10 July 2010
So this week was rather eventful. Everything was so much more exciting with extra volunteers around. Monday was a holiday here thanks to the bus drivers going on strike, so there was no school. In the afternoon, we went on a walk with all the girls… yes, all eighty of them. We stopped at a little river/pond so the girls could go swimming. Apparently all the girls were aware of the fact that this would be our final destination, since a couple were equipped with soap and shampoo. I wasn’t planning on going in, but after a few splashes I was completely soaked and gave in. These girls are really good at peer pressuring. With Sister Mary already in the water, I figured I might as well go along with it, too. Thanks to Christi’s parasitology knowledge, I am well aware that parasites love stagnant water… however, it’s been four days now and I’m still not sick. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this means I’m parasite free. Anyways, disregarding that issue, the afternoon was a lot of fun. Two of the boys from school, Prajwal and Kiran, heard about the swimming outing and came over to join in. They chose to swim in a separate pool of water, showing off their diving abilities. It was hilarious. The girls chose this moment to tell Christi and I the story of a woman dying in this pool of water. The story itself was a little disjointed, but we this part was clear: “woman”, “wash clothes”, “died.” So a woman drowned while washing her clothes in a few feet of water? Maybe there was more to it than that, I don’t know.
By Tuesday the bus strikes were over, so we made a trip into town so that Christi could visit a doctor. While we were there, we were allowed to tag along for some food shopping. Patti went off with Sister Anna to the vegetable market, and Christi and I went with Sister Mary to the bakery. We took mental notes concerning all the different kinds of sweets that we’re planning on bringing back. Sister Mary also bought us an entire cake to keep in our room as a snack. It turns out that it’s cherry flavored and tastes somewhat like cough syrup, but it’s still edible, I suppose.
We had yet another day off from teaching on Wednesday, when Mike let Patti, Nash, Christi, and I accompany him on a field trip to a place called Mayadior. It’s a small rural village a decent ways from here where a small group of Salesian Sisters have started a home. They’re hoping to build a new boarding school with the financial help of Home of Hope. Mike wanted to go assess the property situation and ask the nuns for specific ways in which Home of Hope could be of help. On the drive there, we made two tourist stops. The first was at the Golden Temple, a beautiful Buddhist temple up in the mountains. I saw more Buddhist monks there than I’ve ever seen in my life. It made me recall the days we spent analyzing Siddhartha in Mr. Leed’s high school English class. (At least Mr. Leed’s rendition of this novel didn’t involve any physical harm… at least nothing like the pins in the eyes incident during his version of Oedipus Rex). We didn’t stay at the Temple for very long (though we did get to enjoy some ice cream), but we left for our second tourist destination… the jungle. Okay, well, maybe it was more like a national park or something, but it felt like the jungle. At the entrance of the park was a hanging bridge, and to our relief, it seemed to have been engineered to appropriate standards. It had rained that day, which meant the rest of the part was muddy and difficult to walk through. We saw monkeys—lots of them. We also saw an animal that looked like a reindeer. Apparently Santa goes on vacation in India. The animal we were most excited to see, the elephant, was MIA, however. The staff told Sister Rani that the elephant was “on holiday” for rainy season. Apparently we would have been allowed to ride it, had it been there. So disappointing. Anyways, we finally made it to Mayadior, where the nuns were very welcoming and excited to see us. They even made us an Indian version of bowtie pasta for lunch. I definitely wasn’t expecting that one. There were lots of cornfields on their property, and at several points I was confused as to whether this was Tolland or India, because I swear they looked exactly the same. Sister Rani took us on a tour through the mud and showed us the parish and the village. We could tell that this was a very special visit for her, since she’d lived in Mayadior for a short time as a novice. This visit was also a reunion for Sister Rani and one of her “companions” (another newly professed sister). They were all smiles and holding each other’s hand the whole time, it was really cute. We were exhausted by the time we were back on the road, but I can never manage to close my eyes in that Jeep. This is partially out of fear for my life and partially because there’s just so much to see. The ride took us through the countryside and up in the mountains, as well as through small villages and marketplaces. We didn’t get back until dinner time. Patti, Nash, and Mike all said their goodbyes to the girls that night. Watching this was especially hard, knowing that we’ll be saying our goodbyes in only a few short more weeks.
Things have been back to normal these past few days… we’ve essentially settled back down into our normal teaching routine. After some discussion with Sister Mary and Sister Maria, we decided that we’ll be leaving Hassan early on the 22nd to catch a bus back to Bangalore. That means that after today, we’re only here at the school for eleven more days!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
July 1-4
1 July 2010
This has been the most exhausting week ever. On Monday, two more Americans arrived at the convent here in Hassan, a soon-to-be-high-school-senior, Nash, and his mother, Patti, from North Carolina. They’re staying here for two weeks. It’s been great having other Americans around, and Christi and I have been helping them get oriented here at the school. Things have been crazy with Sister Maria and Sister Mary still gone, especially since all the girls seem to be getting sick at the same time. I feel bad for Patti and Nash, as this is probably a bit overwhelming of a situation to be thrown into. They seem to be having fun, though, and Christi and I definitely appreciate the good company.
So as for all the girls getting sick… One of the girls, Devika, has complained of a toothache for the past week or so, and it seems that either a tooth is growing in horizontally, or the root is rotting and becoming exposed through her gum. It looks terrible. We asked if there’s a dentist around, but Sister Anna and Sister Rani don’t seem to know anything about this. Another girl, Nilena, showed me her cavities today… GROSS. Her mouth made Devika’s look flawless. Nilena’s teeth are completely rotted out. My shocked reaction prompted the rest of third standard to show me their teeth, and I’d say about half had similar issues. I asked them if they brushed their teeth two times a day, and one of the girls gasped and said “TWO?!?!” I’m not even sure she brushes once a day. I made them all pinky promise me they’d start brushing twice a day. If there’s a “Dentists Without Borders” group, some of them need to make this place one of their destinations ASAP.
There have been plenty of other health issues to deal with in addition to the dental problems. Headaches, stomachaches, pink eye—the list goes on. Sister Rani has nudged both Christi and I into taking on some nurse duties, so we’ve been handing out medicines and administering eye drops. The fact that Christi and I are the resident medical experts worries me.
A great example of why I’m so concerned was an incident that occurred yesterday morning. A girl from 7th standard, Sumalata, started having severe chest pains after breakfast. She was sobbing from the pain and could barely swallow water. She told us that it’s not the first time this has happened, that she’d had episodes like this before and needed to go to the hospital. Everyone was just sort of standing around watching her, unsure of what to do. Sister Anna told us it was “gas” aka heartburn… right. Christi and I took her pulse, and we could feel her heartbeat fluttering. I may not be a doctor, but I’m pretty sure that’s not heartburn. Eventually, someone finally decided she needed to go to the hospital. Since Patti knows CPR, we thought it’d be best for her to go along, in case something horrible happened. Sister Anna was having none of it, Christi had to literally demand that Patti be allowed to get in the car. It was an awkward situation. If anything, we’ve learned that health care is clearly not a priority around here.
I can’t even begin to describe how frustrating this all is to watch. It makes me wish I were a doctor, so that I could do something more to help these kids. Sumalata needs to see a real doctor, not an educated-in-Southern-India doctor. She was eventually diagnosed with rheumatic fever, but I wouldn’t put any money of the accuracy of this claim. It makes me so thankful that I live in America and have access to real health care. If only these girls could have the same.
On a lighter note, today was Prajwal’s birthday. He was dressed up in traditional Indian clothes for school… he sort of looked like he’d walked straight out of Aladdin. That was pretty much the highlight of the day. His mother came to school to give him a bag of candy to share with the whole school. It’s funny—I’d forgotten that in elementary school it’s tradition for a birthday boy or girl to bring in sweets for his or her class. I guess in India they prefer candy to cupcakes, but it’s still the same idea.
So a few of the girls wanted to show Patti their rabbits yesterday, and Christi and I got dragged along on the trip. There are quite a few rabbits, and some of them are babies. The girls keep them as pets, though I still haven’t figured out whether they eat them or not. Oh, and when I say “baby,” I mean that humans probably shouldn’t handle these rabbits yet. They’re so teeny and their eyes weren’t even open yet. That didn’t stop the girls, though. Margaret proceeded to display all the rabbits, holding them only by their ears (yes, like a magician). Watching them squirm was slightly terrifying. I yelled at Margaret. “Hold it carefully, Margaret! Margaret! Hold it like a baby!” It was disturbing. My yelling took a while to get through to her, obviously. As a side note, none of these rabbits are even half the size of my family’s pet rabbit. I’m also pretty sure our rabbit would never tolerate being held by the ears. I’m not even sure that it possible to hold him that way, since he’s so fat.
Anyways, it’s almost July 4th, which means it’s almost Independence Day. It makes me miss America, especially since last year I spent the 4th in DC—pretty much the best place to be for that holiday. India seems a little unpatriotic in comparison. At least we’ll have other Americans here to share the day with. Mike, the volunteer coordinator for Home of Hope, the service organization we’re working with, is arriving here in Hassan this weekend. I have no idea how long he’ll be visiting for, either. I DO know that he’s traveling with Sister Mary and Sister Maria, whose return surely implies that some order will be restored around here. I can’t wait… seriously.
3 July 2010
So all I have to say about today is this: I opened my suitcase this morning to retrieve an article of clothing, only to find a nice little surprise inside. Well, more than one nice little surprise. Cockroaches. THAT was exciting. I’m sure you could guess how pleased I was. Patti heard my reaction and came to help me kill them—she’s a lifesaver. Those things are so FAST. As to how they got into my zipped-up suitcase in the first place, I don’t know. I am quite determined not to bring them back to America with me, though, so it looks like my bags are going to need to be bug inspected before going to the airport. Mrrrr.
4 July 2010
So while Christi and I were asleep last night, Sister Mary, Sister Maria, and Mike arrived. This was probably the best way to kick off the Fourth of July. Mike is just what I imagined him to be like during our few phone conversations. He’s great and full of facts and stories about India since he’s been over here so many times. He’s also obsessed with Notre Dame football, which scores huge points with Christi and I. With five Americans here, there’s almost not enough room at the dinner table anymore. It’s exciting. Tamuto’s flight for India leaves tomorrow, if only he was coming here, too!
Also there’s apparently a celebration for children’s birthdays tonight, one that involves another dance show… we’ll probably have stories about this later.
