. Edward & I use the Balwadi as a place to meet up with the school teachers and village woman to do research. I conduct some interviews and Edward collects data from the teachers on the number of kids in school, etc. Recently it has been more data collection than interviews. That means while Edward does the grunt work it is basically my job to babysit. These kids are almost seasoned pros at "head, shoulders, knees, & toes" and the hokey pokey thanks to my lack of creativity.

Here is a picture of the second Balwadi that I visit on occasion. This Balwadi is a bit more colorful and the teacher plays a much more active role with the kids. The picture is of a program that was conducted on nutrition. The Balwadi teacher and some assistants taught the mothers the importance of giving their children healthy foods and about what to eat while pregnant. I was the photographer for the event and had to do some drawing as well. Apparently people here think that Americans are supposed to be really good at drawing so as I drew everyone watched me as if I was Picasso. The entire room was silent and all eyes were on me. Hopefully they weren't too disappointed by my less than impressive efforts.

my drawing skills....

I enjoy my time at the Balwadi very much yet some things make me cringe. Teachers will slap the kids if they do not listen and slap the stick against the wall as a threat. This would be considered abusive in the U.S. but hey this is India... anything goes? For OT I did my service learning with children around the same age in a preschool set up. I find it funny because I would play with the children and then watch them eat lunch & now I am doing the same exact thing just in a different cultural context. I can't help comparing and contrasting the two and am still amazed by the similarities of both sets of kids. Developmental stages are definitely universal! However, watching the preschoolers of India eat is much more fascinating because they all do so with their hands. You can tell that some of the kids are more mature then others when it comes to their grasp patterns when handling food. Not going to lie, my skills mirror those of the youngest children. When the preschoolers of the U.S. use their hands to eat, the teachers forcefully push the spoon back into their hands. You can tell how a child is developing based on their grasp patterns with a spoon. I wonder if any OTs have looked into grasp patterns of children eating food in India. Should I start my own study?! Ha, just kidding I have enough on my plate (no pun intended). Well now that you have had your daily fix of my bloggin, I'm going to go out to get a bite to eat. Literally, this blog is making me hungry!

xoxo,
Becca