This past weekend was the wedding of Ravi, the manager of one of my NGO's primary schools and a friend mine. At this point I've been to more Gujarati weddings than American ones, so a bit of the novelty has worn off. But I knew that a lot of the other teachers from the primary schools would be going, and they've all become such good friends of mine that I didn't want to miss it.
I made plans to meet some of the other teachers at the NGO's primary school just outside of Katariya, a small village in Surendranagar District, about 100 or so kilometers West of the vocational training center. Getting to Bavla, the town 8 kilometers Southwest of the center, is no problem at all, and just involves taking a shared rickshaw and paying the driver 5 Rupees. Getting from Bavla to the school, though, is slightly more complicated. You have to stand by the bus stop and try to flag down buses, trucks, or shared jeeps in the hope that one of them will be going to your destination.
I had no luck with the first few buses, none of which were going all the way to the school, which is about 12 kilometers just before Limbdi, a major town in Surendrangar. A man operating a small soda stand heard me asking the bus conductors where they were going. When a big, 12-wheel "Dumper" (the local term for a dump truck) slowed down to take passengers, the soda man told me that this truck would be going to Limbdi. I went over to the truck and confirmed that they were going there, and climbed in.
Generally I don't like to take rides in trucks alone, but at this point my Gujarati is good enough to navigate without any real problems. Plus I was in a bit of a hurry, because it was already 2:30 and I had told my friends I would arrive between 3 and 4 in the afternoon. I sat in the front cab of the truck with four or five other passengers, along with the driver. The other passengers were middle-aged men dressed in white cotton kurtas and loose slacks of the same material, and a few younger men in Western clothes. Surprisingly I didn't attract much attention at first, which was nice.
About ten minutes down the road from Bavla, the truck slowed again so the driver could talk with a potential new passenger who had flagged us down. I couldn't hear what they were discussing, but the driver seemed hesitant to accept. The man talking with the driver said he wanted to go to Katariya, and the driver hadn't heard of the village. I was surprised to hear that this guy wanted to go to Katariya, where I was going, but didn't say anything. Soon the man offered the driver 300 Rupees, which sealed the deal. He climbed in the cab.
I was caught off guard when the truck then took a left off the highway and into an area housing what appeared to be a series of large warehouse-like shops storing agricultural products. The truck stopped, and all the passengers got out. Next to the dumper, a huge semi was being loaded with dozens of 50 kilogram burlap sacks filled with rice. A wooden plank was set up on the ground leading into the rear of the truck, and two or three huge, sweaty men hauled the giant sacks up on their backs, dropping them on the floor of the truck.
This went on for about ten or fifteen minutes until the rice had all been loaded. As it was happening I looked around. Inside each of the shops there were huge sacks piled high, straight up to the ceiling. Some contained rice, others fertilizer, and others some other product I couldn't identify. Outside one of the shops a burly man was positioning a 50 kilo sack of rice on a giant scale of the type held by lady justice. A very large iron weight was placed on the opposite side of the scale so that the sack of rice and the weight hung in perfect balance.
Despite the assurance of the driver that the whole process would only take five minutes, the time continued to drag on. First one of the younger men wandered back to the street in search of alternative transportation, and then the cotton-clad middle-aged men did the same. I waited, taking into account the hassle of hailing a different bus or truck and going through it all again.
Eventually, the plank was moved to the dumper, and two men started climbing up and back down, tossing in huge sacks of fertilizer. Once that started, in only took 5 or 10 minutes before the dumper was loaded with all 28 sacks and was ready to depart.
"Majaave?" The driver, grinning, asked me as we climbed back into the truck. "Did you enjoy that?"
I smiled back and answered yes, I did. "Where are you going again," he continued, "Limbdi?"
"Actually just next to Limbdi," I said. "Katariya."
"Katariya!" That was one of the guys responsible for the fertilizer. "That's where we're going. Why are you going there?"
"It's my friend's wedding."
"Your friend? What caste is he? A Vankar?"
"I don't know."
"No, I mean what caste."
"I don't know."
"What's his name?"
"Ravi."
"And his surname?"
"I don't know. I just call him Ravibhai."
"Ravibhai. I wonder who that could be."