This has been the most exhausting week ever. On Monday, two more Americans arrived at the convent here in Hassan, a soon-to-be-high-school-senior, Nash, and his mother, Patti, from North Carolina. They’re staying here for two weeks. It’s been great having other Americans around, and Christi and I have been helping them get oriented here at the school. Things have been crazy with Sister Maria and Sister Mary still gone, especially since all the girls seem to be getting sick at the same time. I feel bad for Patti and Nash, as this is probably a bit overwhelming of a situation to be thrown into. They seem to be having fun, though, and Christi and I definitely appreciate the good company.
So as for all the girls getting sick… One of the girls, Devika, has complained of a toothache for the past week or so, and it seems that either a tooth is growing in horizontally, or the root is rotting and becoming exposed through her gum. It looks terrible. We asked if there’s a dentist around, but Sister Anna and Sister Rani don’t seem to know anything about this. Another girl, Nilena, showed me her cavities today… GROSS. Her mouth made Devika’s look flawless. Nilena’s teeth are completely rotted out. My shocked reaction prompted the rest of third standard to show me their teeth, and I’d say about half had similar issues. I asked them if they brushed their teeth two times a day, and one of the girls gasped and said “TWO?!?!” I’m not even sure she brushes once a day. I made them all pinky promise me they’d start brushing twice a day. If there’s a “Dentists Without Borders” group, some of them need to make this place one of their destinations ASAP.
There have been plenty of other health issues to deal with in addition to the dental problems. Headaches, stomachaches, pink eye—the list goes on. Sister Rani has nudged both Christi and I into taking on some nurse duties, so we’ve been handing out medicines and administering eye drops. The fact that Christi and I are the resident medical experts worries me.
A great example of why I’m so concerned was an incident that occurred yesterday morning. A girl from 7th standard, Sumalata, started having severe chest pains after breakfast. She was sobbing from the pain and could barely swallow water. She told us that it’s not the first time this has happened, that she’d had episodes like this before and needed to go to the hospital. Everyone was just sort of standing around watching her, unsure of what to do. Sister Anna told us it was “gas” aka heartburn… right. Christi and I took her pulse, and we could feel her heartbeat fluttering. I may not be a doctor, but I’m pretty sure that’s not heartburn. Eventually, someone finally decided she needed to go to the hospital. Since Patti knows CPR, we thought it’d be best for her to go along, in case something horrible happened. Sister Anna was having none of it, Christi had to literally demand that Patti be allowed to get in the car. It was an awkward situation. If anything, we’ve learned that health care is clearly not a priority around here.
I can’t even begin to describe how frustrating this all is to watch. It makes me wish I were a doctor, so that I could do something more to help these kids. Sumalata needs to see a real doctor, not an educated-in-Southern-India doctor. She was eventually diagnosed with rheumatic fever, but I wouldn’t put any money of the accuracy of this claim. It makes me so thankful that I live in America and have access to real health care. If only these girls could have the same.
On a lighter note, today was Prajwal’s birthday. He was dressed up in traditional Indian clothes for school… he sort of looked like he’d walked straight out of Aladdin. That was pretty much the highlight of the day. His mother came to school to give him a bag of candy to share with the whole school. It’s funny—I’d forgotten that in elementary school it’s tradition for a birthday boy or girl to bring in sweets for his or her class. I guess in India they prefer candy to cupcakes, but it’s still the same idea.
So a few of the girls wanted to show Patti their rabbits yesterday, and Christi and I got dragged along on the trip. There are quite a few rabbits, and some of them are babies. The girls keep them as pets, though I still haven’t figured out whether they eat them or not. Oh, and when I say “baby,” I mean that humans probably shouldn’t handle these rabbits yet. They’re so teeny and their eyes weren’t even open yet. That didn’t stop the girls, though. Margaret proceeded to display all the rabbits, holding them only by their ears (yes, like a magician). Watching them squirm was slightly terrifying. I yelled at Margaret. “Hold it carefully, Margaret! Margaret! Hold it like a baby!” It was disturbing. My yelling took a while to get through to her, obviously. As a side note, none of these rabbits are even half the size of my family’s pet rabbit. I’m also pretty sure our rabbit would never tolerate being held by the ears. I’m not even sure that it possible to hold him that way, since he’s so fat.
Anyways, it’s almost July 4th, which means it’s almost Independence Day. It makes me miss America, especially since last year I spent the 4th in DC—pretty much the best place to be for that holiday. India seems a little unpatriotic in comparison. At least we’ll have other Americans here to share the day with. Mike, the volunteer coordinator for Home of Hope, the service organization we’re working with, is arriving here in Hassan this weekend. I have no idea how long he’ll be visiting for, either. I DO know that he’s traveling with Sister Mary and Sister Maria, whose return surely implies that some order will be restored around here. I can’t wait… seriously.
3 July 2010
So all I have to say about today is this: I opened my suitcase this morning to retrieve an article of clothing, only to find a nice little surprise inside. Well, more than one nice little surprise. Cockroaches. THAT was exciting. I’m sure you could guess how pleased I was. Patti heard my reaction and came to help me kill them—she’s a lifesaver. Those things are so FAST. As to how they got into my zipped-up suitcase in the first place, I don’t know. I am quite determined not to bring them back to America with me, though, so it looks like my bags are going to need to be bug inspected before going to the airport. Mrrrr.
4 July 2010
So while Christi and I were asleep last night, Sister Mary, Sister Maria, and Mike arrived. This was probably the best way to kick off the Fourth of July. Mike is just what I imagined him to be like during our few phone conversations. He’s great and full of facts and stories about India since he’s been over here so many times. He’s also obsessed with Notre Dame football, which scores huge points with Christi and I. With five Americans here, there’s almost not enough room at the dinner table anymore. It’s exciting. Tamuto’s flight for India leaves tomorrow, if only he was coming here, too!
Also there’s apparently a celebration for children’s birthdays tonight, one that involves another dance show… we’ll probably have stories about this later.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
20 June 2010
So we were once again paraded around in saris today. The girls gave us hairstyles that were so tight they were painful… it reminded me of color guard competitions in high school.
After lunch, Sister Rani took us around the village to meet some families. It was nice to finally meet some of the people that stare at us awkwardly at Sunday mass. First we met Prajwal’s family—his parents, grandparents, sister, and cousin. I now understand why he is the way he is. He looks exactly like his father (though Christi and I secretly hope that Prajwal doesn’t go for that 70’s style moustache when he grows up). His parents were so talkative, though they didn’t speak English, so Sister Rani had to do some translating. Mostly they just spoke amongst themselves, as if Christi and I could follow allow and catch all their jokes. Prajwal himself was at the convent doing his homework. I feel a little guilty about that, since he’d been begging us to come to his house for weeks now and he wasn’t even there when we did.
An entire hour and lemonade later, we made our way out. The next house we visited was a really nice house. It’s huge in comparison to all the others. Most of the houses here resemble large huts and are small, single story, with about three rooms. This house was two stories tall with lots of rooms and fancy interior decorating. The girl that invited us in couldn’t have been much older than us. She actually knew some English, though I’m not sure how. We met what seemed like her extended family, and she gave us cookies and orange soda (which Christi and I both hate). Her mother told me that I look like the Virgin Mary. This is probably because I’m white and my sari is blue, and Mary wears a blue sari in most Indian images of her (that incident also marked the third time someone told me that today). That was one of the few things her mother actually said, as most of the family preferred to just stare at us as if we were a zoo exhibit. Anyways, this girl, whose name I don’t know, is apparently going to be our village tour guide. She’s going to take Christi and I to a different house every afternoon from now on, so we can meet all the villagers. The added benefit of this is that she gets to practice her English. It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure. I wish we knew Kannada so that we could communicate with these people.
We came back from our village visit to find one of our tutoring students, Ambika, sobbing and inconsolable. We found out that one of the high school girls, Rosaline, asked three of the girls we tutor to write out the alphabet. Shylu and Ashwini succeeded in doing it from memory, though they have no idea what the letters actually are. Ambika couldn’t do it, and so Rosaline instructed Ashwini to beat Ambika with a ruler. I’m sure this was accompanied by plenty of verbal abuse, as well. I know that when you have 70-80 young girls living together under one roof, you’re bound to have drama and some situations straight out of “Mean Girls,” but there seems to be too much acceptance and tolerance of this behavior. Certain girls seem to think they’re better than others and therefore assume they have a duty to make the others feel bad about themselves. I’m sure their ego is a product of their background or some sort of defense mechanism, but it’s so frustrating to watch them tear apart the more innocent girls. Of the three girls we tutor, Ambika is by far the smartest and possesses the most genuine work ethic. I only wish her English was better so we could communicate that to her.
So, the running water also decided to stop working this afternoon. Conveniently, this happened at the very moment when I decided that I was going to take a shower. Christi and I feared the worst in terms of when it would come back on, but miraculous, the power AND the water came back a mere two hours later. So I not only got a full bucket of water, but a heated bucket of water.
Oh, another funny story. Most our meals here are vegetarian, but about once a week, they serve meat at lunch and/or dinner. So far, we’ve only seen chicken, but rumor has it they also commonly consume pigeon and rabbit (though I’m hoping it’s not the girls’ pet rabbits). Christi and I generally consume little to none of this said chicken. However, at tonight’s meal, we went with “little” instead of “none.” This proved to be a mistake. Christi was making faces at me over the lantern light during the meal, but I couldn’t figure out why. In hindsight, this was lucky, because if I knew why she was laughing, I probably would’ve stopped eating. When we went to go wash our dishes, Christi pointed out the piece of chicken on her plate… which contained a clearly identifiable beak. Yes, the beak. In other words, Christi was served a chicken head for dinner. Brains and all. All I have to say on the matter is that I’m glad it wasn’t me.
It’s almost time to go to sleep, which means it’s also time for Christi and I to discuss what we think tomorrow’s breakfast might be. It’s one of our favorite pastimes, since breakfast is by far our favorite meal of the day. Also, this pastime distracts me from thinking about things like Studebagels, Friendly’s, and bad American food that doesn’t contain beaks.
Happy Father’s Day!
21 June 2010
So about those village visits… those are officially on hold for this week. Sister Maria has education exams beginning on the 25th, so yesterday she left for Bangalore to study. God knows she can’t study here, as the decibel level at any given minute could make a person cringe. Obviously we don’t know the details, but it seems she’ll be in Bangalore all week. With another teacher absent from school for some other reason, we’re understaffed (and I’d say we were understaffed to begin with). Christi and I splitting up and alternating 5th and 6th standard in the morning, and teaming back up to handle a combined 3rd and 4th for two straight hours in the afternoon. I had to raise my voice so much this afternoon that my throat started to hurt. I hate having to do that, but I have no idea how else to get these kids to listen. Waiting patiently and asking nicely goes nowhere. Christi asked her mother to send Ritalin—we’re thinking of just dumping a bottle into the curry at lunch. It’d be an interesting experiment… just kidding. I wish.
