It's been quite nice living here in the science lab of an isolated village school. The air is fresh; the Hyderabadi smells of smog and pollution and human wastes are nowhere within noseshot. Unlike in the city, there are too few vehicles here to turn the air into the eye-stinging equivalent of a chlorinated swimming pool. A bus passes by 3 times a day in each direction, along with a few motorbikes and autos. Herds of goats and pairs of oxen pass by with about the same frequency as the non-organic moving things (though bicycles, mainly ridden by the students, are present in numbers).
The birds, too, are present in numbers. During the daytime, you can't go ten seconds without hearing some bird or other. In the mornings, the chorus is constantly present but varied in composition. The light, high chirping of tiny sparrow-like birds is sometimes overridden by the insistent, broken-record chirrup chirrup chirrup of a closer avian. Crows communicate their caww-cawws without regard for the gola (cacophony) they're making. The coooo-ooooh of the koyela (cuckoo) often pierces the morning air. And every now and then, if you listen carefully, you can hear the kreee-eeee of the peacock.
Birds aren't the only things that make sounds though. The ballilu (geckos, plural) here are quite vocal as well. Hiding behind the fluorescent lights or the tiles of the bathroom wall, they go chik-chik-chik-chik-chik about twice an hour. The flying insects buzz and hum their daily ditties each time they pass your ear. The big, friendly giant of the bug world, the thummeda (a 1.5 inch bumblebee) can flap its wings so quickly it can juyyyiii as loud as any bird call. The beetles that gather near the lights at nighttime make little tock noises every time they fly and crash into the walls or the ground (which ends up with them lying on their hard-shelled backs two times out of three; hence the sound).
And then, at about 8:30, the harmony of wildlife becomes a counterpoint to the melody of the (slightly) tamer life - the students.
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Days 4 and 5 - No Science
So the science has died down a bit. I've been trying to get the DNA extraction to work, but it refuses to. I can see a white precipitate between the detergent/onion extraction mixture and the alcohol layer, but the pieces are too broken up to pick up. It could just be the general lack of a sterile atmosphere, but I think that having ice-cold ethanol (as the procedures dictate) would probably help. Ice, however, would probably have to be brought 30 km from Siddipet. I'm not going to make them bring ice when I don't even know whether that's really the reason it's not working.
This is probably the reason that most science nowadays is done in rich countries. Science in general doesn't work. The thing is, though, failure is almost the point, because you learn what is not true, but when your materials and time are limited, it can be frustrating. Seriously, science is something like 98% failure, 1% success, and 1% unexpected results. If you don't have the money to keep buying materials to keep trying, you can't really do it no matter how good your experimental design skills are.
At any rate, I've also been helping Nick come up with ideas for helping the teachers improve their English. We're making a lesson plan for them to follow for the next month. For my practice, I'm doing my hours. 4 hours a day times 30 days is the minimum 120 hours. I'm spending close to that much on the science stuff, trying out experiments, doing them with the classes, and talking to the teachers afterward. Plus there's all the hours I spent in researching experiments and how to teach science and alternate protocols with simpler materials (and writing up the lessons to go with the labs) even before I came to India. So I think I'm okay on that count.
Last but not least, I will have to respectfully disagree with Charles Schultz. Happiness is not a warm puppy. Happiness is ice-cold water.
This is probably the reason that most science nowadays is done in rich countries. Science in general doesn't work. The thing is, though, failure is almost the point, because you learn what is not true, but when your materials and time are limited, it can be frustrating. Seriously, science is something like 98% failure, 1% success, and 1% unexpected results. If you don't have the money to keep buying materials to keep trying, you can't really do it no matter how good your experimental design skills are.
At any rate, I've also been helping Nick come up with ideas for helping the teachers improve their English. We're making a lesson plan for them to follow for the next month. For my practice, I'm doing my hours. 4 hours a day times 30 days is the minimum 120 hours. I'm spending close to that much on the science stuff, trying out experiments, doing them with the classes, and talking to the teachers afterward. Plus there's all the hours I spent in researching experiments and how to teach science and alternate protocols with simpler materials (and writing up the lessons to go with the labs) even before I came to India. So I think I'm okay on that count.