Normally I take every possible opportunity to tell people that I work with a Dalit organization, but I was hesitant to in this particular circumstance. I was alone, in the front cab of a dumptruck with 5 men I'd never met before. I have not encountered much hostility from anyone who finds out I work with a Dalit organization, but I've heard that it's a possibility, particularly around the Navsarjan schools which were intentionally established in areas with high levels of discrimination. The man had probably first thought that I was going to the Navsarjan primary school, which he associated with Vankars, the biggest Dalit sub-caste. That was probably why he asked if my friend was a Vankar. But then again, maybe he was a Vankar himself, or was just curious. I didn't want to test it, so I lied.
I continued the lie when they asked where I lived and what I was doing. I told them I lived in Ahmedabad, stayed at Gujarat Vidhyapith University, and I was doing a doctorate in psychology, inventing it all as I went. It seemed to satisfy them.
The dumper moved quite slowly, about 60 kmph. Along the way we picked up a few more people, some of whom offered me some gutkha chewing tobacco and implored me to accept it since I was their American guest. I politely declined.
I counted the kilometers on the signposts that appeared ever kilometer as we approached Limbdi so I knew when to expect the school, and gave the driver 20 Rupees in anticipation of the arrival. (Hitched rides are not free -- you have to pay an amount comporable to the government buses). Eventually I saw tge school's green-domed outdoor science lab, built last year and hard to miss, and told the driver to stop. He did.
"No," the man going to Katariya said, "Katariya village is further down. You want to go there."
"No," I said, now outside the truck and feeling more confident. "I want to go here. Thanks. Bye."
That was that. I crossed the street, met my friends, and soon left to attend a thoroughly enjoyable wedding.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Wildlife in Gujarat
In the wake of my experience with a large langur monkey that just chased me back into my office ten minutes ago, I have decided to write a post about wildlife here in Gujarat.
It seems timely to begin with monkeys. Unlike in other parts of India, most of central Gujarat is populated only with langur monkeys, and no other species of primate. Langurs are generally docile, or so I thought until recently. There is a troop of them that likes to set up camp in the big trees around the Ecosan (toilet facility). The biggest one, probably the dominant male I guess, chased me once a few weeks ago for the crime of trying to walk up to the Ecosan. I motioned to throw my roll of toilet paper at it, but that only made it bare its teeth and start to run after me. I panicked, and ran into a toilet stall and locked the door. And then tonight, I was going to throw away the plastic pouch of a recently consumed yogurt, when that same monkey (I can only assume) pulled a similar act. I yelled, "There's a monkey chasing me!" and raced back towards the office, surprising everyone in the accounting staff's office, since all they heard was a slur of words coming from a clearly distraught American. I must say, I'm losing a bit of my fondness for monkeys.
On the other hand, nilgai have risen in the ranks of my favorite animals, so all is well. That was not a typo -- nilgai , a kind of Asian antelope, roam around Gujarat in small herds damaging crops. When I was at one of the primary schools, a herd of 6 or 7 of them came by in a neighboring field. I had never heard of a nilgai, and was baffled by the children's translation of it as "black cow", so I ran out to the edge of the campus to try to get a closer look. The photo below serves as evidence. Anyway, apparantly some people hunt them as game, because some of the teachers and students mimed gunshots and told me the meat is particularly good. I inquired about buying some of the meat to try it, but it seems like the kind of thing that you can't really plan on. It's more like when the butcher has it, you can get it...otherwise your only options are chicken, goat, or the occasional water buffalo.
To round out the land mammals, recently I've noticed some wild marmots crossing the road in front of my rickshaw on the trip between the center and the town of Sanand. They're beige and pretty small, and seem to generally like to hide in the shrubs.
The selection of lizards is varied, but the most common are geckos. There are geckos everywhere. In this room alone, I'll bet there are at least 5 or 6. There is a little baby one not more than an inch and a half long on the floor next to me right now, actually. They generally stay on the walls or ceilings eating insects and moths, a service I am grateful for. The only time they bother me is if they jump on my shirt (that's happened twice) or die in a bucket of water in my bathroom (that happened once and was not particularly fun to dispose of). Below is a gecko on the screen window of my room here last year.
The second most common lizard is a kind of chameleon. These guys stay outdoors around bushes and trees. They have a spikey mohawked head and back, and look like little dinosaurs. They can get pretty long, at least 8 or 10 inches. I maintain a guilty pleasure in chasing them around, because they look hilarious when they run.
