our first two weeks

So we arrived in India in the wee hours of the morning on May 25th, after a full’s day worth of traveling. The flight from Paris to Bangalore was a little over nine hours, but thankfully, unlike our Boston-Paris flight, we had seats with personal TV’s. Their programs even included Love Actually… thank you, Air France. Anyways, after collecting our luggage, we met Sister Mercy and Sister Sheela in the arrivals area. They greeted us and took us to their driver’s car, and we began our hour long journey to the convent. It was dark, but we could make out some of the scenery on our way—colorful houses, dilapidated buildings, piles of trash, empty market places, and stray dogs. Since there were few drivers on the road at this hour, it wasn’t a true Indian driving experience.

We were given two small, simple rooms and told to “wake up whenever.” We only managed to sleep in till about 6:30. Breakfast was awkward, most of the nuns in Bangalore spoke English in such a heavy Indian accent that we couldn’t understand them AND of course, there was the funeral. One of the sisters, Sister Shyby, had passed away from cancer mere days before our arrival and everyone in the state of Karnataka came to the Bangalore convent for the funeral. It was a drawn out and very sad ceremony… a depressing first day. Christi and I felt really awkward. The funeral was the only thing we had to do that day, other than “rest” as we were ordered.

Day two brought more resting (which was beginning to get old) and a trip into the city to buy more weather appropriate (read: Indian) clothes. The drive there and the drive back were two of the most terrifying experiences of my life. There are no road rules in India. We’ve yet to see dividers or barriers or lines on the road. There’s no such thing as a turn signal here… if you want to turn, you honk. You also honk if you want to pass, if you want to speed up, slow down, change lanes, stop, go, etc, etc. You get the idea. We had a couple close calls, including almost getting run over by a motorbike in the marketplace. Nevertheless, we survived. And we bought clothes.

In the meantime, our final destination was changed. The nuns in Bangalore kept telling us how hot Mattampally would be… “The temperature in Andhra Pradesh is 50 degrees.” “Um, Celsius?” Yeah, do the math on that one. Christi and I were frightened. On the day we were supposed to leave, Sister Mercy told us that they had decided to save us. Instead, she was sending us to Hassan, a “special place” about 3 hours away.

On the 28th, we left at 4am to begin our journey to Hassan. We boarded a bus, which was a 5 hour ride, not 3. The bus resembled a gutted out school bus, with even more uncomfortable seats bolted in place. The ride was uphill the whole way, since Hassan seems to be up in the mountains. Consequently, there’s more of a breeze here than in Bangalore, which is nice. It’s also really beautiful, it’s just generally hard to appreciate since it’s so hot here (not that I’m complaining, apparently it could be worse).

There are four nuns that live in the convent here: Sister Mary, Sister Maria, Sister Ann, and Sister Annie. I wonder if they did that name thing on purpose. Sister Ann is the old wise one, and Sister Annie is a very young and newly professed Sister. She really can’t be that much older than us. Sister Mary and Sister Maria seem to be in their early 30’s. All of them speak much clearer English than the nuns in Bangalore. They take really good care of us.

The school itself enrolls something like 80 students, most of whom live here in the convent as boarders. There are few boys in the school, and they aren’t allowed to be boarders. The kids range in age from about 3 to 17, and they’re here for a variety of different reasons. Some are orphans, some are from broken families, some were rescued from child labor. Overall, their knowledge of English is very limited, even the high school girls.

Christi and I taught a couple classes the first weekend, but our real teaching began on Monday, May 31st. We teach five classes each morning, to the high school girls, 6th/7th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd in blocks of about 45 minutes. At least, this is how it’s supposed to work, but there’s really no such thing as organization at this school. Sometimes a 45 minute period ends up being close to two hours. How that happens, I really don’t know. All the kids are loud and seem to have ADD, but the little ones are the hardest to teach. Discipline is impossible to enforce since they don’t understand our English.

After lunch, from about 2pm onwards, we are free to rest… and plan classes and correct assignments, of course. Afternoon tea takes place at 4:30, which my personal favorite meal of the day. The sweets they give us are really good. In general the food here is better than the food was in Bangalore. They feed us potatoes, so I’m happy. The nuns tease us for not eating enough. Apparently we “eat like cats.” My cats eat a lot though, so I don’t get it. At any rate, I’m not going hungry, so no need to worry, Mom.

The sun sets really early here, or at least earlier than I would expect for summer, at about 630 or 7pm. It makes it easier to go to bed early though. We generally wake up at 530 or 6am to get ready for daily mass here, which begins at 630am. Mass is in the local language and the priest is kind of scary, so it’s an odd experience. Last Sunday he yelled at parishioners during mass and even carried out a conversation with a few men. Well, that’s what we gathered anyway, it’s all very confusing.

It’s not Friday, and the first week of school is about to come to a close. Not quite yet though, because there is school on Saturdays here. India doesn’t believe in weekends. Apparently nothing of significance really happens the first week of school here, but the syllabi will finally begin next week. We have 8 full weeks of school to go, and we’ve been planning little mini-units to try to increase their vocabulary. Key word here is “try.” These kids are sneaky little con-artists and are really good at avoiding learning things… or pretending that they know things. They’ve even tried to turn English classes into teach-Allison-and-Christi-to-speak-Kannada classes. Kannada is the local language here in the state of Karnataka. The little girls tried to teach us body parts. The only one I’m good at remembering is the word for eyes because it sounds like “Carnot” as in Carnot Cycle or whatever that was from thermodynamics. It’s hard enough to remember all their names. Scratch that, it’s nearly impossible because so many of them have names that sound alike.

The girls love to play games with us, but they’re more than content to just hold our hands. They love how if they pinch our skin, it turns pink… this hasn’t gotten old yet, although I’m hoping it wears off soon. They call us “Auntie,” and every time they see us we’re bombarded by “Good morning, Auntie!” and “Good afternoon, Auntie!”… well, at least they’ve got some words down. They’re sweet though, and I suppose it’s a good thing they’re so easily amused, since it’s not like Christi and I are professional teachers.

As for us, we’re surviving. I don’t think I’ll ever feel clean again… at least until August. Our “showers” consist of buckets of water, which really isn’t that bad, provided mosquitoes don’t start breeding in our bathrooms. Christi and I get nightmares from our malaria meds, so she insisted upon sleeping in the same bed. When the nuns found out, they thought it was hilarious and moved us into a double room. We gave it a test run last night, and something tells me it’s going to work out. I’ll let you know.

More soon. <3