Story Time

First of all, PSA, if you’re interested in receiving an email every time my blog updates, just submit your email address in the box at the top of the blog, and you should be all set!

Second of all, to lighten things up (even though I'll get serious again afterwards), a story of adding money to my phone here: I went around the corner to the store/booth/street-front room where you can both add money to your phone plan and drop off your dry cleaning. Obvious business plan, why did I never think of that? So I gave the guy my phone and a 100 rupee bill and told him the name of my sim card carrier. He said to me, "100 rupees, 86 rupees of talk time." I said, "Where do the other 14 rupees go?" He drew me a little chart that looked like this:

Paid rupees  Rupees of talk time

80                        80

100                      86

110                      110

Then he said, "So either 80 or 110." I said, "Why?" He said, "I don't know." I said, "That's crazy!" He said, "Yes. So 110?" Naturally. This is just the latest in a series of strange and amusing quirks about India. 

         

This week, we’re running lessons focused loosely around the theme of self-expression, and today’s lesson was about stories and storytelling. First, we explained the difference between fiction and non-fiction and had the kids categorize some stories, including a biography of Ghandi, a movie starring the Indian heartthrob Salman Khan, and Life of Pi (our synopsis: tiger and a boy are trapped on boat, tiger is hungry, tiger doesn’t eat boy, real or not real?).

Next, we read them a picture book that I put together yesterday. I thought it would be a breeze to write a children’s story, but all of the illustrations took forever! Fortunately, I had some help coloring them in. Our plan was to read them the story and translate it line by line, but for each line I read, the translation seemed to turn into a paragraph. So I ended up asking the kids what they thought was going on according to the pictures they saw, and then I added in bits of the plot that they missed. Interactive is definitely the way to go here.

The next part of the plan was to have the kids create a group story, where one student starts with one line, then another student adds another, then another, and so on. In our first class we ran out of time for the activity, but we gave it a shot in the second class. At first, I was really nervous the game would fail. First of all, the class seemed more antsy than usual today, maybe because it’s been getting so hot. Plus every time the train goes by (multiple times per class), the noise is super distracting. Getting them to sit in a circle was a whole to do.  Then, I called on a girl arbitrarily, and she thought I was asking her to tell the story I’d just read to the class. Commence confusion.

After a couple more false starts, a girl who is a frequent and enthusiastic contributor stood up and proceeded to begin a story, that kept going, and going! I don’t remember it exactly, but it involved a boy and a girl drawing in a garden and ending up at a lake. Her younger brother, who is usually very quiet, volunteered to continue the story. He stood at attention with his arms tight at his sides, and in a slight, lilting voice, he told of how the boy was thirsty, and he wanted to drink some water from the lake. The problem was that there was a hungry crocodile swimming in the lake as well. The boy didn’t know what to do, because he wanted to drink some water, but the crocodile was going to eat him.

At this point, the first girl took the story back, saying that the boy decided to trick the crocodile by taking a stick and throwing it in the water. The crocodile couldn’t tell the difference between the stick and the boy, so he ate the stick, and meanwhile, the boy was able to drink some water and get away safely. THE END.

I was so shocked and relieved that this sneaky story came out of our generally rowdy classroom. Even though the kids were messing around while I was trying to explain the instructions (granted, in English), they were engrossed by the tales of their own classmates. I felt like a proud mother!

Running lessons where you aren’t sure you’ll really reach the kids is scary. It’s overwhelming to have to answer to perplexed faces, and failing feels like a waste of the little time we have here to make an impression. But all the same, I’ve been saying to myself that if even two or three kids out of a class of twenty decide to read more stories, write more stories, or read a newspaper instead of play with it, that it counts as a step to success. The lessons that are the hardest to teach might be the most important. 

לא עליך המלאכה לגמור, ולא אתה בן חורין להבטל ממנה.

It isn’t your job to complete the work, but you are not free to ignore it, either.