And then there are the snakes. I'm not particularly afraid of snakes, but maybe that's because no one I've known has been killed by a king cobra, which is something not everyone here can say. I've yet to see a wild cobra here, but I've seen a bunch of other kinds of snakes. The following story is relevant but pretty gross, so if snake death bothers you, you might want to skip it. Last year I was coming back from Sanand at night, maybe around 9 o clock. I was riding with a teacher at the center, when he saw something on the road and stopped. It was a snake that had just been run over by a huge truck, and had been snapped in two. Both halves writhed around for about 15 seconds before staying still. The snake had been full of eggs, the majority of which were scattered on the road. Some were even still intact, though most had cracked.
The birds around here are amazing. There are all different kinds, of all different shapes and sizes, making many, many different calls. The biggest and most impressive is, of course, the peacock. There are a lot of wild peacocks around here. The idea of a wild peacock still seems a bit odd to me, because peacocks are absurd animals. Today on the ride back to the center from Sanand, I saw one peacock with his tail feathers fully extended and displayed, which was surreal. Another was on the roadside just watching us drive by, the little palmtree bob of feathers on his head wobbling in the evening breeze. It seems appropriate to me that the peacock is India's national bird. Indians have a penchant for unnecessary shine and glimmer, sewing tiny mirrors into pastel clothes and wearing giant gold umbrella earings. The peacock represents that attitude perfectly, for no good reason (other than to show it off) possessing a really, really ostentatious tail.
There is also a great woodpecker here with a black and white spotted mohawk crest on its head, tiny black hummingbirds, beautifully colored kingfishers, storks and cranes, doves, sparrows, and all kinds of others whose names I don't know. There is a bird sanctuary about 50 kilometers away, so it's a real treat to get to watch some of these birds.
There are probably other wild animals here that I'm forgetting. There is also a whole variety of giant wasps, hornets, and bees that I don't feel like writing about. I hate wasps, and there are so many of them. And there are just thousands of wild dogs, which all look the same and are filthy. And of course there are plenty of domesticated animals (cows, water buffalo, camels, sheep, goats, donkeys, horses, chickens, etc.). But I think the above gives a pretty good picture of most of the interesting wild animals I've seen around here.
It seems timely to begin with monkeys. Unlike in other parts of India, most of central Gujarat is populated only with langur monkeys, and no other species of primate. Langurs are generally docile, or so I thought until recently. There is a troop of them that likes to set up camp in the big trees around the Ecosan (toilet facility). The biggest one, probably the dominant male I guess, chased me once a few weeks ago for the crime of trying to walk up to the Ecosan. I motioned to throw my roll of toilet paper at it, but that only made it bare its teeth and start to run after me. I panicked, and ran into a toilet stall and locked the door. And then tonight, I was going to throw away the plastic pouch of a recently consumed yogurt, when that same monkey (I can only assume) pulled a similar act. I yelled, "There's a monkey chasing me!" and raced back towards the office, surprising everyone in the accounting staff's office, since all they heard was a slur of words coming from a clearly distraught American. I must say, I'm losing a bit of my fondness for monkeys.
On the other hand, nilgai have risen in the ranks of my favorite animals, so all is well. That was not a typo -- nilgai , a kind of Asian antelope, roam around Gujarat in small herds damaging crops. When I was at one of the primary schools, a herd of 6 or 7 of them came by in a neighboring field. I had never heard of a nilgai, and was baffled by the children's translation of it as "black cow", so I ran out to the edge of the campus to try to get a closer look. The photo below serves as evidence. Anyway, apparantly some people hunt them as game, because some of the teachers and students mimed gunshots and told me the meat is particularly good. I inquired about buying some of the meat to try it, but it seems like the kind of thing that you can't really plan on. It's more like when the butcher has it, you can get it...otherwise your only options are chicken, goat, or the occasional water buffalo.
To round out the land mammals, recently I've noticed some wild marmots crossing the road in front of my rickshaw on the trip between the center and the town of Sanand. They're beige and pretty small, and seem to generally like to hide in the shrubs.
