June 5, 2010-June 12, 2010

So I haven’t been blogging because I think Google was suspicious when I started signing into this gmail account from India……anyway, I’m backkkk. Yay. It's all for Shea that I returned actually. Kidding!




June 5, 2010:



“One can cross the ocean without wetting one’s legs, but one cannot live a life without wetting one’s eyes.” These are the very poignant words of that yelling priest I told you about earlier. The one that turned out to be nice, if you remember. Just a little food for thought. But who are we kidding here, I am no philosophy major, so I can only dwell on philosophical ideas for a bit.



Let’s talk science. Something a little more real. So ummm, as of yesterday, I was concerned that there was going to be a Leishmaniasis breakout (shout out to anyone who took parasitology). But yeah, there were two kids with mysterious injuries. They continue to be mysterious. And untreated. Doesn’t seem like anyone is too concerned, which concerns me. There isn’t a concept of germ transmission. Needless to say, I am a hypochondriac, and so this is freaking me out. I have neosporined myself to death, and put bandages on EVERYTHING. My hands might need like, glove sized bandages with the amount that I’m washing my hands. Feel free to send Purel. Bodywash sized Purel.





I think there are some major cultural gaps that I don’t understand. Rather, I KNOW there are some cultural gaps I don’t get. Especially with like domestic and child abuse. I tried to ask if there are laws protecting people against abuse, but it was lost in translation. But yeah, so they were telling us about this girl Margaret. Margaret’s story isn’t that unique. Her dad is a drunkard and beats her mom. This girl is like, one of our smartest students. She’s like ten years old, and she can read years beyond the other kids in her class. She’s a genius. I guess she has asthma, and occasionally has panic attacks, from what it sounds like. She gets worried about her mom getting beaten by her dad. She thinks she’ll get hurt. My reaction to hearing that is that having panic attacks about something like that sounds really normal for a girl in her situation. It makes sense that she’s freaking out about something like that. In fact, I’m pretty amazed that Margaret is put together as much as she is. But the nuns I guess think that Margaret is too haughty, rather than thinking “wow look at how far this girl is coming.” Instead, Margaret gets scolded a lot. It makes sense at times because she is a little pushy, but I guess it’s just weird to me that the kids still make fun of her for crying.





Anyway, we think we are in a monsoon right now. There is rainwater seeping from under my door, leaking through the windows, and flooding everywhere else. Luckily, there aren’t any holes in our ceiling….that we’ve noticed. Yet. But this rain explosion definitely explains why there are wartime trenches EVERYWHERE in India. There doesn’t appear to be much drainage. It’s all collecting. There’s also thunder and lightning. I just pray that this isn’t THE flood, and that we don’t need to start an Ark. Noah started his Ark before the floods. Could we finish it before we would need it? Probably not, even as professional Irish procrastinators. All we have is cement. No wood.



(I apologize for this, but I’m reading the book “The Year of Living Biblically” by AJ Jacobs. Pretty funny when you’re living with some of the most religious kids and adults ever. Books are also more interesting to read in India.)



Anyway, the kids are pretty entertaining still. Except for the fact that possibly half of them are hyperactive. But it’s okay. Kids are kids, and so they’re fun. Indian children are much bolder than American children. Or rather, these Indian children are much bolder than the average child. They are always trying to tell us what to do. Always trying to become the teacher. They have tried many MANY times to trick us into letting them be the teacher. But you have to put your foot down…..which generally prompts a fight between students.



We gave our first two spelling tests yesterday. The high school girls and the sixth standard kids were our lucky test subjects. The high school girls were a riot because they continuously attempted to cheat. I had to repeat multiple times, “EYES ON YOUR OWN PAPERS.” “STOP LOOKING AT YOUR NEIGHBOR’S PAPERS.” And my personal favorite, “I AM NOT AFRAID TO TURN YOU IN TO SISTER MARIA.” She is definitely the regulator. Sr. Ann seems like a regulator too, but she’s a lot older than the other nuns. Anyway, both classes mostly failed. Cheating was useless. We told Sr. Maria, and she literally whacked the kids on the head. Really loudly. It kind of scared me, I’m not going to lie.



We also gave the kids “American candies” yesterday, aka Lifesavers. This is very ironic to me, as I despise Lifesavers. Apparently, all American candies are called chocolates in India, regardless of if they are made of chocolate or not. At first, I thought the kids just didn’t understand, but then the nuns called it chocolate too.



Okay, I’m sure I’ll have more to write about sooooon. As long as the flood subsides. =p







June 12, 2010:



Today was Sr. Maria’s birthday. It was basically like a national holiday in Hassan. The day started off strong, with cake, chocolates, and this potato dish served in a rice flour wrap, one of my favorite foods here. Lunch was good too, curry and rice, the typical meal. Then came tea. There was this soup dish served for tea. Tea is usually a time to serve sweet snacks, dessert time basically. Well, the soup is only served on special occasions. It was unlike anything I’ve ever had. It had noodles in it, and initially tasted really sugary. I can’t really do justice describing it, but I’m not sure I want it again. For dinner, we ate with all of the kids, and we were served this white curry thing with rice. I think it had milk in it, but I probably also won’t be eating that again.