What We Do Here

What are we trying to do here? What are the most impactful lessons we can give to our students in barely lit tin rooms, in a place where they stumble into the daylight and round the corner to a child crapping on a stoop?  How do we make sure to say the one sentence, do the one experiment, make the one impression that could tip the balance of a kid’s future?

Each of us answers differently. One would argue that singing a playful song and drawing pictures brings about lighthearted joy. Others would say that lessons in the science of our bodies and the world around us teach our students to be curious about how things work and hunger for more knowledge. I might claim that teaching about self-expression and creativity is the most valuable, opening a child’s mind to worlds beyond the one we see.

Because we all disagree, our lessons have been a mix of all of the above. We’ve taught the water cycle, the five senses, exercise, international foods and greetings, how plants grow, parts of the brain, and the Olympics. The cultural and language barriers have been some of the greatest challenges. Every word we say is translated into Marathi, the local language. This leaves some room for miscommunication, but also, the open-ended questions we want to pose often get flattened by the kids’ desire to find the right answer, not just their own answer. We walk a fine line between challenging them and completely missing the mark, evidenced either by triumph or by blank expressions.

The more lessons we plan, the more my list of “if only” items grows. If only the students were split into classes by age. If only there were space to move around in the room. If only we could introduce them to basic technology. If only they had art, music, library, and gym. If only we could teach them about topics like hygiene and nutrition, without worrying that they don’t even have toothbrushes. If only they grew up having enough, of anything. But these are the lucky kids, who get to spend a whole morning in school. These kids' parents did whatever they had to do to pay for their children to get educated. 

I remind myself that no matter what lessons we teach and no matter whether they sink in, the simple fact of our presence is such a treat to the four classrooms we get to visit every day. High fives, smiles, screaming for no reason, and goofy sounds and expressions make a kid’s day. I waved at a pair of boys as we walked to class the other day, and they grinned in surprise, running away giggling.

If I had one major takeaway during City Year, it was that change comes from within: within a person, within a community. I can’t change the conditions of anyone’s life or the circumstances of a neighborhood, and even if I could, it isn’t my job. What I can do best here is open minds to discovery, to creativity, to realizing that there is more outside of what they know and see. They deeply understand family, loyalty, and camaraderie, and they have just as much raw potential to do something amazing as any kid from the Boston area. What kills me is that the next Picasso, Descartes, Jane Austen, or Ada Lovelace could be hidden among the children of these slums, of all slums, and we may never know. We may never know what the world could have become in the light of their fully nurtured brilliance. 

The Nest They Know

In the morning in the slums
trash heaps down the slope to the railroad tracks
slim pickings for goats among cloth rags, crushed cans, plastic in all forms.
Our tin classroom takes me by surprise every time we come up on its
two concrete steps, a pile of cheap sandals inside the doorway, to a chorus of,
"Welcome teacher, good morning teacher!"
Moony brown eyes and little, rotten teeth
My tooth fairy income could have fed them for a day.

The train clatters toward the big city past the doorless classroom entrance:
Button down shirted call center professionals, students, sari-clad women all,
leaning out compartment doors, pomegranate scarves twisting in the draft,
numb to slum scent. 
It passes and we resume our lesson on international food and music,
wild galloping to American country and slithers to Australian didgeridoo;
we finish with the Indian national anthem.

We are rock stars leaving the classroom,
slum kids too poor for school wave shyly at the white people in sneakers with sweaty feet.
Two boys play under fruit-laden tables with a stray dog, another goat.
Teenagers glance at us, quizzical,
men double-take with no shame, tobacco spit spraying dusty road.

We leave the line for rice and oil rations,
trays of peas drying in the sun,
crowds of school-aged idle boys playing marbles in the street,
mounds of trash in all directions
for the hill-top town of Matheran.