The selection of lizards is varied, but the most common are geckos. There are geckos everywhere. In this room alone, I'll bet there are at least 5 or 6. There is a little baby one not more than an inch and a half long on the floor next to me right now, actually. They generally stay on the walls or ceilings eating insects and moths, a service I am grateful for. The only time they bother me is if they jump on my shirt (that's happened twice) or die in a bucket of water in my bathroom (that happened once and was not particularly fun to dispose of). Below is a gecko on the screen window of my room here last year.
The second most common lizard is a kind of chameleon. These guys stay outdoors around bushes and trees. They have a spikey mohawked head and back, and look like little dinosaurs. They can get pretty long, at least 8 or 10 inches. I maintain a guilty pleasure in chasing them around, because they look hilarious when they run.
And then there are the snakes. I'm not particularly afraid of snakes, but maybe that's because no one I've known has been killed by a king cobra, which is something not everyone here can say. I've yet to see a wild cobra here, but I've seen a bunch of other kinds of snakes. The following story is relevant but pretty gross, so if snake death bothers you, you might want to skip it. Last year I was coming back from Sanand at night, maybe around 9 o clock. I was riding with a teacher at the center, when he saw something on the road and stopped. It was a snake that had just been run over by a huge truck, and had been snapped in two. Both halves writhed around for about 15 seconds before staying still. The snake had been full of eggs, the majority of which were scattered on the road. Some were even still intact, though most had cracked.
The birds around here are amazing. There are all different kinds, of all different shapes and sizes, making many, many different calls. The biggest and most impressive is, of course, the peacock. There are a lot of wild peacocks around here. The idea of a wild peacock still seems a bit odd to me, because peacocks are absurd animals. Today on the ride back to the center from Sanand, I saw one peacock with his tail feathers fully extended and displayed, which was surreal. Another was on the roadside just watching us drive by, the little palmtree bob of feathers on his head wobbling in the evening breeze. It seems appropriate to me that the peacock is India's national bird. Indians have a penchant for unnecessary shine and glimmer, sewing tiny mirrors into pastel clothes and wearing giant gold umbrella earings. The peacock represents that attitude perfectly, for no good reason (other than to show it off) possessing a really, really ostentatious tail.
There is also a great woodpecker here with a black and white spotted mohawk crest on its head, tiny black hummingbirds, beautifully colored kingfishers, storks and cranes, doves, sparrows, and all kinds of others whose names I don't know. There is a bird sanctuary about 50 kilometers away, so it's a real treat to get to watch some of these birds.
There are probably other wild animals here that I'm forgetting. There is also a whole variety of giant wasps, hornets, and bees that I don't feel like writing about. I hate wasps, and there are so many of them. And there are just thousands of wild dogs, which all look the same and are filthy. And of course there are plenty of domesticated animals (cows, water buffalo, camels, sheep, goats, donkeys, horses, chickens, etc.). But I think the above gives a pretty good picture of most of the interesting wild animals I've seen around here.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
New students at the vocational training center
I’ve been back at the vocational training center for about a month now, since summer vacation starts at the primary schools in early April. Over 300 students are now enrolled in the current batch, making it the largest group the center has ever had. Over 100 students come from Dharampur, a hilly forested area in Southeast Gujarat populated mostly by Adivasis, also called Tribals. Adivasis are generally considered to be India’s indigenous population. Because they traditionally lived in more isolated parts of India, they did not absorb the caste system and do not practice untouchability with Dalits.
Adivasis, which I think are about 8% of the Indian population, are one of the most marginalized communities in India. Many have been forced to migrate to urban areas in search of labor because their previous source of livelihood—the forest—has been increasingly sold off by the government to private companies, or degraded by encroaching non-Adivasi industrialists past the point of its ability to support a population.
11 of the 12 students enrolled in the Secretarial Training course I am helping with are Adivasi. Most of them just took their 12th grade exam, and are waiting to hear about the results. Their schools were in Gujarati-medium (meaning the language of instruction was Gujarati), so they all know Gujarati and Hindi. But they also know Marathi, the language of Maharashtra, the state just to the South of Gujarat, as well as Khokani, an Adivasi dialect of their region. All four of those languages are similar, but distinct, and it continues to impress me that they can move fluidly between each one.
Last week they taught me how to say “My name is David” in Khokani. It sounds like “Manha nau David aha”, whereas in Gujarati it is “Mara naam David che” and in Hindi, “Mera naam David hei”. You can see how they are all related, but still different.