I taught the 6th standard kids the word “crazy” today. This was obviously in reference to Prajwal, who was prancing around the classroom, muttering and singing to himself in a made-up language. They kept referring to him as “loose,” very unaware of the connotation this word has in the English-speaking world. I’m hoping the word “crazy” sticks. In the meantime, as long as Prajwal refrains from climbing windows and trying to kill frogs with his feet, he’s free to be as “crazy” as his heart desires.
Also, today seemed to be the day of foot injuries. Two different girls today had pieces of glass and stones embedded in the soles of their feet. Had they been wearing shoes, this could have been prevented, but not many students bother to wear them while at school (if ever). When presented with the first incident, I sent the girl away to Sister Rani, assuming she’d pluck the stone out of Shilpa’s foot with tweezers and put a bandage on it. False. Shilpa limped back to class, handed me a safety pin, and stuck her foot out. Uhhh, I don’t think so. Margaret took over for me, and she and her friend performed minor surgery in the back of the classroom. Coincidentally, in the following class, a girl named Pavitra complained to me about glass in her foot. As class continued on, she seemed to be in more and more pain, so I went over to check on her. Of course, she immediately handed me a safety pin. Seriously? Luckily the bell rang, and she leaned on my arm to limp home for lunch.
By the time tutoring rolled around, Christi and I were both pretty tired. We’ve added more girls to our group, so now we split up and alternate each evening. We kept the original three together, and the second group includes another Ashwini from 6th standard (this must have been a popular name in 1998) and Sunita, Pujpa, and Nagu from 4th standard. I’m not picking favorites, but I really like Sunita because she’s always smiley and excited to learn. Anyways, I was working with the original three tonight, and Ambika is still really down in the dumps from the alphabet incident yesterday. She seems absolutely miserable, and she wouldn’t even give high-fives during the memory game (which she of course won regardless). She just sort of sits there, stares off into space, and doesn’t respond. We tried to cheer her up with candy, but I don’t think it worked. Sister Mary is going to talk to her, since she’s clearly in need of a pep talk. Hopefully she gets better soon.
Now that we’re almost done to a month left, the girls are starting to get upset over the idea of us leaving. Jyothi has told me multiple times that she’s going to find an Indian boy for me to marry—“you marry Indian boy, then you stay.” Unless she runs into Dev Patel wandering the streets, I don’t think there’s any reason to worry about this coming to fruition. Even if she did, I think I’d be a little concerned as to why a movie star is meandering around Josephnagar… but whatever.
23 June 2010
So, just for the record, our tutoring group has expanded to include ten girls now. Sister Rani keeps sending us new girls, and I’m afraid eventually she’s going to send us the entire 4th standard class. We separated the group into two, splitting up the original trio of Shylu, Ambika, and Ashwini. This seems to have helped with the drama issues… for now.
In the meantime, Sister Mary left for Bangalore on Tuesday, so now we’re down another person of authority. Of course, Christi and I have no idea when Sister Mary or Sister Maria is coming back. Typical.
I think all the 5th and 6th standard kids are getting sick of having English class for four periods in a row. Focusing for one period is usually enough of a struggle for them. Today we had a spelling bee in 6th standard, with their list of words they’ve been studying for a good week now. Only two kids knew how to spell anything, Savitha and Prajwal. Not suprising, since I think Savitha has a really good memory and Prajwal probably studies for hours every night. Prajwal won the spelling bee, so he gets a prize. When I told him this, he looked like someone had just announced that he won the Nobel Peace Prize. In this case, the Nobel Peace Prize happens to be a lollipop.
24 June 2010
So Christi and I walked into class with the high school girls this morning, thinking we were going to go over some grammar. We collected the girls’ homework assignment, to once again see that the majority of them had copied one another. We decided it was time to law down the law, so we made all the copiers sit in the back of the classroom and rewrite the whole assignment. AND told them they have to write the word list 25 times. Only six girls in the whole class were exempt from this punishment. I’m curious as to whether they’ll start taking us seriously now. As Christi (and Machiavelli) said, it’s better to be feared than loved? This is going to be our approach for the next few days… until they start passing spelling tests.
On a lighter note, I gave Prajwal his lollipop today. He has since showed it me at least ten times. I know he’s saving it so he can show it to his family at home. He also finished his classwork early, so he came up to talk to me at my desk. He spent the next twenty minutes examining the differences between our mechanical pencils. He asked me if I wanted to trade. I told him he could just take mine. I think this is officially one of the best weeks of his life. He was so excited. He ended up giving me a normal Indian pencil as a “gift” to show his gratitude.
Anyways, unfortunately I don't have too much time to write since Christ and I are busy dealing with these con-artists. The amount of cheating, bleeding, and crying that has been going on in our classrooms has outdone the amount of genuine work being done, I think. A single period doesn't go by without AT LEAST two of those three things happening. If not worse.
So we were once again paraded around in saris today. The girls gave us hairstyles that were so tight they were painful… it reminded me of color guard competitions in high school.
After lunch, Sister Rani took us around the village to meet some families. It was nice to finally meet some of the people that stare at us awkwardly at Sunday mass. First we met Prajwal’s family—his parents, grandparents, sister, and cousin. I now understand why he is the way he is. He looks exactly like his father (though Christi and I secretly hope that Prajwal doesn’t go for that 70’s style moustache when he grows up). His parents were so talkative, though they didn’t speak English, so Sister Rani had to do some translating. Mostly they just spoke amongst themselves, as if Christi and I could follow allow and catch all their jokes. Prajwal himself was at the convent doing his homework. I feel a little guilty about that, since he’d been begging us to come to his house for weeks now and he wasn’t even there when we did.
An entire hour and lemonade later, we made our way out. The next house we visited was a really nice house. It’s huge in comparison to all the others. Most of the houses here resemble large huts and are small, single story, with about three rooms. This house was two stories tall with lots of rooms and fancy interior decorating. The girl that invited us in couldn’t have been much older than us. She actually knew some English, though I’m not sure how. We met what seemed like her extended family, and she gave us cookies and orange soda (which Christi and I both hate). Her mother told me that I look like the Virgin Mary. This is probably because I’m white and my sari is blue, and Mary wears a blue sari in most Indian images of her (that incident also marked the third time someone told me that today). That was one of the few things her mother actually said, as most of the family preferred to just stare at us as if we were a zoo exhibit. Anyways, this girl, whose name I don’t know, is apparently going to be our village tour guide. She’s going to take Christi and I to a different house every afternoon from now on, so we can meet all the villagers. The added benefit of this is that she gets to practice her English. It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure. I wish we knew Kannada so that we could communicate with these people.
We came back from our village visit to find one of our tutoring students, Ambika, sobbing and inconsolable. We found out that one of the high school girls, Rosaline, asked three of the girls we tutor to write out the alphabet. Shylu and Ashwini succeeded in doing it from memory, though they have no idea what the letters actually are. Ambika couldn’t do it, and so Rosaline instructed Ashwini to beat Ambika with a ruler. I’m sure this was accompanied by plenty of verbal abuse, as well. I know that when you have 70-80 young girls living together under one roof, you’re bound to have drama and some situations straight out of “Mean Girls,” but there seems to be too much acceptance and tolerance of this behavior. Certain girls seem to think they’re better than others and therefore assume they have a duty to make the others feel bad about themselves. I’m sure their ego is a product of their background or some sort of defense mechanism, but it’s so frustrating to watch them tear apart the more innocent girls. Of the three girls we tutor, Ambika is by far the smartest and possesses the most genuine work ethic. I only wish her English was better so we could communicate that to her.
So, the running water also decided to stop working this afternoon. Conveniently, this happened at the very moment when I decided that I was going to take a shower. Christi and I feared the worst in terms of when it would come back on, but miraculous, the power AND the water came back a mere two hours later. So I not only got a full bucket of water, but a heated bucket of water.
Oh, another funny story. Most our meals here are vegetarian, but about once a week, they serve meat at lunch and/or dinner. So far, we’ve only seen chicken, but rumor has it they also commonly consume pigeon and rabbit (though I’m hoping it’s not the girls’ pet rabbits). Christi and I generally consume little to none of this said chicken. However, at tonight’s meal, we went with “little” instead of “none.” This proved to be a mistake. Christi was making faces at me over the lantern light during the meal, but I couldn’t figure out why. In hindsight, this was lucky, because if I knew why she was laughing, I probably would’ve stopped eating. When we went to go wash our dishes, Christi pointed out the piece of chicken on her plate… which contained a clearly identifiable beak. Yes, the beak. In other words, Christi was served a chicken head for dinner. Brains and all. All I have to say on the matter is that I’m glad it wasn’t me.
It’s almost time to go to sleep, which means it’s also time for Christi and I to discuss what we think tomorrow’s breakfast might be. It’s one of our favorite pastimes, since breakfast is by far our favorite meal of the day. Also, this pastime distracts me from thinking about things like Studebagels, Friendly’s, and bad American food that doesn’t contain beaks.
Happy Father’s Day!
21 June 2010
So about those village visits… those are officially on hold for this week. Sister Maria has education exams beginning on the 25th, so yesterday she left for Bangalore to study. God knows she can’t study here, as the decibel level at any given minute could make a person cringe. Obviously we don’t know the details, but it seems she’ll be in Bangalore all week. With another teacher absent from school for some other reason, we’re understaffed (and I’d say we were understaffed to begin with). Christi and I splitting up and alternating 5th and 6th standard in the morning, and teaming back up to handle a combined 3rd and 4th for two straight hours in the afternoon. I had to raise my voice so much this afternoon that my throat started to hurt. I hate having to do that, but I have no idea how else to get these kids to listen. Waiting patiently and asking nicely goes nowhere. Christi asked her mother to send Ritalin—we’re thinking of just dumping a bottle into the curry at lunch. It’d be an interesting experiment… just kidding. I wish.
I taught the 6th standard kids the word “crazy” today. This was obviously in reference to Prajwal, who was prancing around the classroom, muttering and singing to himself in a made-up language. They kept referring to him as “loose,” very unaware of the connotation this word has in the English-speaking world. I’m hoping the word “crazy” sticks. In the meantime, as long as Prajwal refrains from climbing windows and trying to kill frogs with his feet, he’s free to be as “crazy” as his heart desires.