Rising out of Mumbai smog by a road weaving up the mountain,
finally greenery, the drama of valleys, peaks,
nature that isn't polluted, over-sized ponds bordered by lawless intersections,
beauty in India beyond women's garments--
the nation they sang about.
They likely will never see this, 
maybe not even the urban lakes just outside the toxic nest they know.
Only goats, and garbage. 

Train, Holding Hands, and Surprise! I'm liberal.

I've been here almost two weeks, and I've had the chance to discover some unexpectedly lovely parts of India. Mumbai is more than twice as dense as New York city. Obviously it is crowded, but with that comes a sense of communality. Maybe at times, every man is for himself, but I sense togetherness at many turns. The women in my group have traveled from Thane to Mumbai in the all-female compartment of the train, and every time a spot opens up on a bench, our fellow passengers frantically look around for someone who is standing to fill it. Actually, the train-bench-standing choreography seems very intricate, and I don't understand it yet. It involves asking people where they're getting off and shifting up and down benches.  The women are so curious as to what we are doing here, how long we're staying, whether we like it here, and whether the food is too spicy (affirmative). I played tic-tac-toe with a girl sitting next to me, and the surrounding crowd was rapt. She was good, too. She trapped me a couple times.

It is not uncommon to see a man casually draping his arm over another man's shoulders, walking with interlocked elbows, or even hand in hand, sometimes fingers intertwined. It was startling, at first, and now I can't stop myself from smiling whenever I see it. Viraj, our Hindi teacher, said it's something that friends do, a sign of affection, and that it doesn't signify a sexual relationship. While there are aspects of Indian society that are hard for me to swallow, I love the idea of platonic physical expression, especially between men. Alternatively, maybe they hold hands because otherwise, they'd lose each other on the crowded streets.

I mentioned how much I love the hand holding here, and I received mixed enthusiasm from my co-volunteers. So in related news, it turns out I am quite liberal! I've had several fascinating conversations about the role of women in Judaism, and on feminism in general. Having grown up and spent most of my adult life in Massachusetts and in relatively open Jewish communities, I had been taking tenets of my life perspective for granted, at least among other westerners. At home, I was probably the most religious Jew many of my coworkers had ever met, and here, I could be a heretic. Who knew!

Finally, one of our group shared a booklet of thoughts from the former chief rabbi of England, and the whole book is basically a quote-mine. Profound stuff. I especially like this though:

"Hard times remind us what good times tend to make us forget: where we came from, who we are, and why we are here. That's why hard times are the best times to plant the seeds of future happiness." 

--Letters to the Next Generation, Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks

Indian Jewish Wedding

Earlier this week, we were invited to an Indian Jewish wedding.  Having only recently become aware of the still-active Jewish community in India, we didn’t know what to expect. One of our staff married last year, and we asked whether she wore a sari at her wedding.

        “Of course not, I’m a Jewish woman!” Meaning, she wore a white dress. I think it’s hard for us to internalize the fact that Indian Jews are Indian just like American Jews are American. Like us, they dress like the greater community of which they are a part, but their religious traditions are their own.

The wedding took place in a towering light blue synagogue in South Mumbai. This was a love marriage (i.e. non-arranged marriage) of a couple from the Bene Israel community, but they were borrowing this synagogue from the Baghdadi Indian community because it seats hundreds of people. We guess there were about six hundred guests in attendance. Apparently Jewish time is universal, and when you pair it up with Indian time, naturally the wedding ended up starting about an hour late.

        Basically the entire Bene Israel community was invited to this wedding. I’ve never seen so many bright, jeweled saris. Our group coined the phrase “sari-envy.” The ceremony begins with the procession of the groom down the aisle, followed by his entire family. After he stood under the chuppah, there was something of a scramble as the extended family looked for seats.

        Next, the groom sang a poem from shir hashirim about the bride’s beauty as she proceeded down the aisle, followed by her whole side of the family. Apparently the song is something the groom has to learn specifically. It’s very haunting. As she got closer to me, I could see her beaming at him through her veil.