Last but not least, I will have to respectfully disagree with Charles Schultz. Happiness is not a warm puppy. Happiness is ice-cold water.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Yoga
My aunt teaches a community yoga class on Thursday evenings, and yesterday we decided to join her (in the class, not the teaching). It happens at the area's community hall just down the street, maybe a 5-minute walk away.
As soon as you arrive at the hall, you have to climb up the flight of stairs outside to reach the yoga room. I suppose I shouldn't call it the yoga room, since it's used for a variety of purposes. It's a spacious, white-walled hall, perhaps the size of a basketball court, albeit longer and skinnier. Despite its size and sandwich-like location between two other floors, the hall has no pillars. There is nothing to block your view. The floor is made up of large, white tiles, with 4 giant rugs covering the majority of the area save for a sliver of white in the front. Sliding windows on one side look out onto the street in the back that you just entered from. Those on the other side provide a view of the dirt-packed courtyard.
As the women in the class slowly file in, shucking their chappals (flip-flops) outside the door, the rectangles of colored sheets and chaapas (jute mats) begin appearing all over the room. These are their yoga mats. None of that soft, padded stuff here. Soon, the hour hand spins to "5" and the class begins.
Perched within their little personal territories, the students begin with pranayama, exercises in breathing control. They are sitting upright, legs crossed in the half pretzel of the ardha padmasanam (half-lotus pose), spines straight, hands resting on their knees with thumb and forefinger touching and the other three fingers held together like a stiff-backed sign language "F".
More than twenty minutes go by in the practice of various breathing patterns. The kapilbhati pranayam involves short, forceful exhalations that move the diaphragm in like a hiccup in reverse. The teachers then begin to lead the class through the asanas, or the poses. The exercises here are those you would see at a yoga class anywhere, but returned to their original Sanskrit names. Downward-facing dog becomes adho mukha svanasanam, the tree pose is vriksasanam, and the two cobra variants are types of bhujangasanas. The resting pose is savasana, the dead body pose. After going through the asanas, the class returns to breathing for a short while before ending.
It's now time to fold up the sheets and blankets and go home, back to (for most of these ladies) cooking and taking care of the family. The parting of ways is quick but happy, as everyone makes their way back through the lightly sprinkling rain, a return to their everyday lives - until next week.
As soon as you arrive at the hall, you have to climb up the flight of stairs outside to reach the yoga room. I suppose I shouldn't call it the yoga room, since it's used for a variety of purposes. It's a spacious, white-walled hall, perhaps the size of a basketball court, albeit longer and skinnier. Despite its size and sandwich-like location between two other floors, the hall has no pillars. There is nothing to block your view. The floor is made up of large, white tiles, with 4 giant rugs covering the majority of the area save for a sliver of white in the front. Sliding windows on one side look out onto the street in the back that you just entered from. Those on the other side provide a view of the dirt-packed courtyard.
As the women in the class slowly file in, shucking their chappals (flip-flops) outside the door, the rectangles of colored sheets and chaapas (jute mats) begin appearing all over the room. These are their yoga mats. None of that soft, padded stuff here. Soon, the hour hand spins to "5" and the class begins.
Perched within their little personal territories, the students begin with pranayama, exercises in breathing control. They are sitting upright, legs crossed in the half pretzel of the ardha padmasanam (half-lotus pose), spines straight, hands resting on their knees with thumb and forefinger touching and the other three fingers held together like a stiff-backed sign language "F".
More than twenty minutes go by in the practice of various breathing patterns. The kapilbhati pranayam involves short, forceful exhalations that move the diaphragm in like a hiccup in reverse. The teachers then begin to lead the class through the asanas, or the poses. The exercises here are those you would see at a yoga class anywhere, but returned to their original Sanskrit names. Downward-facing dog becomes adho mukha svanasanam, the tree pose is vriksasanam, and the two cobra variants are types of bhujangasanas. The resting pose is savasana, the dead body pose. After going through the asanas, the class returns to breathing for a short while before ending.
It's now time to fold up the sheets and blankets and go home, back to (for most of these ladies) cooking and taking care of the family. The parting of ways is quick but happy, as everyone makes their way back through the lightly sprinkling rain, a return to their everyday lives - until next week.
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