Again, I’m trying to update more, but it’s been tough. It’s not that I don’t have the time; it’s more that things just come up and it’s easy enough to put off. I’ve been handwriting the posts first for the most part, but I think I may scrap that to save time and have more frequent updates. Anyways, as promised I’m going to write a bit about what I’m doing here.
As of right now, we’ve been working as it comes. I’ve been struggling a bit to carve out a role for myself here. Emily has taken to sitting in on classes for the morning, but I’ve found that this doesn’t really work as well for me. Basically, my presence is a distraction for the kids, and I have to sit in the last row for the kids to see the board. Also the desks are horrifically small for somebody of my size (check out Emily’s blog where there’s a picture of the two of us and a 16 year old Indian. They’re not big people), so I’ve taken to doing some administrative tasks like compiling information on the kids in the morning. Lunch is around 1:15 and then I typically go to a class afterwards because I can bear sitting in a small desk for about an hour. Even then, I’m not much help by being there and act more as moral support
After school is sort of where we can come into our own. Last week we did amateur eye exams with a chart placed 20 feet away. These are very simple vision tests. This was an adventure, especially considering so many of the kids are illiterate. This was compounded the fact that, while the boys are relatively easy to control, with the girls it’s complete anarchy (more on that later). If we did everything right, there’s a chance that there are some kids who are legitimately blind in one eye here. Part of me feels like some of it was just them being un-cooperative as well. If there are a few blind kids, it makes me wonder how they’ve gotten through school without anybody noticing and saying something.
Another thing that we have been doing is checking on the report cards of a group of kids who are either orphans or have parents that don’t show up to parents days. I was amazed how much taking 15 minutes of my time to go over their grades boosted their self esteem. I felt bad, because I had literally 20 other kids ask me to check their grades, but it just wasn’t possible to do that for everybody. The next step in the program is to run sort of a remedial class with a few of the 3rd graders who are failing. The Brother basically told me that they are the toughest kids in the school, so it will be a challenge, but they’ll benefit from the attention.
Back to the girls. I’ve struggled with them for two reasons. The first is that, like I said, if you give them an inch they’ll take a mile. They’ll basically abuse any privilege you give them or any favor you’re willing to do. An example of this is when I had a bottle of water, one of the little girls asked me if she could take a drink. I said yes, and she did. Then 20 other girls came rushing over, mobbing me for my bottle. I didn’t have a problem with giving a drink to one person, but when the 20 girls mob me for a drink when the water filter, which provides safe drinking water, wasn’t even 100 yards away, it’s a completely different story. When Emily and I were doing eye testing, the boys could be kept relatively under control. We could get them to sit down and stay somewhat quiet. The girls, on the other hand, would crowd around us, talk loudly and help each other cheat on the eye exam.
The other thing that is tough is how touchy feely the all are. All of the kids here are needy for all sorts of affection, but the girls are very, very touchy. To the point that I’m very uncomfortable. Basically, if this were an American school, the level of physical contact that the girls try to have would not only be inappropriate, but would get me fired. The addition of a mini plague of chicken pox going around doesn’t make me any more comfortable.
Brother
I feel compelled to write a bit about my supervisor, Brother Joseph. He seems like a great man and has been extremely hospitable to both me and Emily. What’s interesting about him is how his approach to the work he does is sort of shocking, considering he’s a Brother in the Catholic Church. I’ll probably write about him at length later, but during a meeting he mentioned to us that he wants to start a sex-ed program about healthy practices, HIV/AIDS and safer sex. This was kind of a surprise since the Catholic Church isn’t notoriously fond of contraception. But his attitude is that the kids are from the streets, so they’ve seen it all before. Many have been physically abused, sexually abused and the children of prostitutes, so there’s no point in hiding anything from them. He just asked us to be as honest with them as possible, since they’re going to have questions when the program starts. He told us that there were problems last year when he tried to run this program. When the kids had questions for some of the staff members, they were told that it was sinful and they shouldn’t talk about it. That year’s program was, of course, ruined.
Indo-American Relations
It’s been an interesting week for Indo-American relations. This time, we’ll start with the bad. I went into the city on Saturday, and walked around for a bit. As I was walking in a relatively un-crowded area (relative for India), I see that I’m walking head on with a guy about 20 feet away from me. As he’s coming towards me, I decide to defer and move over so we can pass each other, but he moves in the same direction and is still coming head on at me. As we pass each he takes his lap top bag and swings it so that he hits me in the leg. I was just absolutely taken aback by this, as it was deliberate. It didn’t hurt, but I was just shocked. Once I processed everything, I tried to say something to him, but he had absolutely zero interest in sticking around to jaw with me.
Now, for the good. Friday was Independence Day in India, so some of the guys that I hang out with at a local Bar/Restaurant decided to have a party. It was pretty cool, albeit reminiscent of freshman year in Davidson. About 10 of us went to this guy Kaji’s house, and hung out in a room about the size of a Davidson common room. There was bad music, food, and lots of hanging out. The only difference from freshman year was that I was, at 22, by far the youngest person there.
On Friday, they had mentioned that they hang out at the bar early on Sundays, so I decided to stop in and have a soda—I had to work later in the day. There were two new guys hanging out with them, and one of them had brought lunch. Not only was he kind enough to give me some of the crab curry that his father had made, he gave me some of the best pieces. And he had just met me. It’s weird about how I’m more conscious about hospitality now that I’m so far away from everything familiar.