Also, today seemed to be the day of foot injuries. Two different girls today had pieces of glass and stones embedded in the soles of their feet. Had they been wearing shoes, this could have been prevented, but not many students bother to wear them while at school (if ever). When presented with the first incident, I sent the girl away to Sister Rani, assuming she’d pluck the stone out of Shilpa’s foot with tweezers and put a bandage on it. False. Shilpa limped back to class, handed me a safety pin, and stuck her foot out. Uhhh, I don’t think so. Margaret took over for me, and she and her friend performed minor surgery in the back of the classroom. Coincidentally, in the following class, a girl named Pavitra complained to me about glass in her foot. As class continued on, she seemed to be in more and more pain, so I went over to check on her. Of course, she immediately handed me a safety pin. Seriously? Luckily the bell rang, and she leaned on my arm to limp home for lunch.
By the time tutoring rolled around, Christi and I were both pretty tired. We’ve added more girls to our group, so now we split up and alternate each evening. We kept the original three together, and the second group includes another Ashwini from 6th standard (this must have been a popular name in 1998) and Sunita, Pujpa, and Nagu from 4th standard. I’m not picking favorites, but I really like Sunita because she’s always smiley and excited to learn. Anyways, I was working with the original three tonight, and Ambika is still really down in the dumps from the alphabet incident yesterday. She seems absolutely miserable, and she wouldn’t even give high-fives during the memory game (which she of course won regardless). She just sort of sits there, stares off into space, and doesn’t respond. We tried to cheer her up with candy, but I don’t think it worked. Sister Mary is going to talk to her, since she’s clearly in need of a pep talk. Hopefully she gets better soon.
Now that we’re almost done to a month left, the girls are starting to get upset over the idea of us leaving. Jyothi has told me multiple times that she’s going to find an Indian boy for me to marry—“you marry Indian boy, then you stay.” Unless she runs into Dev Patel wandering the streets, I don’t think there’s any reason to worry about this coming to fruition. Even if she did, I think I’d be a little concerned as to why a movie star is meandering around Josephnagar… but whatever.
23 June 2010
So, just for the record, our tutoring group has expanded to include ten girls now. Sister Rani keeps sending us new girls, and I’m afraid eventually she’s going to send us the entire 4th standard class. We separated the group into two, splitting up the original trio of Shylu, Ambika, and Ashwini. This seems to have helped with the drama issues… for now.
In the meantime, Sister Mary left for Bangalore on Tuesday, so now we’re down another person of authority. Of course, Christi and I have no idea when Sister Mary or Sister Maria is coming back. Typical.
I think all the 5th and 6th standard kids are getting sick of having English class for four periods in a row. Focusing for one period is usually enough of a struggle for them. Today we had a spelling bee in 6th standard, with their list of words they’ve been studying for a good week now. Only two kids knew how to spell anything, Savitha and Prajwal. Not suprising, since I think Savitha has a really good memory and Prajwal probably studies for hours every night. Prajwal won the spelling bee, so he gets a prize. When I told him this, he looked like someone had just announced that he won the Nobel Peace Prize. In this case, the Nobel Peace Prize happens to be a lollipop.
24 June 2010
So Christi and I walked into class with the high school girls this morning, thinking we were going to go over some grammar. We collected the girls’ homework assignment, to once again see that the majority of them had copied one another. We decided it was time to law down the law, so we made all the copiers sit in the back of the classroom and rewrite the whole assignment. AND told them they have to write the word list 25 times. Only six girls in the whole class were exempt from this punishment. I’m curious as to whether they’ll start taking us seriously now. As Christi (and Machiavelli) said, it’s better to be feared than loved? This is going to be our approach for the next few days… until they start passing spelling tests.
On a lighter note, I gave Prajwal his lollipop today. He has since showed it me at least ten times. I know he’s saving it so he can show it to his family at home. He also finished his classwork early, so he came up to talk to me at my desk. He spent the next twenty minutes examining the differences between our mechanical pencils. He asked me if I wanted to trade. I told him he could just take mine. I think this is officially one of the best weeks of his life. He was so excited. He ended up giving me a normal Indian pencil as a “gift” to show his gratitude.
Anyways, unfortunately I don't have too much time to write since Christ and I are busy dealing with these con-artists. The amount of cheating, bleeding, and crying that has been going on in our classrooms has outdone the amount of genuine work being done, I think. A single period doesn't go by without AT LEAST two of those three things happening. If not worse.
Monday, June 21, 2010
June 20, 2010
Well there is no electricity AND water now. Just when you thought living conditions couldn’t get any more archaic, they do. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say that living conditions are that archaic. I mean, in comparison to a lot of other places I’ve seen here, I guess this is like the Hilton of India.
Luckily, living conditions are the least of my worries here. But I’ll explain more of that in a bit.
First, I want to tell you about what we did today. Actually, I’ll start with what we wore today. So Allison and I came to India with the goal of purchasing saris to wear around. We bought them back in Bangalore. When we went to open them up, we noticed that there was a sticker that said “Blouse included”. We thought to ourselves, “Oh good….we didn’t even know you needed blouses for them…” When we got to Hassan, we unfolded the sari, and noticed that there was no blouse to be found. It turns out that the blouse was actually there….still in the fabric, and waiting to be made into a blouse. We got it made for a few hundred rupees…don’t worry, that’s only a couple of US dollars.
Welll, last night, we tried them on for the first time. We actually wore them to the children’s night mass. Our my-size-Barbie days hit a high point last night, as the girls literally did everything they could to make us look like Indian princesses (which apparently includes green glitter all over our faces). Bindis and all, we were the hit of Mass. Today, we decided to wear them again to the village Mass. Again, all eyes were on us, which is really awkward because in the first place, eyes are on us because people are confused by our existence here. All of our students got a huge kick out of our Indian-ness. So many people were impressed by us, that we have been encouraged throughout the day to marry an Indian boy. Haha, Mom, what do you say about that? Somehow I think I might get in trouble if I came home with a husband, but that might just be me.
Okay, so that’s how our day started. We decided to stay in the saris until teatime, but we didn’t do this for fun. Last week, I asked if we could do village ministry, and today was finally that day! We decided we wanted to make a good first impression by wearing a sari. That was a little uncomfortable, but I guess it’s in the name of fashion.
We stopped at three houses today. The first was Prajwal’s house. Unfortunately, he was not there since he was at the convent in study hall. However, we met his mom, dad, sister, and cousin. Prajwal and his dad look exactly the same. It was kind of scary looking at his father because the similarity was disturbing. Like a carbon copy. His cousin was only a couple of years old, and followed me in by the hand. I picked her up, and I’m convinced she was really sick. She was sitting on me, and I felt like she was wheezing or something. She might have just been a gassy little kid, but it was really weird. It made me wonder about the medical treatment that would be available to her. From my own first hand experience, I worry about these kids. Prajwal’s mom served us drinks, which was a really nice thought of her. However, it was slightly frightening. When she brought it out, it was this murky liquid. As she hands my glass to me, I’m thinking “Good thing I brought Xifaxan.” If you don’t know what Xifaxan is, then you should know that you would need it if you drank the water in Mexico. Turns out that it was just lemonade….which to me, was just as bad. It was still really nice of them. She also gave us very nice flowers for our hair, which is the Indian thing to do.
The next house we went to was the house of a girl about our age and her family (like her mom, dad, and grandparents). She wanted to practice her English, but she was kind of shy. Her family was…….well, they weren’t like Prajwal’s family. Prajwal’s family talked A LOT. We were there for like an hour….not that we knew what anyone was actually talking about because they were all speaking in the local language. Apparently, we looked like we knew what they were saying since they asked if we understood them. That’s what I call my confused face.
Anyway, back to this one family. They were stone faced. It was actually really awkward. One of my more awkward moments in India, which is definitely saying something. They stared and stared. They were completely different from their daughter, who was pretty much begging that we go in her house. Again, this girl was very nice. She wanted to become a nun, but then realized she didn’t. This is why she knows a little English. She said she didn’t know how to cook, so instantly I liked her. More importantly, she didn’t plan on learning. That’s pretty bold for India.
She was very hospitable and served us biscuits and orange soda…..I LOVED the biscuits…but if you know me, you know I don’t like soda. So again, something I had to gulp down in a non-disgusted face. Truly a miracle. Regardless it’s really nice of these people to serve snacks.
Oh which reminds me….for dinner tonight, my parade of things I dislike followed me. Tonight’s special: Chicken Marsala. Tonight’s extra special: Chicken Head Marsala. Meat is rare here. When I saw chicken marsala, I thought it was great because it was the first dish I actually recognized outside of rice. Welllll, it also turns out to be one of the few dishes I was completely disgusted by. For once, the bird brain wasn’t me, but rather, the bird brain was my food. Literally. I was pulling out bones, and the first one I pulled out was a weird shape….a little too round. It kind of reminded me of a brain cavity, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt. The next bone I pulled out was a beak. A BEAK. Yup, definitely a chicken head. And there were DEFINITELY brains in it still. Yuck.
Back to the rest of my village story. While we were at this house, I learned something new about India. People come and go from houses here as if the whole village was a shopping center. Everyone walks in anywhere. This probably is the reason why I got locked out of the convent tonight. Which is another tangent, but I’ll tell you it now. I was on the computer checking my email tonight at about 6:30 pm. I finished up at about 7:15 pm, and discovered that the kids were in Adoration. Unfortunately, the big metal doors had been closed, so I struggled to open them quietly, and then closed it behind me quietly. Then I see the next set of doors. They are locked. I don’t know what to do so I just stand there with a dumb look on my face. Then I decide I could probably get in from the side doors. Nope, those are locked too. So I sit in the dark for about 20 minutes waiting for someone. Later, they explain that villagers will just walk in if the doors are left open. Makes sense after today.
Okay, now really back to the village. After this girls house, we went to the house across the street. This house was also very different. There was a grandma and her grandson, who is mentally disabled. Apparently, he has “fits” aka bursts of rage. He went to the doctor and was prescribed “tablets”, but apparently it doesn’t work very much, supposedly. They explained that he was undiagnosable. I wonder if he couldn’t be diagnosed in the US. What he suffers from does not seem to be all that uncommon, but then again, I’m not a doctor, thank God. Anyway, we later learned that this boy is the son of the cowhand at the convent.
Oh at the end of this village story, it turns out that the young girl at the second house is going to take us into the village every day now….this should be interesting. Hopefully there are more biscuits and less soda slash other drinks that scare me.
