India Reflection: Day 2

Monday, 23 November 2015

Namaste!

Today heralds the first day of actual teaching at Sambhali. Jacqueline says that she will pick us up in the late morning after she has gone shopping with Gobi for more office supplies. Gobi is really amazing - as Jacqueline spoke in English, he would kindly translate into Hindi what she was saying. In a way, this made me a bit afraid of my very limited Hindi ability, although it is slightly improving. Gobi is a unique man, he is so supportive of the goals of the school, despite the fact that in many ways, he is working against the tide of retrograde views that is sometimes present in India. The office is pretty bare, but functional. I think they just need some actual chairs and more filing cabinets. 

This morning I got out of bed at 5.30, and was awoken by a noise that I could appreciate only in India - a man singing traditional Rajasthan songs as the sun rose over the city of Jodhpur. All night blasted a chorus of horns - at the moment, I have no idea where these came from, but hopefully with a little investigation, I will find out today.  To be honest, I have heard, smelt and seen so many things so far that I feel need an explanation, that I think it would take more time to explain them to you than the time it would take for you to watch every episode of Friends back to back. 

Where we are staying is incredible. I am fortunate to have my own guest room, which is situated in a complex that reminds me of the terraces that are shown in the movie Mamma Mia which is set in the Greek Isles. The rooms are decorated with the richest Indian bedspreads and many rugs (seven to be exact) lining the floor. At the moment I am sitting on a really comfortable window seat, but all the curtains in my room are closed at the moment because I do not want to wake up the other volunteers. My room has been decorated in orange hues, and Emily’s is an ocean of blues. This reminds me of the symbolism of orange - orange is meant to make exciting things boring! Haha, you could not make me feel anymore excited than I am now, it would be paramount to trying to stop the sun from rising over an Indian desert. Impossible. 

You would not know that I am in a city where people with very little are scattered throughout the streets. I feel slightly guilty - I was not expecting this luxury of my own room and a flushing toilet, but then again, there is not much that I can do about it now. When I got on future adventures like this one (when I have some qualifications I suppose!) then I will live with integrity, or my understanding of integrity I suppose. 

I am a bit afraid that my skills will not be up to scratch to educate these young girls. Jacqueline reminded us yesterday ‘never before has cramming been so important’. As I was saying before, it is crucial that these girls pass their entrance exams into years eleven and twelve (the schooling system is quite similar to how ours used to be back in Australia, with the equivalent of a School Certificate) otherwise the life of a child bride is no longer a nightmare, but a reality. They can graduate in three subjects from years eleven to twelve (arts, commerce and science) before they can head off to university (if they make the tight cut for the entrance exams). The thing about living in such a large country, is that there are so many people that share the same dreams and aspirations  as you, and this makes it twice as hard to make these aspirations materialise into something real and tangible. I found it really interesting that Jacqueline made the comment that it was really important for the girls to focus on developing their science-based learning, because she said that whilst the arts courses were interesting, there was almost no job security. In a country like India that is thriving on technological development (there are more mobile phones in India than toilets. Imagine!), it is fundamental for the girls to work hard in science. Med-connection?!?!

From my time at Scholani, the Saturday and Sunday school that I have taught at throughout 2015, I feel that I have developed an understanding of how to handle a class room. However, back then I was teaching a group of ten eight year olds, or ten eleven year olds, not trying to foster the learning process of seventy girls aged from eleven to fifteen!! Even though we are assigned smaller classes on a daily basis, I feel that it is my duty to ensure that most of the girls get some benefit from us being here. At Scholani, we were given syllabus guidelines - structure to the lessons that we were to carry out. Whilst we did have some freedom, we had out goals clearly outlined. For example, this Sunday, we were focusing on gerunds. Now for those of you who don't know, gerunds are mutant nouns, but that is another story. 

What I am trying to say, is that Jacqueline has basically instructed us with giving us lessons that are run according to what we want to teach. The only requirement, is that we think of innovative ways for the students to learn english. The bottom line is, their entrance exams depend mostly on their english speaking and writing ability. That is the core. I have often thought about the eight development goals that the UN proposed what seems like a very long time ago. To be honest, all of the eight could not be ordered into a coherent list of ‘most important’ to ‘least important’, because they all seemed incredibly necessary to me. However, now I see that education definitely stands up very high on the list. For a while, I was battling between education and basic health care, but then I had an idea. An idea which I am really excited about!!

