"What does 'jam' mean?"

I'll keep this one short for a change -

It's so easy for me to forget the backgrounds of the girls I'm working with until little incidents remind me. Two days ago, I asked my nine 8th grade students to read a short story which contained the word "jam." I asked them if they knew what it was, and no one had any idea. I never realized eating bread and jam was a luxury...

So, I bought a loaf of bread and a big bottle of jam. I'll get the verdict on the taste today. Buying them food is also presents little conundrums - do I buy it just for my 8th grade students? All 8th graders? The whole school?

I also bought the 8th grade girls books. The books goes through the alphabet, numbers, birds, animals, etc. I gave them the book during the beginning of class and half way through, a girl hesitantly asked me how much they owed me. They're the ones low on money and yet, they're willing to pay. The books were only Rs. 18 each, so it was no financial burden and even if they cost more, what's the SOL grant money good for?

So that's the 8th graders and then there are the 40 10th graders. Where do I even start? Two days ago, I asked if anyone had trouble reading or writing and of course, be it because of shyness or arrogance, no one raises their hand. So, I give them a little pop quiz the next day. I read 4 questions about a story we had read and ask them to write their answers in full sentences. Not one single person can write a sentence properly. I got things like "The children was were the giants garden play."

40 students who have been studying English for 2 years now, and none of them know how to form a sentence, so what exactly are they being taught? I still can't get over it. They keep telling me they want to learn to speak English. I've decided they need to learn to write sentences before they can speak in sentences.

So, here are the goals for the 1 month I'm here:

1. The 9-8th grade students should be on the same reading level as everyone else, which means reading on a 1st grade level.
2. The 10th graders should be able to form declarative sentences.

I think that's achievable....

P.S. Pictures of the school coming soon.

Me...A Teacher...?

I haven't updated this in a while, but getting on the internet here is quite a nuisance.

The sickness subsided after a day, but my stomach remained on the uncomfortable side. It's all okay now and I'm back to eating food I shouldn't be eating. It's all delicious. And there's this pizza place in town which, surprisingly, makes legit tasting pizza! The subs though...not as good.

As far as actual work is concerned, last week was incredibly slow. I was barely at the school, Sardar Kanya Vidyalaya (SKV), because I had nothing to do. I did receive a book last week about the school and its programs, and it had the girl's daily schedule. Here's what it looks like:

4:45 am – Wake up, write prayers in the notebook
5:15 am – Mass-prayer
5:30 am – Yoga
6:00 am – Eat refreshments
6:45 am – Clean according to what batch one’s in. This includes cooking/cleaning dishes and the kitchen, watering plants/cleaning the garden, cleaning classrooms and the teacher's office, cleaning school grounds, or cleaning bathrooms.
7:15 am – Bath and wash clothes
8:15 am – Eat breakfast and finish cleaning
9:55 am – Begin school prayer
10:10 am – 5:00 pm – School
5:15 pm – Evening cleaning according to batches
6:00 pm – Eat dinner and wash dishes
7:15 pm – Evening prayer
7:30 pm – Homework
9:15 pm – Bedtime


This is the schedule Monday-Friday, every week of the school year, unless it's one of the 4 celebrated holidays. It's an absolutely absurd schedule that requires a work ethic I don't even think I'm capable of having. They girls at SKV, on the other hand, are forced to go through it because they were born into a poor household. It's the worst for the 10th graders. They have to take an exam given by the state at the end of the year, so they have to stay before school and after school to prepare for the exam. Upon passing the exam, they can choose which area they want to focus on for the last two years of high school: science, arts, or commerce. The girls at SKV, though, are urged to score well so they can get accepted to a good school after they graduate from SKV. So, they're literally taught the test.

It's a really frustrating state-wide system. The kids are forced to choose which area they want to go into at an early age, and the teachers are forced to teach to pass the exam. Outside of SKV, when the kids aren't in school, they're in tutoring classes. And the academic atmosphere is so competitive that kids are being put in tutoring as early as 2nd grade. It's absurd.

