Thursday morning was a slightly slower start but a number of our students decided to get up and join keep fit and practice their Bengali. The next thing that happened is that Joe and Jack wanted to wash their clothing. I have photographic evidence to prove this but they sat on chairs, over buckets of water and hand scrubbed their clothing, well at least they attempted to do so, when I saw it on the washing line later I wasn’t convinced by the effectiveness of their efforts however they deserve an A for the attempt.

Breakfast, assembly and more lessons, this time I ended up in a geometry class, which I definitely found easier than science. The English lesson was a story about snakes? I’m not entirely sure why but during the lesson I learned that if I were to need to get a python to let go of what it was wrapping itself around or swallowing then I have to get hold of the tail and twist it the opposite way to the way it is winding then it will ‘womit’ and let go of what it is swallowing. I am not sure this is a useful thing to know because if I came across a python I would probably run in the opposite direction! The third lesson I went to was Bengali however the teacher handed it over to me to tell a story - I am relieved to say that I only had to tell it in English but the children were given a choice what kind of story and they suggested a ‘Jesus’ story. Taking my inspiration from the fact that I was looking over their shoulders out to a building site with things growing all over it I told them the parable of the sower, making a parallel with disciples growth and their education. I thought this was a good effort off the top of my head, all the practice I have done preaching to mid-week congregations with no preparation clearly paid off. The last lesson of the morning was spent with me learning some more Bengali from Moumita, Susmita and Jyotsna and them writing down the words for the Mathieson Musical School song which I have already posted. This was a complicated exercise for them because they learn so much by repetition, which is a guru style of learning, that none of them had ever seen it written down.
After lunch we got down to work on our projects. Sadly Sairul was ill due to having eaten street food (it was his birthday and he said it tasted so good but he knew that it was the wrong thing to do as it would probably make him ill). This meant that certain of the children in our group set about running rings around us again. This meant that despite my seriously inadequate ability to draw I produced cartoons of 6 of the 10 commandments for the children to colour-in. Brian seemed to be more than happy making lots of noise with a keyboard, it might take some creative thinking to incorporate this into our presentation but where there is a will there is a way.

In the evening Dan and I took a little time to prepare what we might perform at a concert. Concert is the word the school uses to describe the short period of time when the whole school gathers together and an individual or small group of students or a staff member will give an educational presentation to the rest of the group. We are planning to perform some traditional English folk music. Our students will also be giving a concert but it is in the lap of the Gods what will actually happen - I think ‘it will be alright on the night’ is currently their motto. Whilst Dan and I were working on our thing the students joined in another Bengali singing class and took some Bengali lessons with the children.

After the hectic-ness of the previous few days we aimed for an early night but somehow my definition of early and a bunch of teenagers definition of early appear to be two very different things!