Wild Things

Today ended a special week here at Woodstock. Since Monday, we have been watching videos, seeing plays, and hearing discussions about the native animals here in India. We've had distinguished scientists and experienced film-makers come in to school to share what they know about tigers, snow leopards, peacocks, and elephants. It was a crazy week for teaching, because we had lots of breaks in class time for the presentations. In spite of that, we still got a lot done in our lessons and we learned a lot about India's animals in the process.

Part of the festivities for Wildlife Week was the face-painting every lunch period. Naturally, this was organized and implemented by the middle school art teacher. Beth ended up painting a different animal each day (tigers, snow leopards, rhinoceroses , elephants, and peacocks). For the elementary school lunch, she painted about 45 kids' faces or hands. By the time the middle school kids got through the lunch line, she had some volunteers helping. Below, you can see some pictures of Beth in action and some happy customers.


Though there was little mention of monkeys from the naturalists and conservationalists, we still have them in abundance here in Mussoorie. At the end of school today, there were a few that were hanging out entirely too close to some of the middle school windows. A couple of our braver students took that opportunity to antagonize them from safely behind the window screen.

After school, we made a trip down to the bazaar to pick up some curtains that we had ordered from the fabric store. They have gone a long way to making our house feel a little more like a home. While we were walking, we met up with Zeenat. She is our Hindi tutor here at Woodstock. She is one of the Hindi teachers in the middle school this year and has been giving people lessons for a couple years. Her dad is one of the tailors in town, and she invited us up to their house for some tea. It was great to visit a family that is a little bit outside of the bubble at Woodstock, and the chai was excellent.

On our walk home, we saw some beautiful views of the sunset back across Mussoorie. As usual, the camera does not do them justice. Just the same, we thought we'd add them here.

As we were taking these pictures, we noticed a wonderful sight on the back of a scooter.

We haven't yet partaken of this resource, but we look forward to it some day in the future when we are desparately craving some American food. We hear that it's pretty close to the real thing in the states.

Dave and Beth