Anyway, my job at the school from now on will be to teach English to 8th graders and 10th graders. All girls take English classes during school time. For about 10 girls in the 8th grade, though, English is a huge challenge. They come from really rural areas where schooling is incredibly poor. The 10 girls I'll be working with literally don't know how to read English, which is a huge problem given that they're put in a class of about 40 girls everyday and are asked to read and comprehend writing that is well beyond their level. So, I'm stuck Googling "how to teach reading" and still left clueless. We worked on phonics yesterday, so hopefully reading simple Dr. Suess poems won't be too much of a leap.

As far as the 10th grade girls go, they simply don't know grammar, but are more interested in reading stories. They're fun to work with though, and they're mischievous, especially this one girl, Mamta. She loves to talk but hates to focus. She keeps asking me for my phone number in the U.S. so they can keep in touch with me once I leave. I'm there for well over a month, though, so what's the hurry?

Everyone at SKV, even after 3 weeks, still keeps staring at me and laughing. At this point, I'm starting to think they're laughing at me rather than laughing out of amusement for seeing someone new. I don't really mind - many of them have rarely been in the city, let alone seen a girl wearing shorts. They other day, I mentioned I had learned Italian. They asked me what that was and then asked me to say something. So, I said 'Ciao. Come stai?' and now, everytime I enter the classroom, they shout ciao!

So, in short, my SOL placement is finally beginning to pick up but as far as the research part of the project goes, I'm still no where. My adviser was supposed to call me 'early this week'...whenever that is.

In other news, monsoon was supposed to start yesterday, but word is it may not come until next week. I can't wait until it rains...I'm getting really angsty at this point. I haven't seen rain in over a month and I want the heat to subside a little. Just one more week...

Ugh Oh...

I spent the last weekend in a beautiful state of food heaven. Pani puris, dosa, various Indian desserts, ras, and even a latte and a doughnut to satiate my quest to find American junk food in India. No, it was not a mango doughnut - just a chocolate one - but I wasn't laughed at. At the cafe, I saw my second person with curly hair!

Anyway, the bliss only lasted for the weekend. I awoke today in a seemingly normal state but as soon as I had breakfast, diarrhea came to mock me for my eating party over the weekend. After lunch came nausea and vomiting, and both visited again after I had water three hours later. Dinner is staying put so far, so perhaps that's a good sign. It was inevitable...and the food was so worth it. Where's Pepto Bismol when you need it, though?

A Slum-Free Future?

During the elections last month, a new party called Congress won the majority of seats on almost all levels, so the newspapers have been filled with upcoming changes in the government. A woman by the name of Prathibha Patil was named the new President and one of the promises she has made is to make India slum-free in the next five years. It's certainly progressive, ambitious, and necessary, but also completely unrealistic in five years. Regardless, the motivations are good; Kant would be proud. Let's see where it goes in five years.

Here's the article:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Will-India-be-slum-free-in-5-years/articleshow/4618346.cms

The project begins...sorta

I made my first visit to Swaraj Ashram on Monday. It’s my community partner for my SOL project. There’s a residential school at the ashram for 8^th – 10^th grade tribal girls and I was originally going to be looking at factors that motivate these girls to attend high school. After going through the annoying IRB process, it turns out I’ll have to significantly change my project. My adviser is not responding to my e-mails, so I’m not really sure what I’ll be doing here for the next 2 months. Fortunately, I brought a camcorder and a lot of miniDVs, so I suppose I can keep making small documentaries if all else fails.

It’s a little strange coming to the Ashram everyday. I was born in Bardoli – the town I’m working in – so a lot of people seem to know me. The cute-but-scary woman who is in charge the school, Niranjana Kalarthi (I call her Niranjana mummy), is probably in her 70s. She keeps mentioning how my mom used to bring me to her after I was born and she used to play with me. I’ve heard the same thing from at least 3 other people who regularly visit Niranjana mummy and they’re in awe of how big I am now.

Everyone seems to know Niranjana mummy, including the state’s governor. She worked with Sardar Patel, who worked side-by-side with Gandhi in the independence movement, and has now devoted herself to activism and the school. Most activists, historians, and politicians – especially in the state – seem to know her and during the three days I’ve been at the ashram, she’s been visited by a LOT of people.

The school doesn’t start until next week, but 10^th grade girls have started classes since they have a big exam at the end of the year. I sat in one of their social studies classes and it was fairly amusing. The lesson was about Indian heritage and why the country is the best in the world when it comes to its culture, both social and political. One of the reasons was the fact that India has never waged a war against another nation. As for the other reasons, my Gujarati isn’t good enough to understand.

