Goodbyes are hard

As soon as I got to the caravan, we were told to get individual feedback from the children. So I went to the puzzles stall so that I could sit down with them and get the answers. As soon as I went there, it was nice to see that many of the kids immediately called me over to sit with them, which made my task easier. One by one I wrote down names and attempted to translate the questions in my broken Kannada. What I noticed with most of the kids was that they did not understand what feedback was, which made them feel like they were answering questions in a test. So when i would ask them what they felt was the difference between their parents and teacher, and the tackle volunteers, they answered very theoretically, saying "My parents take care of me at home, teachers take care of me in school, you take care of me at caravan". It was a bit of a challenge translating exactly what the questions meant. After this, Veena and Ashwini came and I took their feedback as well. They were older than the other kids I spoke to so their responses were more elaborate. They were saying that they have to work all the time at home, but they got to play at caravan...


...it was time to go and they all left asking if I would come next week as well. It made me nervous when they asked me that because I realised that at one point I'll have to start telling them that I can't come as often anymore, and I won't know how to tell them that.

--Trisha Singh