When we returned, we found that one of the girls we tutor was sobbing. We asked what had happened, and the high school girls that were supposed to be helping explained that she couldn’t write her ABCs, which to me, isn’t a reason to cry so much. There had to be more to the story. We took Ambika aside, and found Sr. Rani to translate for us. Apparently, because she couldn’t write her ABCs, the high school girls made Ashwini, one of our other students, hit her with a ruler. Here is the irony. Ambika is the smartest one of the group, and is the only one who actually can recognize letters. Ashwini, on the other hand, has a mental disability. She’s definitely not all there and definitely does not know the alphabet. Anyway, I was furious at this point. I went over to the high school girls and lectured them that hitting wasn’t the way to teach kids, and if they are ever to work with our girls again, then they can’t hit them. Anyway, I’m sure they had no idea what I was saying. I wanted to slap the girl that told Ashwini to hit Ambika…but I felt like that might defeat the purpose. Grrrrrr. Don’t mess with the people we tutor. The girl that caused this is actually a pretty funny person in herself. She always looks angry. That she would do this doesn’t surprise me at all. Every time she smiles, her face cracks a bit.
So okay, now I’ll work backwards in time to tell you about some things I forgot to tell you about within the past week or so. On Saturday, there was an Installation Ceremony at the school in preparation for India’s Independence Day, which happens to be on August 15th. Anyway, the kids elected leaders of the school to lead them in a competition against each other. The leaders are supposed to make sure everyone does their homework, study, etc. I’m still waiting to see this happen in terms of English class. It was funny because some of the kids that were elected also happen to be the naughtiest kids in the classes and also the pushiest. Some of them are great, and definitely deserve the position. But I guess all school elections are the same, regardless of country. It’s just a popularity contest.
Now on Friday, Allison was sick, so it was me vs. 90 kids. Kind of. It went by fairly smoothly, with all of the normal problems of fighting and talking out of turn, etc. etc. Then I got to 3rd and 4th standard…combined. This was a death sentence in itself. The two classes together ALWAYS equals trouble. No doubt about it. I taught for the first 45 minutes with almost no problem…or at least, no new problems. Then came the second 45 minutes. See, no one had come to teach them, and I felt bad just leaving them there unattended. So I stayed, awaiting for the bad turn of events. It came when one of the girl’s mother to say goodbye to her. She had apparently been visiting for the day. Well, the girl went with her mom, ad the returned in tears. Pretty soon, other girls began to also miss their mothers, and there were 3 or 4 pairs of salty eyes in the class. Then the real fighting began. The hitting of heads with metal pencil cases, hitting people with books, and the good old-fashioned punch. Everything. As more and more people began to fight, more and more tears started to appear. I tried to control the fighting as much as possible, while comforting the sad kids. It was a mess. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did, of course. A handful of the kids had escaped the classroom, and were playing around outside. One of the teachers spotted this, and began her own style of punishment, slapping wrists with a bamboo stick. So at this point, I would say the cry count was up to approximately 10 or 12. Yup, that’s about half the class. The other half of the class was the half that hadn’t cried while fighting, and continued to brawl with each other. It was like watching a zoo, only the animals in this zoo viscously attack people.
Amidst this mess was Antony-Pujpa. I call her Pujpa. Anway, she was crying too, and I comforted her. We walked home together, and made friends. Now she’s always holding my hand when I see her. Her English is pretty bad, but she’s also getting special tutoring now.
Earlier in the week, I learned that Reconciliation happens every month here. The kids have to confess their sins EVERY month. Yup, it’s a lot of confessing. Well, I got into the spirit of seeking forgiveness and decided to give it a try. Really what happened was I agreed to it without thinking. When I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t know the Act of Contrition, etc. Luckily, I got a crash course from Sr. Anna about it all…minus the Act of Contrition. She was like a theology professor when she explained to me why we go to Reconciliation. It was pretty interesting. The priest was Indian, and so that was a first for me. He seemed more interested in talking about Hawai’i than he was in talking about my sins. All I can say is I have never felt like I wanted to talk more about my sins at a Reconciliation until this past week. What an accomplishment.
I also learned a lot this week about the violence that occurs against Christians here. I’m surprised that I hadn’t heard of some of the stories at all, because there are really terrible mass crimes that have occurred in this country. It’s sad to see that there isn’t more media coverage on all of the violence that exists here. Since the media isn’t really covering it, I guess I will write about it more. Here. Oh, but in my next blogskis.
Ummmm okay, well, I have to teach soon I suppose. Pray that I make it out alive.
PS-For this week, we are teaching double shifts, separately. We might actually not survive now. =p
Well there is no electricity AND water now. Just when you thought living conditions couldn’t get any more archaic, they do. Well, I guess I shouldn’t say that living conditions are that archaic. I mean, in comparison to a lot of other places I’ve seen here, I guess this is like the Hilton of India.
Luckily, living conditions are the least of my worries here. But I’ll explain more of that in a bit.
First, I want to tell you about what we did today. Actually, I’ll start with what we wore today. So Allison and I came to India with the goal of purchasing saris to wear around. We bought them back in Bangalore. When we went to open them up, we noticed that there was a sticker that said “Blouse included”. We thought to ourselves, “Oh good….we didn’t even know you needed blouses for them…” When we got to Hassan, we unfolded the sari, and noticed that there was no blouse to be found. It turns out that the blouse was actually there….still in the fabric, and waiting to be made into a blouse. We got it made for a few hundred rupees…don’t worry, that’s only a couple of US dollars.
Welll, last night, we tried them on for the first time. We actually wore them to the children’s night mass. Our my-size-Barbie days hit a high point last night, as the girls literally did everything they could to make us look like Indian princesses (which apparently includes green glitter all over our faces). Bindis and all, we were the hit of Mass. Today, we decided to wear them again to the village Mass. Again, all eyes were on us, which is really awkward because in the first place, eyes are on us because people are confused by our existence here. All of our students got a huge kick out of our Indian-ness. So many people were impressed by us, that we have been encouraged throughout the day to marry an Indian boy. Haha, Mom, what do you say about that? Somehow I think I might get in trouble if I came home with a husband, but that might just be me.
Okay, so that’s how our day started. We decided to stay in the saris until teatime, but we didn’t do this for fun. Last week, I asked if we could do village ministry, and today was finally that day! We decided we wanted to make a good first impression by wearing a sari. That was a little uncomfortable, but I guess it’s in the name of fashion.
We stopped at three houses today. The first was Prajwal’s house. Unfortunately, he was not there since he was at the convent in study hall. However, we met his mom, dad, sister, and cousin. Prajwal and his dad look exactly the same. It was kind of scary looking at his father because the similarity was disturbing. Like a carbon copy. His cousin was only a couple of years old, and followed me in by the hand. I picked her up, and I’m convinced she was really sick. She was sitting on me, and I felt like she was wheezing or something. She might have just been a gassy little kid, but it was really weird. It made me wonder about the medical treatment that would be available to her. From my own first hand experience, I worry about these kids. Prajwal’s mom served us drinks, which was a really nice thought of her. However, it was slightly frightening. When she brought it out, it was this murky liquid. As she hands my glass to me, I’m thinking “Good thing I brought Xifaxan.” If you don’t know what Xifaxan is, then you should know that you would need it if you drank the water in Mexico. Turns out that it was just lemonade….which to me, was just as bad. It was still really nice of them. She also gave us very nice flowers for our hair, which is the Indian thing to do.
The next house we went to was the house of a girl about our age and her family (like her mom, dad, and grandparents). She wanted to practice her English, but she was kind of shy. Her family was…….well, they weren’t like Prajwal’s family. Prajwal’s family talked A LOT. We were there for like an hour….not that we knew what anyone was actually talking about because they were all speaking in the local language. Apparently, we looked like we knew what they were saying since they asked if we understood them. That’s what I call my confused face.
Anyway, back to this one family. They were stone faced. It was actually really awkward. One of my more awkward moments in India, which is definitely saying something. They stared and stared. They were completely different from their daughter, who was pretty much begging that we go in her house. Again, this girl was very nice. She wanted to become a nun, but then realized she didn’t. This is why she knows a little English. She said she didn’t know how to cook, so instantly I liked her. More importantly, she didn’t plan on learning. That’s pretty bold for India.
She was very hospitable and served us biscuits and orange soda…..I LOVED the biscuits…but if you know me, you know I don’t like soda. So again, something I had to gulp down in a non-disgusted face. Truly a miracle. Regardless it’s really nice of these people to serve snacks.
Oh which reminds me….for dinner tonight, my parade of things I dislike followed me. Tonight’s special: Chicken Marsala. Tonight’s extra special: Chicken Head Marsala. Meat is rare here. When I saw chicken marsala, I thought it was great because it was the first dish I actually recognized outside of rice. Welllll, it also turns out to be one of the few dishes I was completely disgusted by. For once, the bird brain wasn’t me, but rather, the bird brain was my food. Literally. I was pulling out bones, and the first one I pulled out was a weird shape….a little too round. It kind of reminded me of a brain cavity, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt. The next bone I pulled out was a beak. A BEAK. Yup, definitely a chicken head. And there were DEFINITELY brains in it still. Yuck.
Back to the rest of my village story. While we were at this house, I learned something new about India. People come and go from houses here as if the whole village was a shopping center. Everyone walks in anywhere. This probably is the reason why I got locked out of the convent tonight. Which is another tangent, but I’ll tell you it now. I was on the computer checking my email tonight at about 6:30 pm. I finished up at about 7:15 pm, and discovered that the kids were in Adoration. Unfortunately, the big metal doors had been closed, so I struggled to open them quietly, and then closed it behind me quietly. Then I see the next set of doors. They are locked. I don’t know what to do so I just stand there with a dumb look on my face. Then I decide I could probably get in from the side doors. Nope, those are locked too. So I sit in the dark for about 20 minutes waiting for someone. Later, they explain that villagers will just walk in if the doors are left open. Makes sense after today.
Okay, now really back to the village. After this girls house, we went to the house across the street. This house was also very different. There was a grandma and her grandson, who is mentally disabled. Apparently, he has “fits” aka bursts of rage. He went to the doctor and was prescribed “tablets”, but apparently it doesn’t work very much, supposedly. They explained that he was undiagnosable. I wonder if he couldn’t be diagnosed in the US. What he suffers from does not seem to be all that uncommon, but then again, I’m not a doctor, thank God. Anyway, we later learned that this boy is the son of the cowhand at the convent.
Oh at the end of this village story, it turns out that the young girl at the second house is going to take us into the village every day now….this should be interesting. Hopefully there are more biscuits and less soda slash other drinks that scare me.
When we returned, we found that one of the girls we tutor was sobbing. We asked what had happened, and the high school girls that were supposed to be helping explained that she couldn’t write her ABCs, which to me, isn’t a reason to cry so much. There had to be more to the story. We took Ambika aside, and found Sr. Rani to translate for us. Apparently, because she couldn’t write her ABCs, the high school girls made Ashwini, one of our other students, hit her with a ruler. Here is the irony. Ambika is the smartest one of the group, and is the only one who actually can recognize letters. Ashwini, on the other hand, has a mental disability. She’s definitely not all there and definitely does not know the alphabet. Anyway, I was furious at this point. I went over to the high school girls and lectured them that hitting wasn’t the way to teach kids, and if they are ever to work with our girls again, then they can’t hit them. Anyway, I’m sure they had no idea what I was saying. I wanted to slap the girl that told Ashwini to hit Ambika…but I felt like that might defeat the purpose. Grrrrrr. Don’t mess with the people we tutor. The girl that caused this is actually a pretty funny person in herself. She always looks angry. That she would do this doesn’t surprise me at all. Every time she smiles, her face cracks a bit.
