Boiling Point

This past class was...trying. Despite my desperate efforts, the girls can barely speak English. In fact, they have become quite amazing con artists--adept at faking English. They have memorized entire conversations and lists so that when you ask them the colors, numbers, animals, where they are from, or how they are, they can respond quickly and without flinching. But ask them how they are without answering "good" or "fine" and their entire automation system comes crumbling down. They sit there with big, pathetic, (albeit adorable) brown eyes, and stare at you. They do not understand much of what they are saying, and they know almost nothing of English structure. Forming new sentences is extremely difficult--if not impossible--for most of them. Yet almost any decent job in India requires working knowledge of English, so their progress is a huge concern of mine--as is making class fun to maintain attendance!

Lesson Time

Now let me paint you a picture. It is an hour into our lesson, class is in full swing and we are doing something not-so-easy: we are identifying the verbs and nouns in each sentence. We have practiced handshakes, we just sang and danced an exhausting round of "Yo My Name is Joe," and played a maniacal game of hangman with verbs (these girls are the most excitable hangman players you'll ever meet, I swear one girl almost peed herself when she got the final "r" in "appreciate," performing an  end-zone victory dance in celebration).

Salman Khan

So here I am at the front of the room, pointing to the sentence "Salman Khan acts" on the whiteboard (it is helpful if I use Bollywood stars as the girls are still typical preteens, enamored by hunky male celebrities). Nine little girls sit in a semi-circle at my feet, copying the words into their shabby newspaper-covered notebooks.
I ask, "Okay class, where is the ver--"
Suddenly a woman leans into the door without so much as a word or a nod, and cuts me off, speaking in Hindi to Mamta, her daughter. They carry on the conversation (which seems a bit like an argument/debate) as the entire class sits and waits. Then Mamta gets up and leaves, trailing behind her mother, barely mumbling "please excuse me" as she jumps out the door (literally jumps since the door is elevated).

I am irritated at this interruption, especially without acknowledgment from the mother, but things like this are not uncommon. I have no idea what just happened, but try to keep the girls focused by continuing the lesson (and by shamelessly rubbing my abs to re-emphasize that this is a dreamy Bollywood action-star we are discussing!). The girls fumble through the first sentence. A few minutes later the mother returns, yells something in Hindi without giving me so much as a glance, and takes six girls (about 70% of my class) with her. They literally just get up and walk out behind her. At this point I am less than amused and ask Neha, my best English-speaking student, what just happened. She explains to me that the mother announced that there was a wedding down the road and that the girls should come check it out.

Rajasthani roadside wedding

Now let me explain how slum weddings work. There is no function hall, there is just a boom-box, an extremely decorated ornate-looking horse, and a bunch of people on the side of the road dancing around the tassled-up bride and groom. The festivities usually last many hours if not days, and are by no means invite-only. In fact, weddings in India are so large that when higher-class families plan them, they usually factor in food for strangers who wander in off the street. This particular wedding, as Neha tells me, was just starting and was nobody the girls knew personally.

This was certainly not the first time a mother has dropped by and stolen a few of my children without so much as a look in my general direction, but it was the proverbial last straw (at this point Aretha Franklin was booming in my head--R-E-S...). I decided to reward the 3 girls who stayed by playing "Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar" for the rest of the class (only another 30 minutes) as I struggled to hide my disappointment. At first I was angry at the girls who left. They should have had more dedication. But then I took a trip down memory lane; at 14 years old all I wanted to do was buy cherry lip gloss and padded bras and talk on the phone. I was not always this motivated, intelligent, gorgeous, and together young woman (with such a realistic self-image). So what kept my nose somewhat wedged in the book-spine? Joyce.

Kids at slum wedding (completely unsupervised)

That's when I realized how complicated my problems in Kathputli Nagar really were. The girls are self-motivated, and that only carries them so far. The root of the problem is lack of parental support, so how do I change the ideology of a community? During a few of my family visits I confronted mothers about why their children do not go to school. They always made different excuses: it is a bad time of day, the school takes away from them earning the family money. (In fact, this isn't true, the government school is free and even offers monetary incentives for students to attend). None of the parents are brave enough to admit the real reason: they just don't see the value of education, especially for girls. They never went to school and they turned out fine.

Class (Post-Mamta's mom)

I am trying to accept that my influence here has huge limits. I can make class as fun as I want: I can tight rope across the slum in a ring of fire with the hunky Salman Kahn on my bare back while it rains rupees, and as soon as I say the word "adjective," the girls can meander out the door. What is keeping them from getting up and walking out? And what's wrong with having the young girls tazered and handcuffed to the ceiling fan?

But this experience helped me realize that being from a society that values education is probably one of the most under-appreciated aspects of American culture. From an early age we are instilled with the belief that education is paramount. Parents lead this brainwashing campaign and more or less, it works. As kids, we take it for granted and completely eat it up. How am I supposed to say to myself, as teenage hormones course through my veins transforming me into some kind of mutant whiny Mr. Hyde, that learning Beyonce's bootylicious choreography is not as pressing as grasping the Pythagorean Theorem because in the long run I want to hold a respectable career? I'm not! That's what parents are for.

Squelching the Rumors...

Temple, Parassini

Long time no post, I apologize. I am sure many of you are concerned--distraught even--at my abrupt disappearance, your heavy hearts plunging as you sit listening to the clock's menacing tick, pacing your living rooms late at night downing tumblers of whiskey (what? my friends are southern...) and frantically trying to shake the mental images of me drowning in slum-muk or running away with some high-pitched skinny-jeaned Bollywood star. Or perhaps it was the animals that did me in as I lay screaming under the foot of a wild elephant or whimpering from my Indian jail cell where they have detained me for first-degree murder of the ever-sacred cow in a moment of American carnivorous weakness.  I've even heard the rumors that this whole blog was just an elaborate scheme so that I could make away with tons of used children's books. 

Well rest assured; I am safe and sound and back in Saugus as planned. The reason that you have not heard from me in so long is that I changed locations and lost computer access. As some of you might recall from the first entry,  I left Jaipur and my precious girls in early December and began a new volunteer project in Kerala on December 6th. 

My bed and charming Finnish roommate

In Kerala I was located in a tiny village called Parassini just outside of the city of Kannur. This location was so rural that it makes Nebraska seem like a bustling metropolis. It's the kind of deep jungle that cultivates bugs in such mutant sizes that we mistake them for rodents or birds. On one occasion I woke up spooning with a cockroach the size of Macaulay Culkin. The closest Internet cafe was 30 minutes by bus and it frequently lost power. Typing emails was like a WPM test--how fast could you bang out a cordial update before the computer shut down with a sigh and the lights flitted to black? It doesn’t help that you are still charged for the time spent in the dark slapping mosquitoes against the back of your neck as you wait for the power to return. 

The good news? I have a few blog-drafts that I wrote in my journal, and I promise not to leave you hanging. Put down the bottle and toss out those fist-fulls of Klonopin—I’m back! In the next few weeks I will recount my last classes with the Jaipur girls,  how we said goodbye, and my brief reunion with them before returning to America. Sorry again for the delay and thanks for being so patient!