Sarvodaya Vidyalaya Hindi Medium School

This is a Hindi medium school located right on Gokul Nagar Road in the Nandesari area of Vadodara. Since we are so close to the big industrial zone, we get a lot of children from families who moved to this part of Gujarat looking for factory work. The school environment is not exactly quiet because of all the trucks and traffic passing by outside, but we have all gotten used to the noise over the years. We have a small yard in the back where the kids run around at recess. It is mostly made of dirt and some loose pebbles, so knees get scraped occasionally. The classrooms are all painted a shade of light blue, though the paint is starting to peel in a few spots near the ceiling corners. We do not have a big budget for fancy decorations, so we just hang up hand-drawn charts that the kids made in class. Our desks are the old-fashioned wooden kind that have definitely seen better days. The teachers here speak Hindi for most of the day, which helps the students feel much more comfortable since that is what they speak at home with their parents. We have a heavy iron bell that we have to ring by hand to mark the end of each period. It makes a very loud sound that carries across the whole neighborhood. Every day is just about getting through the syllabus and helping the students learn.