So okay, now I’ll work backwards in time to tell you about some things I forgot to tell you about within the past week or so. On Saturday, there was an Installation Ceremony at the school in preparation for India’s Independence Day, which happens to be on August 15th. Anyway, the kids elected leaders of the school to lead them in a competition against each other. The leaders are supposed to make sure everyone does their homework, study, etc. I’m still waiting to see this happen in terms of English class. It was funny because some of the kids that were elected also happen to be the naughtiest kids in the classes and also the pushiest. Some of them are great, and definitely deserve the position. But I guess all school elections are the same, regardless of country. It’s just a popularity contest.
Now on Friday, Allison was sick, so it was me vs. 90 kids. Kind of. It went by fairly smoothly, with all of the normal problems of fighting and talking out of turn, etc. etc. Then I got to 3rd and 4th standard…combined. This was a death sentence in itself. The two classes together ALWAYS equals trouble. No doubt about it. I taught for the first 45 minutes with almost no problem…or at least, no new problems. Then came the second 45 minutes. See, no one had come to teach them, and I felt bad just leaving them there unattended. So I stayed, awaiting for the bad turn of events. It came when one of the girl’s mother to say goodbye to her. She had apparently been visiting for the day. Well, the girl went with her mom, ad the returned in tears. Pretty soon, other girls began to also miss their mothers, and there were 3 or 4 pairs of salty eyes in the class. Then the real fighting began. The hitting of heads with metal pencil cases, hitting people with books, and the good old-fashioned punch. Everything. As more and more people began to fight, more and more tears started to appear. I tried to control the fighting as much as possible, while comforting the sad kids. It was a mess. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did, of course. A handful of the kids had escaped the classroom, and were playing around outside. One of the teachers spotted this, and began her own style of punishment, slapping wrists with a bamboo stick. So at this point, I would say the cry count was up to approximately 10 or 12. Yup, that’s about half the class. The other half of the class was the half that hadn’t cried while fighting, and continued to brawl with each other. It was like watching a zoo, only the animals in this zoo viscously attack people.
Amidst this mess was Antony-Pujpa. I call her Pujpa. Anway, she was crying too, and I comforted her. We walked home together, and made friends. Now she’s always holding my hand when I see her. Her English is pretty bad, but she’s also getting special tutoring now.
Earlier in the week, I learned that Reconciliation happens every month here. The kids have to confess their sins EVERY month. Yup, it’s a lot of confessing. Well, I got into the spirit of seeking forgiveness and decided to give it a try. Really what happened was I agreed to it without thinking. When I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t know the Act of Contrition, etc. Luckily, I got a crash course from Sr. Anna about it all…minus the Act of Contrition. She was like a theology professor when she explained to me why we go to Reconciliation. It was pretty interesting. The priest was Indian, and so that was a first for me. He seemed more interested in talking about Hawai’i than he was in talking about my sins. All I can say is I have never felt like I wanted to talk more about my sins at a Reconciliation until this past week. What an accomplishment.
I also learned a lot this week about the violence that occurs against Christians here. I’m surprised that I hadn’t heard of some of the stories at all, because there are really terrible mass crimes that have occurred in this country. It’s sad to see that there isn’t more media coverage on all of the violence that exists here. Since the media isn’t really covering it, I guess I will write about it more. Here. Oh, but in my next blogskis.
Ummmm okay, well, I have to teach soon I suppose. Pray that I make it out alive.
PS-For this week, we are teaching double shifts, separately. We might actually not survive now. =p
Sunday, June 20, 2010
19 June
19 June 2010
This morning, in lieu of the traditional school assembly, there was a swearing in ceremony for class leaders. Apparently at this time every year, the students elect leaders, one for each grade. Then, as a whole, the school is divided into teams, each with a 6th or 7th grade captain. The teams are for a competition that culminates on Independence Day, which is August 15th in India. The competition involves everything from classwork and grades to behavior and ethics. Think Harry Potter and the House Cup. There’s a prize for the winners, though I’m not sure what it is. Anyways. The class leaders and team captains got “sworn in” in front of their classmates. They were all dressed in white. Sister Maria told us that the positions are taken very seriously. They’re supposed to set an example for all the other students. I think we’re going to use this to our advantage over the next month.
So during class today, we played a G-rated version of “Hangman” that we like to call the “Flower Game.” Original, I know. Instead of drawing an executed person on the board, we draw a flower. It’s more family-friendly. We hadn’t yet introduced this game to 5th standard (since they can’t exactly spell), but we decided to attempt it today. They caught on fairly quickly (minus the spelling issues). However, this whole raise-your-hand rule? Not so much. They understand the raising their hands part, but then they proceed to jump up and down and scream out answers, or worse, beg us to call on them. “Auntie, Auntie! AUNTIIIIEEEE! Please, Auntie, PLEEEEASE!” Those screams haunt me in my sleep. Sahana, the class leader for 5th standard, was the worst beggar of them all. We scolded her for not setting a good example for the other kids, and she was quiet as a mouse for the next five minutes. Those were the best five minutes of the whole class.
Classes on Saturdays only run from 8:00 to 11:00, and after that, the students have recess for about half an hour. Usually during breaks or playtime, the girls like to play clapping/hand games with us, or games that resemble American games but have been modified to Indian standards (like Ring around the Rosie… which, here, is in some interesting Indian-English language that Christi and I still can’t decipher). Today, however, the boys decided to take over and make us play sports. For the majority of the time I played “shuttlecock” with Kiran, a boy in 7th standard. The game was pretty intense… he even got me to trip over a bag of dry cement lying in the yard. I was completely graceful about it, of course. By graceful, I mean that I think I sprained my toe, if that’s even possible.
The biggest event of the day was Christi’s and my transformations into complete Indians. Sister Mary had picked up our completed sari blouses from the tailor the night before, so Sister Maria came up to our rooms before teatime to help us try them on. So. Much. Fabric. Putting on a sari is a complicated process, in case you were wondering. It involves a lot of pinning and wrapping and folding. When we were finished, Sister Maria gushed over how “cute” we looked and then she paraded us around the convent. The girls freaked out, to put it nicely. After tea we got attacked with hairbrushes and bindis and even glitter for our faces. Yes, glitter… then necklaces, bangles, rings, watches, and earrings. An entire hour later, the girls dragged us around the grounds for a photo shoot (ha, just wait until you see these photos). We went to evening mass dressed in our saris. Keeping our heads covered using the extra material was difficult… and the women make it look so easy on Sunday mornings.
After mass, we came back to find the girls watching TV. We thought they were watching the news, but we were mistaken. First of all, the program wasn’t in Kannada or Hindi, it was in Tamil, a language spoken in a different state of India (two girls tried to teach me some of it the other day… I failed). I’m not sure how many girls here understand Tamil, but it can’t be that many. Anyways, it turns out that this program was a movie, and not just any movie, it was an English movie dubbed over in Tamil. It was most definitely a horror movie. If there’s a Final Destination 5, that’s probably what it was. Sister Maria said the girls are going to keep us up all night because they’ll scream in their sleep… I’m just glad I wasn’t forced to watch it.
Speaking of which, I’m off to sleep, but a few last comments before I go:
1. It is not easy to walk in a sari. I don’t know how women do things like work or dance in them. Yikes. I’m busy worrying about mine falling off.
2. They served potato chips at tea today. Sister Maria was surprised to hear that we have these in America.
3. Now all I need to do to be 100% Indian is get my nose pierced. Haha, JUST KIDDING, Mom. There is no way that I would let anyone in this country anywhere near me with something that resembles a needle.
This morning, in lieu of the traditional school assembly, there was a swearing in ceremony for class leaders. Apparently at this time every year, the students elect leaders, one for each grade. Then, as a whole, the school is divided into teams, each with a 6th or 7th grade captain. The teams are for a competition that culminates on Independence Day, which is August 15th in India. The competition involves everything from classwork and grades to behavior and ethics. Think Harry Potter and the House Cup. There’s a prize for the winners, though I’m not sure what it is. Anyways. The class leaders and team captains got “sworn in” in front of their classmates. They were all dressed in white. Sister Maria told us that the positions are taken very seriously. They’re supposed to set an example for all the other students. I think we’re going to use this to our advantage over the next month.
So during class today, we played a G-rated version of “Hangman” that we like to call the “Flower Game.” Original, I know. Instead of drawing an executed person on the board, we draw a flower. It’s more family-friendly. We hadn’t yet introduced this game to 5th standard (since they can’t exactly spell), but we decided to attempt it today. They caught on fairly quickly (minus the spelling issues). However, this whole raise-your-hand rule? Not so much. They understand the raising their hands part, but then they proceed to jump up and down and scream out answers, or worse, beg us to call on them. “Auntie, Auntie! AUNTIIIIEEEE! Please, Auntie, PLEEEEASE!” Those screams haunt me in my sleep. Sahana, the class leader for 5th standard, was the worst beggar of them all. We scolded her for not setting a good example for the other kids, and she was quiet as a mouse for the next five minutes. Those were the best five minutes of the whole class.
Classes on Saturdays only run from 8:00 to 11:00, and after that, the students have recess for about half an hour. Usually during breaks or playtime, the girls like to play clapping/hand games with us, or games that resemble American games but have been modified to Indian standards (like Ring around the Rosie… which, here, is in some interesting Indian-English language that Christi and I still can’t decipher). Today, however, the boys decided to take over and make us play sports. For the majority of the time I played “shuttlecock” with Kiran, a boy in 7th standard. The game was pretty intense… he even got me to trip over a bag of dry cement lying in the yard. I was completely graceful about it, of course. By graceful, I mean that I think I sprained my toe, if that’s even possible.
The biggest event of the day was Christi’s and my transformations into complete Indians. Sister Mary had picked up our completed sari blouses from the tailor the night before, so Sister Maria came up to our rooms before teatime to help us try them on. So. Much. Fabric. Putting on a sari is a complicated process, in case you were wondering. It involves a lot of pinning and wrapping and folding. When we were finished, Sister Maria gushed over how “cute” we looked and then she paraded us around the convent. The girls freaked out, to put it nicely. After tea we got attacked with hairbrushes and bindis and even glitter for our faces. Yes, glitter… then necklaces, bangles, rings, watches, and earrings. An entire hour later, the girls dragged us around the grounds for a photo shoot (ha, just wait until you see these photos). We went to evening mass dressed in our saris. Keeping our heads covered using the extra material was difficult… and the women make it look so easy on Sunday mornings.
