Our Semester in Pictures

If we've clicked all the right buttons on this post, it should appear while we are on our way back to the United States. We wanted to end our first semester at Woodstock with a post of pictures and minimal narration.

The view off of our terrace and some boys playing cricket in a field.

A village women and a cow that might have some trouble getting down.

Some terraced farming and a herder with his cows and goats.

A golden silk orb-weaver and the priest of a hilltop Hindu temple.

The sunset over Mussoorie and some women working.

The Taj Mahal and the main street of Mussoorie's bazaar (with herd of goats and mangy dog).

A sadhu and his motorcycle and the distant Himalayas.

Another cow in an unnatural place and a brightly-dressed girl.

The sunrise over the hills and the local blacksmith.

A selection of Diwali fireworks and an Indian haystack in a tree.

Yet another stray dog and a village house.

A beautiful valley and the two of us (with Himalayas faintly visible in the background).

We've seen some really great things since July and we're looking forward to seeing even more as we continue our time at Woodstock. Right now, though, we are mostly just looking forward to landing in Chicago.

Dave and Beth

Taking it Easy

With our students all safely on their ways home, we had some time to take things a little easier. Last night, we had our traditional Christmas cookie decorating time. We had a great time cutting sugar cookies out and decorating them with various colored frostings. We can't always find all the things we need to bake here, but these worked out quite well.

This morning, we went in to the bazaar to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. On the way, we finally had our camera with us to take a picture of this:

It may only be funny to those in Berrien County, but it is also the sixth largest bank in India. Of course, it's named after Baroda, Gujarat and not Baroda, Michigan. We're nearly ready to head back to the US and we're looking forward to getting together with any of you that still read our blog.

Dave and Beth

Going Down

The students are gone. We've officially completed our first semester and are waiting for our own "going down" in a few days.

Dave and Beth

Last Day

Today was our last day of "classes" at school. Essentially, we just had three periods this morning (where most of the teachers showed movies) and then we went off to our class parties. We took our advisor group out to the bazaar for lunch at a local Tibetan/Chinese/Thai restaurant. The first stop, though, was Baskin-Robbins where all the kids got an ice cream cone.

We were debating whether to eat the ice cream there, or risk the monkeys and walk to the local Ferris wheel. We decided to take the risk, and were rewarded with a monkey-free walk. The Ferris wheel in Mussoorie is a little bit scary. First of all, it is human-powered. Below, you can see one of the workers walking up the wheel to get it going.


We all made it safely off the Ferris wheel and started walking over the Kalsang's for lunch. On the way we stopped for a nice group picture across the valley overlooking Dehradun.

We took another group shot at the table. This was before the momos, shaptak, tingmo, etc. arrived. Everyone had a great time.

On the walk back to school, we saw another great opportunity for a group photo. This time, we were looking the other way off into the Himalayas.

It is hard to believe that the first semester is over. Tomorrow morning, we have a quick assembly and then the students will all be off to their Delhi. This is something we call "going down day" because most of the students are heading down the hill towards the capital where they will catch their planes to their final destination. The teachers have a few days of meetings left, but we will be "going down" on Saturday so that we can catch our flight to O'Hare on Sunday morning. We are looking forward to seeing friends and family again...and to having a break from things here for a few weeks.

Dave and Beth

Christmas Carols

The countdown to Christmas continues here in northern India. We've now officially been visited by Christmas carolers.

We were actually ready when they arrived on Monday night. They were a combined group from the three CNI (Church of North India) churches in Mussoorie. This is the Anglican/Episcopal equivilant in out neck of the woods. The head of the middle school at Woodstock goes to one of these churches and warned us that they would be coming. Beth was prepared with lots of figgy pudding for them. Actually it was cheese and crackers and hot chocolate. We had them into the house and they kept on singing about Jesus and the manger and Bethlehem...at least that's what we're assuming they were singing about. All of their songs were beautiful Hindi numbers, so we couldn't actually understand anything. (Sorry the video is a little bit dark.)

