8 months at Tonca MOP! On the one hand it feels like it’s been longer than that; the book moments, the happy moments, the moments of connecting with the kids, the odd moments of frustration; they all seem too many for such a short amount of time. On the other hand, the year has flown by and if I think about it, it doesn’t seem like very long ago when Sujata and I made our first visit to that site, armed with boxes of books, a big book to read aloud and stationary and strips of cloth as we had chosen to read My Mother’s Sari.
That first session, we had 80 odd children, and that was how it continued to be for a while after that.
Since then, we’ve had many many sessions and several wonderful book moments and teaching-learning experiences.
We’ve had fluctuations at holiday times and kids who stopped coming. We have the older ones who have now progressed to older classes and have to do tuition, and subsequently can’t come for MOP. We have kids who come in just to take books. We also have a cohort of sorts of kids who come to our sessions.
There’s alot that Tonca has taught us. In the midst of learning about the children and their lives; their book preferences and choices, when they go to their hometowns and that they come back a week after school starts. We’ve learned that they love doing activities in their books. We’ve learned which kids will stay through the session and which kids need a moment every now and then to just run around. And we know that there’s a notorious ‘magarmanch’ (crocodile) who lives in the ravine.
A host of RPs have visited the site, and the kids remember and periodically ask about. If they can’t remember a name, they’ll recall the song taught or story read or give a description of the person.
The best part of it all, is that we now have a little group of readers. They love books. They love reading. They love being read to. They know the songs we sing, and sing them over and over. And they sing the ‘Story Time’ song throughout the session in anticipation of the big book.