The best part about the class was that the instructor kept referring to ideas or things that the girls would understand. All the girls come from various villages and grew up in really rural traditions. So, the teacher would refer to differences between how they would eat and how a Brahmin would eat. I didn’t appreciate her differentiating between castes, especially given that the school runs on Gandhian principles, but the girls didn’t seem to mind. They kept laughing throughout.

The teacher also told them about how India is advancing in population and will soon move past china, but this is nothing to be proud off. She then drilled into their heads that the best, most economically sound thing to do when they grow older is to have only one child as opposed to seven.

Aside from providing progressive education, there are absolutely no servants in the school. So the girls wake up at 5 am, clean the school, make breakfast, attend school, do homework, and go to bed by 10 pm. Niranjana mummy says this will prepare them to be independent, no matter where they go in the future. It’s tough, but she’s definitely right.

A few random thoughts:

1. I had mango corn flakes for breakfast! They have everything mango here. They were pretty good; just a little too sweet.
   
2. I finally did get that mango doughnut. It was DELICIOUS. They guy at the debit card counter recognized me and laughed at me...again.
   
3. I've finally gotten used to the heat and sweating right as I get out of the shower doesn't bother me anymore.
   
4. I had a staring contest with a cow on the street yesterday. The cow won.

A few pics from Goa

Wanderings

I write after a blissful week of computer-free travels, so I have much to say.

I began with 4 days in Goa, a coastal area 12 hours south of Bombay by train, and the place was absolutely beautiful. It had hills, mountains, beautiful rivers and streams accented with palm trees and fishermen boats, and beaches all within one area.


I went with my 2 cousins and their families, boarding the train circa midnight and arriving in Goa 12 hours later, tired and cranky. The train ride was loud, shaky, and just overall bad but the worst was yet to come. On day 1, we went to an old fort with pretty views and a pretty small lighthouse and/or prison holding cell. I couldn't figure out which one. We then went to one of the beaches where I obtained my battle scars from jet skiing in the rough waters. Hurricane and monsoon seasons were on their way, so the waves come with force and gust. I believe there was a red flag, indicating that swimming or engaging in water sports is prohibited but eh. It's India.


We also saw old Portuguese houses and churches. Goa's architecture is unique, bright, and beautiful, even more so then the architecture elsewhere in the country. Looking at the details and colors in buildings here truly makes me want to study architecture after Duke.

The ride from Goa to Surat - the city where I partly grew up when I lived here - will likely be my worst experience here. The TWENTY hour ride was hot, humid, sticky, sweaty, and all other things that can be said about Indian heat. Plus, my obsession with cleanliness which had slowly been on the decline since arrival kicked into full gear once we boarded the train. Before we could sit down, we had to use a newspaper and wipe the dead bugs and/or dead flowers, plus dirt, off the seats which were already covered with strange stains. Literally every family around me had an unbelievably loud child or loud children who loved to cry and shriek in their highest pitches a lot. Needless to say, I did not sit, eat, drink, or do anything else properly the entire 20 hours. Sleep did not come. When it did, I would awake thinking we were 30 minutes away from home, only to find the train had once again decided to stop in the middle of nowhere to further delay arrival in Surat, and bring me one step close to killing someone.

We did finally arrive in Surat and I spent the next couple of days recovering from all the lost sleep, bad hygiene, and anger. This was does simultaneously with being dragged to different houses for visits to family friends/relatives where I answered the same questions over and over and over again.

The questions continued into Saturday and Sunday, when I went to Mandavi, a tiny town near Surat where my uncle lives. As a child, I used to come to Mandavi all the time, especially during summers, and stay with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. At that time, they didn't have a TV or any toys, so I would wander around town. I would walk up to a temple in the mornings and look down at the river that passes by. There's a bridge that still remains there; it was destroyed decades ago during a monsoon flood. I only got a glimpse of it this time but when I was younger, I would stare at it forever. I still wandered a little when I went to Mandavi and ate all the wonderful Indian junk food I used to eat.

It was nice going back. It's one of the few places I remember well and can still go back to. The other two houses I grew up in have been sold and completely changed. Mandavi was the end of travelling part of the trip (for now). I started my SOL project today - more on that to come.