After mass, we came back to find the girls watching TV. We thought they were watching the news, but we were mistaken. First of all, the program wasn’t in Kannada or Hindi, it was in Tamil, a language spoken in a different state of India (two girls tried to teach me some of it the other day… I failed). I’m not sure how many girls here understand Tamil, but it can’t be that many. Anyways, it turns out that this program was a movie, and not just any movie, it was an English movie dubbed over in Tamil. It was most definitely a horror movie. If there’s a Final Destination 5, that’s probably what it was. Sister Maria said the girls are going to keep us up all night because they’ll scream in their sleep… I’m just glad I wasn’t forced to watch it.
Speaking of which, I’m off to sleep, but a few last comments before I go:
1. It is not easy to walk in a sari. I don’t know how women do things like work or dance in them. Yikes. I’m busy worrying about mine falling off.
2. They served potato chips at tea today. Sister Maria was surprised to hear that we have these in America.
3. Now all I need to do to be 100% Indian is get my nose pierced. Haha, JUST KIDDING, Mom. There is no way that I would let anyone in this country anywhere near me with something that resembles a needle.
Friday, June 18, 2010
10 June to 19 June
10 June 2010
Tonight we finished supper relatively early, so we sat down with the older girls for a while as they were finishing theirs. They taught us how to say “Did you finish your supper?” and “I did” in Kannada. Yes, I’ve already forgotten how to say it. They reviewed the body parts—now I can remember the words for eyes, nose, mouth, lips, teeth, ears, throat, earrings, AND bracelet. I’m such a good student. One girl then began telling me the nicknames of her friends. Apparently EVERYONE in this convent has a nickname. The nicknames translate to English phrases like “black cow” and “black crow.” Shobha’s nickname (she’s our star speller) is pronounced like “goober” and translates to “owl.” I’m wondering if it’s because she’s smart so the girls are implying she’s a nerd (you know, like the owl-wearing-glasses image) . This would only work, however, if animals have the same representation in India as they do in America… and not many things are the same between these two countries.
The girls also enjoy dressing us up. Today Jyothi, a girl from 8th standard, gave us bangles to wear. They barely fit over our hands, so we almost couldn’t get them off. Sunday is the big dress-up day though. Last Sunday they put flowers in our hair, gave us necklaces, AND painted our nails. Sister Mary has warned us that they have the same thing planned for next Sunday. It’s like we’re their dolls or pet animals (sorry, Princess, now I know how you feel). Luckily it’s painless and they absolutely love it. It’s probably the best entertainment we have to offer.
13 June 2010
So yesterday was Sister Maria’s birthday. It was quite the affair. They served cake both before and with breakfast. The morning assembly at school included two dance performances, one by the youngest girls (all dressed in frilly pink dresses with glitter on their faces) and one by the oldest girls. Saturdays are only half days, so school was done by 11:30am. I had brought my camera with me, and after class the kids went a little crazy taking pictures. I think Indians have a predisposition to understanding technology, because they figured out how to work my camera in about two seconds, and took about 60 photos over the following half hour. They also decided it was necessary to re-paint my nails… only eight of my nails are red though, my two pinky nails are hot pink. It sort of resembles a manicure I might have given myself when I was five. We spent most of the afternoon hanging out with the girls… I think our relationship is more like a show poodle than a pet animal now. They styled and re-styled our hair, and they gave us bindis (as usual). With every style change, they “ooh” and “ahh” over us. “Super!” “Super, Auntie, super!” They drag us around to show all the girls. And then they do it again.
In evening, the boarders put on a show for Sister Maria that involved traditional dances and skits. At the end, Sister Maria asked Christi and I to dance for her… the girls took us up front and taught us some of their moves. Good thing I left my pride in America. The dancing continued on after dinner until Sister Maria ordered everyone to bed.
It’s been pretty rainy here these last few days so it actually feels pretty cool outside. The girls are still finding ways to make me sweat though. The little ones discovered yesterday that I can help them jump really high by lifting them up in the air. They made me do this over and over and over, until I couldn’t feel my arms. Even the older girls were asking me to lift them. It was probably the best arm workout I’ve had in a really long time.
Tomorrow is Monday, which means back to school. I’m hoping to finish learning names this week, since there are still a handful of names I don’t know. Too many kids either have the same name or a name I can’t pronounce. Although it’s made more difficult by the inconsistency of our class schedule. We always start off teaching 6th standard, but then it’s hit or miss what happens next. Sometimes we’re in 6th standard for almost two hours. Like I said, I don’t think there’s any word for “organization” in Kannada.
17 June 2010
So by “pretty cool here,” I actually mean it’s cold. It’s been raining pretty much every day now. Christi and I have been wearing sweaters and jackets. We also discovered that the nuns in Bangalore DID pack my sweatshirt and our books… in the outer pockets of my suitcase. Oops. Good thing I’m so observant. So anyways, Megan Kloet, I am now getting use out of the sweatshirt you laughed at me for bringing. =p
Oh, and for good measure, I’d like to note a correction here, if Christi hasn’t already. Sister Annie’s name is actually Sister Rani. It sounds exactly like “Sister Annie” because the ‘r’ of Sister is slurred into her name. So we haven’t sounded like idiots or anything for the past three weeks, don’t worry.
Anyways. On Tuesday morning at 11:00, all four of the Sisters left the grounds for the day to visit a shrine to St. Anthony. They of course gave us advance warning that they were abandoning us. Sister Rani made sure to come into our classroom at 10:59 to let us know. They were gone until dinner time, but luckily the teachers and college (16 and 17 year old) girls kept order in the place. Their absence meant we were down a teacher or two at the school, so entire classrooms of students were left to their own devices. I’m sure you can imagine the chaos that followed. When the Sisters returned, they gave Christi and I each a bracelet that they’d bought for us at the shrine. These women are so sweet, they’re always thinking about us and trying to make us feel at home. I think they’re more grateful to have us since they weren’t originally supposed to be receiving any summer volunteers. And yet, here we are.
Our evening tutoring sessions are starting to pick up. It’s just three girls now—Ambika, Ashwini, and Shylu (it was a little too slow for Lakshmi). We’re still working on the letters A through I, but we’re finally making progress. We taught them how to high-five this week, and they love it. We’ve been playing memory with them, and every time they get a pair, they immediately want a high-five. It’ silly, but it gets them excited about learning. Shylu’s attitude issues are getting better, too. She’s usually really sassy with us, but she’s been more giggly and smiley lately. Sister Maria told us she’s a relatively new boarding student and she was rescued from a slum environment, where community and family ties don’t exist in the way they do in other places. I can tell she’s really starting to make friends and fit in here, though.
Ok, we’re off to school, so more stories soon. Miss you all.
18 June 2010
I'd just like to quickly amend my last day's writing. Shylu is just as sassy as ever, as she demonstrated during last night's memory game. Also she's taken to sneezing on the cards that we use in the game... we think it's disgusting, therefore she thinks it's hilarious.
Oh yeah, also we ate THE spiciest meal in the world last night. I am never eating that vegetable again. Ever... seeing as how I couldn't keep it down. Waking up at 4:30 to puke my guts out was not on my list of things to do (I apologize if this is TMI for some of you). It was terrible. It was exponentially worse coming up than it was going down. Twelve hours later, and I am officially recovered.
Mrrrrr.
Tonight we finished supper relatively early, so we sat down with the older girls for a while as they were finishing theirs. They taught us how to say “Did you finish your supper?” and “I did” in Kannada. Yes, I’ve already forgotten how to say it. They reviewed the body parts—now I can remember the words for eyes, nose, mouth, lips, teeth, ears, throat, earrings, AND bracelet. I’m such a good student. One girl then began telling me the nicknames of her friends. Apparently EVERYONE in this convent has a nickname. The nicknames translate to English phrases like “black cow” and “black crow.” Shobha’s nickname (she’s our star speller) is pronounced like “goober” and translates to “owl.” I’m wondering if it’s because she’s smart so the girls are implying she’s a nerd (you know, like the owl-wearing-glasses image) . This would only work, however, if animals have the same representation in India as they do in America… and not many things are the same between these two countries.
The girls also enjoy dressing us up. Today Jyothi, a girl from 8th standard, gave us bangles to wear. They barely fit over our hands, so we almost couldn’t get them off. Sunday is the big dress-up day though. Last Sunday they put flowers in our hair, gave us necklaces, AND painted our nails. Sister Mary has warned us that they have the same thing planned for next Sunday. It’s like we’re their dolls or pet animals (sorry, Princess, now I know how you feel). Luckily it’s painless and they absolutely love it. It’s probably the best entertainment we have to offer.
13 June 2010
So yesterday was Sister Maria’s birthday. It was quite the affair. They served cake both before and with breakfast. The morning assembly at school included two dance performances, one by the youngest girls (all dressed in frilly pink dresses with glitter on their faces) and one by the oldest girls. Saturdays are only half days, so school was done by 11:30am. I had brought my camera with me, and after class the kids went a little crazy taking pictures. I think Indians have a predisposition to understanding technology, because they figured out how to work my camera in about two seconds, and took about 60 photos over the following half hour. They also decided it was necessary to re-paint my nails… only eight of my nails are red though, my two pinky nails are hot pink. It sort of resembles a manicure I might have given myself when I was five. We spent most of the afternoon hanging out with the girls… I think our relationship is more like a show poodle than a pet animal now. They styled and re-styled our hair, and they gave us bindis (as usual). With every style change, they “ooh” and “ahh” over us. “Super!” “Super, Auntie, super!” They drag us around to show all the girls. And then they do it again.
In evening, the boarders put on a show for Sister Maria that involved traditional dances and skits. At the end, Sister Maria asked Christi and I to dance for her… the girls took us up front and taught us some of their moves. Good thing I left my pride in America. The dancing continued on after dinner until Sister Maria ordered everyone to bed.
It’s been pretty rainy here these last few days so it actually feels pretty cool outside. The girls are still finding ways to make me sweat though. The little ones discovered yesterday that I can help them jump really high by lifting them up in the air. They made me do this over and over and over, until I couldn’t feel my arms. Even the older girls were asking me to lift them. It was probably the best arm workout I’ve had in a really long time.