Yesterday, when I was in the guest house office waiting to get our passports photocopied, guess what I found. Have you guessed? What do you think?

A human skeleton! (Just to clarify, not a real one) I was over the moon. It was standing serenely, posed in a positing ready to shake my hand, just left to the many photographs of Gandhi and The Dalai Lama that lined the office walls. How about I make english fun by teaching the students some basic med stuff? I am sure that we could jazz up ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’ a bit. How about ‘skull, gleno-humeral joint, patella and phalanges’. Hmmm, somehow it does not have the same ring to it. Oh well, it is a working progress, and after some thinking, I will get back to you on that one. But seriously, why not share the knowledge that I have fallen in love with for the past year? If I can reach out to them and make their dreams blossom, then perhaps I can make a tangible difference. 

 Basic health care, this STARTS with education. With not much clear intention, I did bring along my first aid kit to India. If I can teach these girls some basic first aid, this will benefit both their english skills, and their skills to live. Perhaps I can go to the markets today and pick up some bananas - suturing, here I come! I will have to discuss it a bit more with Jacqueline of course, but I am sure that it will be fine, as long as I use this activity as an incentive at the end of the week when the girls have completed most of the tasks that we have to do for that week. I knew that all those Friday night meetings at St Johns would come in handy some day. Introducing: the newest subject in the Indian curriculum - medical studies for keen young women who want to live independent lives! I think I will have to shorten that a bit though. Do you think I could acronymify it? MSKYWWWIL. Nah, too complicated. 

Jacequline told us a very powerful story today. Just to set the record straight, Jacqueline is an AMAZING  person. She has created a school with the philosophy of harmony, and values of respect and excellence for girls who are told that their lives are worth nothing more than a set of endless duties that they must complete for their husbands. She is originally from Sweden, speaks fluent Swiss, French and English, and has a very cool fashion sense. Let me remind you, she is seventy-seven. 

She has a grand-daughter who goes to school in the United States with another inspirational young woman, a girl by the name of Olivia Hallisey who has designed the world’s first $15 ebola test kit. The first thing I thought of when I heard this was the incredible work that MSAP has done with the Birthing Kits for the Birthing Kit foundation. A media article about the kit can be found here: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/09/29/3706812/high-school-student-devises-new-ebola-diagnosis-tool/. It is unique because formerly, the only kit available had been created by the WHO, but with the slight disadvantage -  it cost about $400 for just a single kit. Olivia’s invention is sure to transform how we treat ebola on a world wide scale. It is incredible to think that this amazing story of empowerment travelled to me from a middle school in Connecticut, through the voice of a Swiss philanthropist, all the way to little me in India. How the world has changed. 

 I did not realise this, but there is a real AIDS epidemic in India. Jacqueline is involved in another project that is a hospital where former AIDS patients care for newly infected AIDS patients. She says that I will get the chance to take along my camera and my go pro, and film some footage that I am hoping to present to MSAP as a potential project that we could do in the future. Many of the patients are on their second dose of retro-virals, and many will need a third. However, the government can only fund up to the second retro-viral, which is an issue for people who keep on getting reinfected. We are going there later next week, where we will have an opportunity to meet some of the patients, and perhaps even (if I am lucky) work along side one of the doctors. I would also love to do a series of interviews with people like Jacqueline and many of the students, to make people more aware of what seems to be a hidden problem in a country that presents as very progressive on a global scale. Female independence and respect. 

I would also really like to offer classes on female empowerment. To be honest, I do not want to offend anyone, but I have often found the approach of many feminists to be too aggressive. I laboured through Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunch, and I found that the vast generalisations that she made were just too much for me. As I get older, I have realised that to generalise anything is dangerous. I used to do it all the time, and I probably still do. But it is a nasty habit that I am trying to break, bit by bit. Anyway, it would be wonderful to be able to teach them about female role models such as Malala or even Emma Watson. I am not sure how we would be able to see the film I am Malala, but I am sure that simply talking about this, and offering some advice on how these girls can go about achieving their goals would be wonderful!

I had better sign off for now. Outside my room I can hear the crescendo of children voices, awakening the terraces for another busy day. 

ALVIDAA FOR ANOTHER MORNING. 

Erica xx.