Rainbow Academy
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 Prakash Outside the School House by Sam Modest |  Walking on the Elephant Walls by Sam Modest Wild elephants reside in the forests near the town of Gorubathan, where the Rainbow Academy is located. These elephants were described to me as extremely dangerous, and would often raid gardens and agricultural fields during early morning and dusk. When the photography class visited the Mulberry orchards at the silk factory in Gorubathan, the children walked along the large, eight foot tall stone walls the factory workers had built and continued to maintain in an effort to protect their trees from the marauding elephants. These trees' leaves feed the silk producing worms that the factory grows and whose silk they harvest. |  Remnants of the Land Slide by Sam Modest This rubble strewn path, now neatly bordered by stone walls, is the remains of a land slide that destroyed a swath of the nearby tea plantation workers' village during the monsoon season of 2006. Many of the students at Rainbow Academy are residents in this village, where many people's lives are deeply affected each year by the monsoon rains.
|  Gourav in a Rice Paddy by Sam Modest Many families have their own paddy fields, where they grow their own rice to feed themselves for the entire year. These paddy fields are extremely valuable and important to each family, as it is the primary source of their staple food. Yet, many of the tea plantation workers are unable to afford land large enough to grow paddy, and must spend their earnings on government-subsidized rice each month. |  Manju Outside the School House by Sam Modest This brick building contains four classrooms equipped with benches, bench desks, and whiteboards. Each classroom is separated by wooden dividers, and the building does not have electricity. This building housed grades 2 through 7, when I was working at the school in the Fall of 2009. |  Playing in the Yard by Sam Modest The students at Rainbow Academy are required to wear school uniforms that are clean and pressed every day. Teachers inspect students' uniforms, hair, and fingernails for neatness each day at the morning assembly. |  Manju in the Tea Garden by Sam Modest This tea garden is located within one mile of the Rainbow Academy, and is where many of the students' parents work each day picking tea leaves for a large tea producer. Much of this tea is exported to Great Britain and the rest of the world, and then even back to India in certain cases! |  My Cow by Sam Modest Priyanka took this photo while on one of our photography field trips into the community. Many families own cows that graze on public land during the daytime. These cows are a valuable source of milk, which is most commonly consumed with tea. Some families also sell their cow's milk each morning in the market, and must sell it before the milk goes bad. Many people, including children, drink two cups of hot tea with milk and sugar over the course of the morning, one in the afternoon, and perhaps one later in the evening as well. |  Ganesh on the Wall by Sam Modest Families often have preferred gods, and will include images of these gods in their homes and even on their fences! When Bivek took this photo, he explained that Ganesh was his favorite god. Ganesh, among other things, is the god of wisdom and learning. |  Deeksha and the Marigolds by Sam Modest Marigolds are a common flower grown in this area, not only for their aesthetic beauty but also for use in religious garlands and decorations during holiday seasons. There are many large celebrations throughout the year, and often students will miss one or two weeks of school at a time for each holiday, which can be as frequent as one or two major holidays a month. Students do, however, attend school year round and do not have the summer vacation that so many western schools have commonly adopted in their schedules. |  Tea Pickers by Sam Modest Tea pickers commonly work in the fields in the early morning hours, before the hot sun rises too high in the sky. At this time, they move into the factories where they sort and dry the tea leaves that they pick. Workers are paid by the volume of leaves they have picked, and thus make only so much as they are physically able to pick. A sickness or injury can thus be devastating to tea plantation families. |  Saroj and Priyanka by Sam Modest Students learned basic camera skills and photography techniques every Saturday afternoon. Students at Rainbow Academy attend school six days a week. |  Silk Worms on Mulberry Leaves by Sam Modest The silk factory owner was kind enough to allow us a tour of the inside and out of his small five-man raw silk producing operation. This photo was taken inside, where the worms are kept on trays of Mulberry leaves. The silk factory is one of the few industrial operations in Gorubathan. |  Land Slide Walls by Sam Modest Priyanka is standing here next to one of the stone walls made of rock and rubble left in the path of the 2006 landslide. These walls now divert both the water from the monsoon rains, and potentially the mud and rock of future slides. |  Rainbow Academy Youth PhotoClub by Sam Modest In the Fall of 2009, students at Rainbow Academy participated in a PhotoPals program, in which they used handheld digital cameras to document their lives at school and in their community. The images in this gallery were all taken by second through seventh grade students at the school. The Rainbow students exchanged photographs with fifth grade students in Topsham, Maine, who also were participating in a PhotoPals program. For more information about PhotoPals, please visit the PhotoPals page within the Classroom section of the Omprakash website. Enjoy! | 
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