Kadod High School and Surroundings

Hi Everyone!

Greetings from Kadod! Well, actually, I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Pune, but it's okay. After a month in India, Charishma and I are finally uploading photos! It's been an eventful month--we arrived in Kadod, settled ourselves into the principal's guest house, and started teaching about 120 students in the 9th and 11th standards. We've interviewed teachers, checked out the school grounds, sat in on classes, and learned an immense amount about the Indian education system and village life in India.

We hope you enjoy the photos, and we'll try our best to keep them coming!

~Lakshmi

A view of the principal's house and our guest house.

Charishma standing in front of our house!

Two 8th standard boys who live in the hostel. Kuldip (R), and the "Joker" (L). The 5th-8th standard hostel is kitty-corner from our house, so we see the boys often. Their favorite pastimes include cricket, a game called "kho-kho," and snacking on sweets that their parents bring them when they visit on Sundays. Last week, they showed us around the school grounds, and gave us a mango and a pack of cookies! They are really very sweet.

The boys playing cricket. Is the background is one wing of the secondary section. The bottom story houses the boys' hostel and one of the computer labs. The upper story has the adminstrative office and the principal's office.

When they saw our camera, they dropped their cricket game and came running!

The 9th-12th standard boy's hostel. About 100 boys live here, along with the director of the hostel and the biology teacher. To get to this hostel, we have to walk across a bridge over a small creek. Students from the technical section of the school designed the bridge themselves!

A view of the Tapi River, a very large river that drains into the Arabian Sea at Surat. Notice the heavy clouds and the high level of the river--it's definitely monsoon season! In the distance, there is a low-lying bridge that was visible when we first got to Kadod, but after a bout of rain, it was completely submerged.

These were our guides for the evening. In the background, you can see the Tapi River, looking towards the east. The surrounding land is flat, and dominated by sugarcane fields. They call this part of Gujarat the "Sugar Bowl." Even though I've been to India more than 15 times, this is the first time I've seen the beauty of a village and its surroundings.