Tomorrow is Monday, which means back to school. I’m hoping to finish learning names this week, since there are still a handful of names I don’t know. Too many kids either have the same name or a name I can’t pronounce. Although it’s made more difficult by the inconsistency of our class schedule. We always start off teaching 6th standard, but then it’s hit or miss what happens next. Sometimes we’re in 6th standard for almost two hours. Like I said, I don’t think there’s any word for “organization” in Kannada.
17 June 2010
So by “pretty cool here,” I actually mean it’s cold. It’s been raining pretty much every day now. Christi and I have been wearing sweaters and jackets. We also discovered that the nuns in Bangalore DID pack my sweatshirt and our books… in the outer pockets of my suitcase. Oops. Good thing I’m so observant. So anyways, Megan Kloet, I am now getting use out of the sweatshirt you laughed at me for bringing. =p
Oh, and for good measure, I’d like to note a correction here, if Christi hasn’t already. Sister Annie’s name is actually Sister Rani. It sounds exactly like “Sister Annie” because the ‘r’ of Sister is slurred into her name. So we haven’t sounded like idiots or anything for the past three weeks, don’t worry.
Anyways. On Tuesday morning at 11:00, all four of the Sisters left the grounds for the day to visit a shrine to St. Anthony. They of course gave us advance warning that they were abandoning us. Sister Rani made sure to come into our classroom at 10:59 to let us know. They were gone until dinner time, but luckily the teachers and college (16 and 17 year old) girls kept order in the place. Their absence meant we were down a teacher or two at the school, so entire classrooms of students were left to their own devices. I’m sure you can imagine the chaos that followed. When the Sisters returned, they gave Christi and I each a bracelet that they’d bought for us at the shrine. These women are so sweet, they’re always thinking about us and trying to make us feel at home. I think they’re more grateful to have us since they weren’t originally supposed to be receiving any summer volunteers. And yet, here we are.
Our evening tutoring sessions are starting to pick up. It’s just three girls now—Ambika, Ashwini, and Shylu (it was a little too slow for Lakshmi). We’re still working on the letters A through I, but we’re finally making progress. We taught them how to high-five this week, and they love it. We’ve been playing memory with them, and every time they get a pair, they immediately want a high-five. It’ silly, but it gets them excited about learning. Shylu’s attitude issues are getting better, too. She’s usually really sassy with us, but she’s been more giggly and smiley lately. Sister Maria told us she’s a relatively new boarding student and she was rescued from a slum environment, where community and family ties don’t exist in the way they do in other places. I can tell she’s really starting to make friends and fit in here, though.
Ok, we’re off to school, so more stories soon. Miss you all.
18 June 2010
I'd just like to quickly amend my last day's writing. Shylu is just as sassy as ever, as she demonstrated during last night's memory game. Also she's taken to sneezing on the cards that we use in the game... we think it's disgusting, therefore she thinks it's hilarious.
Oh yeah, also we ate THE spiciest meal in the world last night. I am never eating that vegetable again. Ever... seeing as how I couldn't keep it down. Waking up at 4:30 to puke my guts out was not on my list of things to do (I apologize if this is TMI for some of you). It was terrible. It was exponentially worse coming up than it was going down. Twelve hours later, and I am officially recovered.
Mrrrrr.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Up to June 15, 2010
June 15, 2010:
It’s getting progressively colder. That’s interesting because everyone told us how hot it would be, and even more interesting because most of my clothes are summer clothes. So now I’m sitting under my sheet/blanket with work pants and a hoodie, attempting to be bundled up. It’s been raining for…forever. I can’t remember when this weather started. But it’s been bad for a couple of days. I’m probably wearing sneakers to school. Sneakers with work pants. Fashion win…right? Oh well, I’m in the third world, so I guess fashion is relative. Which reminds me…because I’ve stopped wearing Indian clothes due to cold weather, the girls kind of give me funny looks, like a “Why would you wear that?” look. But it’s cold, and I’m warm, so it’s okay. Oh but back to the point of sneakers. I’m wearing sneakers because when it rains, the runoff is not rainwater. The runoff is water with buffalo and cow feces. I’m actually not really sure if the animals that the kids call buffalos are actually buffalos. They look like bulls to me.
In terms of the students, last night we tried to play a real game of memory with our three special students…the ones that are struggling. They are: Ashwini, Shylu, and Ambika. I don’t really know Ashwini’s story yet. Shylu is from the slums, and has quite the personality (not in a good way). Typical conversations with her sound as follows:
Me: “Shylu, write big R.”
Shylu: “No.”
Me: “Shylu, you have to write big R. There is no choice.”
Shylu: “No.” (scrunches face, shakes hand, indicating no.)
Me: “You have to do what I tell you. WRITE BIG R.”
Shylu: (walks away with sassy look on her face)
Me: “SHYLU, get back here NOW and write BIG R!”
Shylu: (sits down in her bench spot)
Me: (follow her to seat) “Okay, I followed you. Write Big R 40 times now.”
Shylu: (still refuses, but the realizes I’m not leaving until she does it, and begins to write big R)
She’s new here…so we try to cut her some slack, but homegirl has an attitude problem. Understandable, but still sometimes frustrating. Very frustrating. =p
Then there’s Ambika. She was a rag picker, and India’s version of Child Protective Services picked her up and brought her here. She hasn’t been to school in over a year. It’s easy to see this. She really struggles in class. But she’s a really sweet girl, very thankful to be learning. But we have our challenges with her too…
Me: “Ambika, what card is this?” (Showing the letter H, cards only include A-I)
Ambika: “C”
Me: “No…try again.”
Ambika: “D,E,F,G,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z”
Me: “I think you’re guessing.”
Ambika: (Laughs)
Then there’s Ashwini. I wonder if there’s something not right with her. She’s a very sweet girl, but she’s definitely in her own world.
Me: “Ashwini, what letter?”
Ashwini: (Laughs like she just heard the funniest joke)
Me: “Letter?”
Ashwini: (Laughs more)
Ashwini and Ambika are very difficult to understand, and even harder to get to pronounce words correctly. P’s, B’s, and F’s are pretty much lost on them.
Yup, sometimes I feel like we are teaching a special education class, which is a greattt way for two people who don’t know anything about teaching to start out. =p It makes for some great stories.
Oh, and I did my first official load of laundry yesterday. It involved a pajama shirt that I wore for approximately 2 weeks, my pink pajama pants, and 5 pairs of underwear (Do the math on that one.). =p Actually, underwear isn’t really included in laundry in my mind because that is washed daily. Although as for showers….that’s a whole different story. Well, I guess I could go into two stories here. A) My clothes are probably going to be wet for the next year seeing as it has been raining and there’s no sun.
And B) I love the scary metal coil that we use to heat our water. I started using it after I got sick because well….cold showers might be the reason I’m sick in the first place. They make showering so much more enjoyable. You hold the coil in the water for like 7 minutes (very precise) and it gets hot. It’s so great, I think I’ll shower every other day! =p (really, cold showers were terrible. It was freezing. Merh)
Okay, wellllll, the school day is about to start. Funfunfun!
It’s getting progressively colder. That’s interesting because everyone told us how hot it would be, and even more interesting because most of my clothes are summer clothes. So now I’m sitting under my sheet/blanket with work pants and a hoodie, attempting to be bundled up. It’s been raining for…forever. I can’t remember when this weather started. But it’s been bad for a couple of days. I’m probably wearing sneakers to school. Sneakers with work pants. Fashion win…right? Oh well, I’m in the third world, so I guess fashion is relative. Which reminds me…because I’ve stopped wearing Indian clothes due to cold weather, the girls kind of give me funny looks, like a “Why would you wear that?” look. But it’s cold, and I’m warm, so it’s okay. Oh but back to the point of sneakers. I’m wearing sneakers because when it rains, the runoff is not rainwater. The runoff is water with buffalo and cow feces. I’m actually not really sure if the animals that the kids call buffalos are actually buffalos. They look like bulls to me.
In terms of the students, last night we tried to play a real game of memory with our three special students…the ones that are struggling. They are: Ashwini, Shylu, and Ambika. I don’t really know Ashwini’s story yet. Shylu is from the slums, and has quite the personality (not in a good way). Typical conversations with her sound as follows:
Me: “Shylu, write big R.”
Shylu: “No.”
Me: “Shylu, you have to write big R. There is no choice.”
Shylu: “No.” (scrunches face, shakes hand, indicating no.)
Me: “You have to do what I tell you. WRITE BIG R.”
Shylu: (walks away with sassy look on her face)
Me: “SHYLU, get back here NOW and write BIG R!”
Shylu: (sits down in her bench spot)
Me: (follow her to seat) “Okay, I followed you. Write Big R 40 times now.”
Shylu: (still refuses, but the realizes I’m not leaving until she does it, and begins to write big R)
She’s new here…so we try to cut her some slack, but homegirl has an attitude problem. Understandable, but still sometimes frustrating. Very frustrating. =p
Then there’s Ambika. She was a rag picker, and India’s version of Child Protective Services picked her up and brought her here. She hasn’t been to school in over a year. It’s easy to see this. She really struggles in class. But she’s a really sweet girl, very thankful to be learning. But we have our challenges with her too…
Me: “Ambika, what card is this?” (Showing the letter H, cards only include A-I)
Ambika: “C”
Me: “No…try again.”
Ambika: “D,E,F,G,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z”
Me: “I think you’re guessing.”
Ambika: (Laughs)
Then there’s Ashwini. I wonder if there’s something not right with her. She’s a very sweet girl, but she’s definitely in her own world.
Me: “Ashwini, what letter?”
Ashwini: (Laughs like she just heard the funniest joke)
Me: “Letter?”
Ashwini: (Laughs more)
Ashwini and Ambika are very difficult to understand, and even harder to get to pronounce words correctly. P’s, B’s, and F’s are pretty much lost on them.
Yup, sometimes I feel like we are teaching a special education class, which is a greattt way for two people who don’t know anything about teaching to start out. =p It makes for some great stories.
Oh, and I did my first official load of laundry yesterday. It involved a pajama shirt that I wore for approximately 2 weeks, my pink pajama pants, and 5 pairs of underwear (Do the math on that one.). =p Actually, underwear isn’t really included in laundry in my mind because that is washed daily. Although as for showers….that’s a whole different story. Well, I guess I could go into two stories here. A) My clothes are probably going to be wet for the next year seeing as it has been raining and there’s no sun.
And B) I love the scary metal coil that we use to heat our water. I started using it after I got sick because well….cold showers might be the reason I’m sick in the first place. They make showering so much more enjoyable. You hold the coil in the water for like 7 minutes (very precise) and it gets hot. It’s so great, I think I’ll shower every other day! =p (really, cold showers were terrible. It was freezing. Merh)
Okay, wellllll, the school day is about to start. Funfunfun!
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