Leaving Katariya school

I arrived two days ago at the second of the three primary schools I’ll be staying at. Leaving the first one, Katariya, was hard. I was only there for a little over a week, but when you spend 24 hours a day with the same people day after day, relationships form fast. The photo below is of me and all the students and staff. (Where's Waldo?...)


In a previous blog I mentioned one 6th grade girl, Mina, who has a particular talent for English. When I’m studying Gujarati I have to hear a word at least three or four times, in addition to seeing it written, before I can remember it. Mina remembers each new English word she hears or reads just once. She’s by far the best English student in her class, and wants to be a doctor. She also seems to be the happiest; I hardly ever saw her face without a smile on it. She and one of her friends, Sonal, are inseparable, and walk around the campus attached to each other. In the photo below, taken in the 6th grade classroom, Mina is in the front row on the left, and Sonal just next to her on the right.


One of the other English teachers told me that last June, when the monsoon rains began, Mina started to cry. Apparently she was worrying about her parents and little brother, who live in a hut set next to a field they work in but do not own. The heavy rain makes life difficult for them, and Mina felt bad that she couldn’t be with them to help.

My last night at Katariya was on Wednesday, so the school manager arranged a chicken dinner for everyone in my honor. (Usually all meals are vegetarian, which is cheaper.) Mina was not her usually smiley self at first, and one of her other friends explained that it was because she was sad that I was leaving. Mina yelled at her friend for telling, and then stomped away. By the time the food was served, though, she was back to normal, and was happy to sit with me and the teachers to eat.

On the day I left, the English teacher told me that he didn’t think Mina would be able to become a doctor, which caught me off guard. Aren’t teachers supposed to be supportive and optimistic about their students’ future? “I mean,” he said, “she is totally capable of becoming a doctor. She is brilliant, actually. But her parents have no money. How can they pay for her education?” The Katariya fees are heavily subsidized; other private schools cost substantially more, especially considering that the children eat and sleep at Katariya. And if a child goes to government school, the quality of education will almost surely not be good enough to get into medical school.

At the risk of sounding like a “Save the Children” infomercial, that interaction made me think. When I see an 11-year-old child who is very clearly of exceptional intelligence, and see her excel in and out of class, I tend to think, “This child will become something great.” I don’t see the child in her village context, and I can’t see what the future will bring for her. But when someone explains to me how a child lives when not in school, and how other children with outstanding potential but who don’t have money are routinely denied access to opportunity, it is thought-provoking indeed.