Anne volunteered as an English teacher in India
I was teaching in Tender Buds’ Academy in India, an English Medium school that had students up to the age of about 18. I was teaching English to children mainly up to the age of about 11, although I occasionally took older classes in another teacher’s absence. After school I spent a lot of time looking after and playing with the 30 children who boarded at the school.
I was in a placement on my own which was overwhelming at first, but once I had settled in I realised it had taught me that I could handle new situations on my own and I was definitely more confident. I have gained a great deal of confidence through my placement in India. I taught classes of 30 children for up to 5 hours a day. As I had little teaching experience before I went, this was a little scary and at first I felt out of my depth. However, once I got used to the teaching I gained a great deal of confidence and I feel that this is something that will help me deal with challenging situations in the future.
My placement with Lattitude Global Volunteering in India has helped me to be able to make friends and communicate with people from a culture completely different to my own. Arriving in Pedong and being one of the only westerners meant that I had to make friends with the people at the school and in the local area. At first I thought it would be difficult to find common interests but I soon found that with little effort it was very easy to communicate with people who knew little English and knew little about my culture. I also gained a lot of experience dealing with children. Before this placement I had almost no experience with children so spending twenty four hours a day with small children who spoke limited English was a challenge at first. I found that as I settled into my placement and the children grew more confident with me, I grew more confident with them and was then able to communicate a lot easier then I had before.
The best thing about being a volunteer was building relationships with the people at my placement and in the local area. Spending four months in one small town meant that the local shopkeepers and neighbours got to know me well. As there were a few teenagers of similar age at my placement I made some lifelong friends who I know I’ll stay in touch with. By the end of my placement, I felt completely at home in Pedong and felt like one of the community.
I lived in Pedong, a small town in the Darjeeling District of India. India was extremely different from anything I had experienced at home in London, but I soon got used to the chaos. Everybody in the local town was extremely friendly and there was a very strong community atmosphere. When there were community events, such as the Pedong Youth Association fun run, or when His Holiness of Bhutan came to Pedong, the whole town would turn up and everyone would be extremely friendly and welcoming to me. Pedong was very close to the border of Sikkim, so there were a mix of Sikkimese and Bengali people living there. The whole area had an extremely strong sense of identity and culture while also having a wide range of people from different regions in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet all living together. Although Pedong was a world away from home and from anywhere I’ve ever been before, it did not take long to settle in and get used to the differences. I found that embracing these differences made it much easier to make friends and make a home there.
I am going to university in October to study Geography. I have always been interested in different cultures, but living in a small town in India for four months has ignited this interest. Hopefully, if I have the opportunity in my course I would love to learn more about communities such as the one in Pedong. This placement has opened my eyes to just how big the world is and it has definitely inspired me to travel more. I feel that living in one community for four months is the best decision I could have made for my gap year. I have gained so much more from this placement than I would have if I had just gone travelling around India. If I go travelling again in the future, I would definitely do something similar, where I stay in one area for an extended amount of time as I feel that I have gained so much from it. I also believe that I impacted the people I was staying with, if only in a small way but it was definitely worthwhile.
Find out more about volunteering in India
