Thinking about the end

A short essay:

I cross the railroad tracks into the Kalva slum, just outside Mumbai, India, along with my fellow volunteer teachers, our translator, and a security guard. The reek of garbage and feces hits us immediately, as though we just passed through a scent barrier that separates the slum from the rest of the town of Kalva.

We walk through a clearing covered in a film of fraying cloth, plastic bags, small trash fires, and stray dogs before arriving at our classroom. As soon as the four of us duck into the dark, tin enclosure, twenty children leap to their feet, shouting “Good morning teacher!” They reach out their little hands to yank on our arms and perform fancy handshakes.

This morning we are teaching a lesson on tadpoles, frogs, caterpillars, and butterflies. I sit on the end of a straw mat laid out on the concrete floor next to one of our students. He chatters to me in Hindi and looks perplexed when all I can say back is yes, no, the numbers one through ten, and teacherly requests: pay attention, move back, good job. The kids all imitate us, chirping “Sunoh, baitoh, listen, sit down!” and laugh at our pronunciation.

Our children are beyond eager to please, and they treat our smiles as rare treasures. Kids with dirt-streaked cheeks and non-ironically torn jeans, who don’t go to school, gather in the classroom doorway, and I ruffle their hair and shake their hands as well.

Later, I am seated on the mat next to the same student again, and when asked what baby frogs are called, he shouts “Tadpole!” I raise my hand to give him a high five, and he jerks away. I feel ill when I realize he thought I meant to strike him, and even as he sheepishly offers me his hand while I clutch my chest in apology, horror and misplaced guilt settle over me in a clammy sheen. I know there is much more to our students’ lives than what we see for an hour a day, and the bits I do glimpse can make me catch my breath.

But there are so many sweet surprises as well. I play a nature video on my laptop, and the kids scrunch together on the mats, leaning on each other’s shoulders, each nearly in his neighbor’s lap, in our laps. A little girl with red ribbons braided into her pigtails sits between her two older brothers, the eldest gently stroking her hair. When I grin at her, she smiles back, then at her brother, tickled at our exchange.   

I have been teaching in India for a month, and in a few short weeks, I’ll leave these lovely children and return to lawns, air conditioning, and carpets. I’ll think of them here when monsoon season begins, as a sea of plastic bags and crushed cartons washes down the road, and they settle onto a mat in a classroom where I will no longer be.