This completely new, foreign, and kind of strange food trying stage actually started yesterday for Allison and I. Imagine 100 minnows. 100 minnows that have all had parts of their body removed, but their eyes remaining. Imagine them in a red sauce. They are bony. They kind of looked bloody. They had their skin on still. Allison and I tried that yesterday. It was very different. We were told to eat the bones….I hope I can’t get sick via eating fish bones. But I figure cats do it, so we can too, right??



Before dinner tonight, there was a show that the kids put on for Sr. Maria. There was traditional dancing and contemporary dancing. It was great until the end of the show. Well, the end was great too. However, no one told us that we were going to be part of the show. The grand finale. Yup, so Allison and I were coaxed up to the stage to dance for everyone. When we finished everyone kept saying, “Great! Great!” Which I think is codeword for, “Silly American!” It was fun though, regardless of our bad dancing.



The girls have become a lot more comfortable with us in the last few days, especially after they realized that we had a lot of electronics. They love to be filmed on my video camera and have pictures taken of them. They also love to take pictures of everything, including pictures that are on our computers. They are so completely fascinated, and it’s hilarious. The first time any of the kids see the camera, they kind of just stare blankly at the lens, trying to figure out what it’s doing. When they figure out that they’re being recorded, they spring into action, which means they try to elbow their friends and classmates out of the screen. It’s pretty hilarious.



Speaking of fighting, as you’ve read in Allison’s blog already, these kids are great at fighting. I mean, they put MMA fighters to shame. We’ve started to implement “time-out” because our voices will give out if we have to continue yelling. Time-out involves a brown sheet of paper. The kids have to sit on it with their heads to the wall until the end of class if they fight or act out. Today we had no kids make time-out, but yesterday, one boy earned the honors of being our first time-out. He sat there for approximately 15 minutes, and it actually worked, I think.



Overall, the kids are really fun. They are like our fashion advisors, always telling us what to wear, redoing our hair, and sticking bindis on our foreheads. Yes, we wear bindis often. No, not all of these kids are Hindus. Many are Catholic, so yeah…it’s all in the name of fashion.



Not all of our students are girls, though. We have a handful of boys, though they are vastly outnumbered. However, we have already been invited to the homes of two of the boys. They are little stinkers and guilt tripped us for not going to 6:30 AM mass (which is not in English). But they are actually really cool. It’s just really funny when a twelve year old is giving you a sad face because you didn’t make it to Mass. They’re smart. They know what they’re doing.



Which reminds me, I was sick in India for like a week. I eventually had to concede to going to an Indian doctor. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced. First of all, the scale was vastly wrong in the weight it told me. I might have lost like a few pounds here so far, but I have not lost 40 pounds since I arrived here. So this was the first thing that scared me. Okay, now, when you think doctors office, you think of like a big building, something like a Kaiser that is it’s own building. It’s generally not attached to anything, or if it is in a building, the office itself will have some type of privacy. Well, the Indian doctor was just another shop in Hassan. Other than the green cross on the sign, you could not tell this was a doctor’s office. The doctor’s actual office and the examining room were the same room. There wasn’t paper on the bed too. I just remembered that. The scale was a clearly broken bathroom scale.



Anyway, I was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection, which makes me think of cats, because our cats used to get those a lot. He prescribed me some meds to take, five pills, to be exact. I asked specifically, “Will these affect my pulse? I have a heart problem, and I can’t take anything that will raise my pulse.” He replied, “No.” So I was like, “Okayyy….” Anyway, I told my parents about the drugs, and they immediately Google’d it. Turns out all of the pills he gave me would affect my pulse, so that was fun. Good thing my parents checked on it. I didn’t have the heart (good pun…kind of) to tell the nuns what happened with the medicines, so I went with the story that I took them all. (Luckily I recovered, so I didn’t need to address the issue again.) Another happy ending was that six pills cost ten rupees. If you’re not familiar with Indian currency, then I will let you know that ten rupees is less than one quarter. I told Marisa Truong this story, and she nicely pointed out that the meds cost less than a quarter dog.



Also, in an afterthought of both food and weight stories, I know I could not have lost that much weight because all I’ve been eating is rice. A lot of rice. I was under the impression that the Indian diet would allow me to lose weight, but false. Not that I care, because the food is really good! Minus those last few encounters….



Anyway, back to the slew of stories. So on Friday, we were teaching class. Business as usual. It was about 9:30 am, and we were instructing the high school girls on grammar. Grammar is a struggle for a lot of these girls, with the exception of two of them who are exceptionally fast learners. We were trying to teach everyone to capitalize, or use big letters, at the beginning of sentences, and to also punctuate all sentences with “full-stops”, exclamation points, and question marks. This is not the point of the story. During class, one of the girls passed out on her bench, fell off the bench, took it with her, and then gashed her head. AND then continued to not wake up at first. At first, I was really afraid she was dead from some unknown illness or something. I went over, and saw that she was slowly coming back into consciousness. What a relief! We stood her and her bench back up, and walked her over to her bunk across the hall. I ran to get Sr. Mary, and she came back to look at the girl. She said that it was probably because she came to the convent malnourished. This girl is REALLY skinny. Skinnier than anyone I know. It also doesn’t help that she wears these really big and heavy clothes that make her look even skinner. That might have even contributed to the episode. Anyway, so that was really sad to see happen. Her family, if she has any, wasn’t able to provide enough for her.



I’ll have to think of more stories sooooon.