        The rest of the ceremony included the groom chanting the sheva brachot (seven blessings traditionally recited at a Jewish wedding), both the bride and groom signing the ketubah (marriage contract), the rabbi chanting the sheva brachot again, and finally, a procession of the bride and group together around the chuppah as a couple. No seven circles though. Between each step of the ceremony, there was a break for pictures. The whole ceremony took around two hours.

        Here are some pictures, enjoy!

Note the ladies in saris to the left of the bimah, and the Hebrew embroidering on the chuppah

Groom reading the sheva brachot

In general, I don’t really like it here.  I hate not being able to walk around alone. Not that women don't do it at all, but I'm uncomfortable enough that I’ve been wearing sunglasses around just so that my eyes are a little more difficult to find. Plumes of dusty exhaust burn the back of my throat while we’re walking through traffic, and this may seem insignificant, but our apartment ran out of filtered water two days ago, so we’re boiling water instead. It’s really that any one of these things seems like it should be manageable on its own, but when you group them together with the overall culture shock and challenges of living with many people, I wonder how I’m going to make it through the next seven weeks.

I’m down to the last few food items I brought from home to eat on the plane, and I’m disproportionately sad about this. I had a bag of snack bars, but I think they were mistakenly thrown away.  Tali made me a batch of cookies for the plane, and I finished the crumbs out of the baggie with a spoon.

I woke up this morning realizing I’d dreamt about a baked potato with avocado, so that’s my next meal.  I must have been delusional thinking I would be totally good living on rice and cooked vegetables for two months straight, three meals a day. I wasn’t even planning on eating raw vegetables or fruits here, but that insanity ended. Today for lunch I made a salad of chopped cucumber, pear, and hardboiled egg. Kind of weird, and not super filling, but at least it made me a little less thirsty. Celiac is lonely here. At least the two people who are so strictly kosher can meal plan with each other. Maybe this trip will be an exercise in being hungry. I’ve never been long term hungry before. Very fortunately, Leah (who is here for the year kind of coordinating us) is super knowledgeable and sympathetic and said she'd be my cooking buddy.

Today was our first day visiting the students in the slums. We had to cross railroad tracks to get there. Ba dum tshhh. As we made our way towards the slum, a stream of people, mostly men, were passing us in the opposite direction, heading out to work and school. Almost all of them were dressed rather smartly, in clean button-ups and jeans or khakis. They looked like anyone you’d see walking down our street or through the mall, highlighting the fact that the line between living in a slum and in a middle class neighborhood is so, so fine. As one of our staff pointed out, in India, middle class doesn’t mean comfortable, it means living hand-to-mouth and having just enough, with nothing to spare. Anyone with less simply doesn’t have enough.

Our first stop was at a women’s collective, where the women were rolling out chapatis, or flat bread, and cooking them as the mid-day meal for our students. I couldn’t go in because of the flour in the air. Afterwards, we walked through the slum to the first classroom. As soon as we appeared in the doorway, the students hopped up off the floor and chanted together, “Good morning teacher!” with the cutest rolling R. Teach-ehr. In a single classroom, there are around thirty kids from ages five to thirteen. Some of them are pretty good at English. And then several kept trying to speak to me in Marathi. I would just say my name a few times in a row. I’ll have to work on an alternative response. I told them my name means tree, but then they thought my name was Tree. Fail.

We tried playing a rhythmic clapping name game, and the rhythm didn’t really translate, but the kids had fun. They have the best smiles. I was sitting next to three siblings, and the sister kept hiding her face in her brother’s stomach. In the next class a little girl wouldn’t let go of my arm. The last classroom was tiny and dark, and they were the only group of kids who had never worked with a group like ours before. They were more reserved, but they counted to one hundred, sang happy birthday, and recited a rough version of “one, two, buckle my shoe.” Not too shabby.

To those of you who were in touch earlier this week, it was so nice to hear from you. Keep sending me love and happy vibes! Hope to write more in a couple days.

Most sincerely,

Tree