Our neighbors came over and brought some cake, too. The four of us performed a little God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen while our guests ate and drank. It was a great experience.

For the last few days, we've been counting down to the end of the semester with "spirit week." This is just like spirit weeks back in the states where each day, you get a different crazy thing to do. Monday was pajama day and Wednesday was crazy hair day. Beth decided to do a Pippi Longstocking impression with some wire in her pigtails.

Today we had twin day. Dave shaved off part of his beard so that he could look more like our friend Jared. Our students usually call him Mr Hatch, anyway, so it was not a big departure for most of the students. Beth dressed the same as Jared's wife Emily and our neightbor, Dot, but only Emily was around for the picture.

We now have our grades completed and entered and most teachers are just showing videos until the kids physically check out (they mentally checked out long ago) on Tuesday. We are definitely ready for a trip home.

Dave and Beth

More Christmas Cheer

The pre-Christmas fun continued after we got back from the Manger Mania performance last night. Every Sunday evening this semester, we've been meeting at our friends' house to watch episodes of Scrubs. Since we'd completed two seasons, we decided to make last night our Christmas party. We had a great white elephant gift exchange with a bunch of presents piled under the tree (taped to the wall since you can't get a real tree here).

We also had a nice pizza buffet. Everyone made a pizza and we all shared.

When we finally got to the gift-exchange, everyone ended up happy. Beth was really excited about a giant tub of Cheese-lings in her gift, and our friend Jennie loved her racecar.

After the presents, we watched two Christmas-themed episodes of The Office. If you know the show, you can imagine these were not the greatest way to convey the true message and meaning of Christmas, but they were awful funny.


Dave and Beth

Manger Mania

Our students here rarely let us forget that the end of the semester is fast approaching. Another sign that this is true--and that Christmas is close at hand--is the Christmas pageant that we performed this weekend. The sixth grade students did the middle school assembly last week and, since they did such a great job, they were asked to perform again this afternoon at St Paul's Church.

We got all the sixth graders there at about 1:40 so that we could practice our pageant, Manger Mania, a couple of times before the big show. It was a bit of a struggle keeping everyone calm for an hour and a half, but we did OK

As you can see, our Mary and Joseph were less than enthusiastic about the whole thing. They did a fine job, though.

Besides Mary, Joseph, a doll for Jesus, and an innkeeper, we had all the standard players for a middle school Christmas pageant. Of course we had animals (a cow, a rooster, and two sheep):

shepherds (doing the "shepherd shake" after being frightened by the heavenly host),

and the three "cool eastern guys" (though one of them couldn't make this performance).

The church is a beautiful old colonial building from 1840. It was recently renovated, so it was a wonderful place for a Christmas program. There were lots of other songs and dramas, so even though it was a lot of work to get our kids ready for the Manger Mania musical, it was well worth it.

Dave and Beth

What the Dickens?

We only have one week of school left until the end of the semester. All of the teachers in the middle school have been wrapping up their units and testing their students. Beth is finishing up a unit on Charles Dickens with her eighth graders. Before giving them a test next week, she threw a Dickens party.

The morning started with the students sitting around their tables discussing the character that they had chosen to represent. Beth went around the room asking questions about who they were and about life in Victorian England. It was a great learning experience for the kids.

They also enjoyed the chance to eat cookies and brownies that Beth had made the night before. There was no meal, so we only served hors' dourves and dessert with some punch. Since this was a fancy Victorian party, there had to be some hired help to serve the guests. Dave was responsible for keeping the guest's plates and cups full. Of course, our students took full advantage of the opportunity to order the butler around.

When the meal and discussions were over, Beth organized all the students into a Victorian dance. Many of the students were a little hesitant to touch those of the opposite sex, but they still seemed to enjoy themselves.

This ended up being a great experience for the kids. It was a student-centered activity that even got some history and PE components involved. Hopefully, Beth can live up to these expectations when we come back to school in February.

Dave and Beth