Day 4: A Rainy Day in Walchandnagar

Namaskāra vācakānnō! Welcome back to day four of the SWIndia trip! Today was our second day teaching at BCA, and we had a great time getting closer with the students. We started our morning with breakfast and rode to school on the bus. After a short introduction, we began with the activities for today. Sam and I were running a biomedical engineering program, Makenzie and Anagha worked on bottle rockets, Kathleen, Kaamaakshi, and Sasha H. presented roller coasters, and Alice and Sasha L. presented automatas. Our presentations went really well, and we really loved the ambition and creativity that the students had!

During lunch, we sat with the same group of girls from yesterday, and they shared more of their food and language with us. In return, we showed them how to throw an American football! Throughout the day, the students taught us many Marathi and Hindi phrases, which was very interesting.

Sasha L. and Kaamaakshi hanging out with students!

After lunch, we ran one more activity session and then wrapped up the second day of camp. This was so bittersweet because it was our last day working with the 9th and 11th graders. Tons of the students asked us to autograph their notebooks, which made me feel famous. We returned to our guesthouse to eat our lunch and relax before returning to the school for cultural exchange with the teachers.

The staff gave a presentation on the academic system in India which was very insightful. Afterwards, Kathleen gave a presentation on politics and government in India. Then, the staff took us outside for a lesson on rangoli, which is traditional Indian sand art. Some of us got pretty good at it, but unfortunately we were cut short by the rain! While we were sheltering from the weather, some of us got an impromptu physics lesson from the BCA physics teacher!

Working on rangoli!

When we returned to our guest house, Anagha held a dance workshop for us to prepare for the performance we’re giving on Friday, and afterwards we relaxed and enjoyed dinner. As usual, we finished the night by preparing for tomorrow’s activities at BCA. Tomorrow we’ll be working with a new group of students, so we hope you’ll be back to hear about it!

See you soon!

Sanjana (and the rest of SWIndia!)