The other AJWS volunteer, Abbie, has been teaching a spoken English course. There are 31 students in her class, which is quite a challenge considering the difference in English levels. All of the students in the Secretarial course have some foundation in English, but there are some in Spoken English who struggle to write the alphabet. I’ve been teaching those students (there are 6 of them) for about 90 minutes a day, which helps Abbie’s class run more smoothly and gives those 6 students more tailored instruction.
All 6 of them are girls who just took their 12th grade exam, and 5 want to become nurses. I asked them in Gujarati how it happened that they got this far without learning English, and the girls were quick to answer. “The teachers aren’t good in the government schools,” one said. “They just teach for the salary,” another added. “Most don’t know English, and don’t care to try.” Unfortunately, these are common complaints for students at government schools. But now that they’ve finished upper secondary school, they’ve reached a point where they need English to move forward, since English is required at all nursing schools here.
Anyway, it's been interesting to learn a bit about a group of people I hadn't really been exposed to before. It helps to provide additional perspective.
Adivasis, which I think are about 8% of the Indian population, are one of the most marginalized communities in India. Many have been forced to migrate to urban areas in search of labor because their previous source of livelihood—the forest—has been increasingly sold off by the government to private companies, or degraded by encroaching non-Adivasi industrialists past the point of its ability to support a population.
11 of the 12 students enrolled in the Secretarial Training course I am helping with are Adivasi. Most of them just took their 12th grade exam, and are waiting to hear about the results. Their schools were in Gujarati-medium (meaning the language of instruction was Gujarati), so they all know Gujarati and Hindi. But they also know Marathi, the language of Maharashtra, the state just to the South of Gujarat, as well as Khokani, an Adivasi dialect of their region. All four of those languages are similar, but distinct, and it continues to impress me that they can move fluidly between each one.
Last week they taught me how to say “My name is David” in Khokani. It sounds like “Manha nau David aha”, whereas in Gujarati it is “Mara naam David che” and in Hindi, “Mera naam David hei”. You can see how they are all related, but still different.
The other AJWS volunteer, Abbie, has been teaching a spoken English course. There are 31 students in her class, which is quite a challenge considering the difference in English levels. All of the students in the Secretarial course have some foundation in English, but there are some in Spoken English who struggle to write the alphabet. I’ve been teaching those students (there are 6 of them) for about 90 minutes a day, which helps Abbie’s class run more smoothly and gives those 6 students more tailored instruction.
All 6 of them are girls who just took their 12th grade exam, and 5 want to become nurses. I asked them in Gujarati how it happened that they got this far without learning English, and the girls were quick to answer. “The teachers aren’t good in the government schools,” one said. “They just teach for the salary,” another added. “Most don’t know English, and don’t care to try.” Unfortunately, these are common complaints for students at government schools. But now that they’ve finished upper secondary school, they’ve reached a point where they need English to move forward, since English is required at all nursing schools here.
Anyway, it's been interesting to learn a bit about a group of people I hadn't really been exposed to before. It helps to provide additional perspective.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Google Earth and Sky
Summer vacation is coming sooner than I realized, and exams at the primary schools are now less than two weeks away. As a result there is less room for me to teach English classes that I’d hoped for, though I’ve still had formal classes with each grade a few times. And just being here inspires the students to speak a bit of English as they walk around the campus, so I’m satisfied.
The science teacher here, Mukesh, had heard somewhere about Google Earth, and wanted to know if I had it on my laptop. I didn’t, but I have a portable modem that connects to the internet the same way a cell phone does, so I downloaded the program two days ago. It didn’t take long before we were able to find his village in rural Gujarat, and Mukesh was beyond excited when he found his house. One by one, we then found the villages of all the teachers here, despite the slow connection speed of my modem.
Apparently Google Earth has added two new features: Mars and Sky. Mars isn’t too exciting, but you can see where those little robotic vehicles landed and moved around. Sky, however, is incredible. They’ve added all these high definition photos of galaxies, stars and nebulas (nebulae?), and you move around and choose what you want to see. The only thing I’ve had trouble with is using it to tour our solar system.
Anyway, last night after dinner all the students and teachers gathered in one of the classrooms, sitting in rows on the floor in front of my laptop, which was set on a desk. First we used Google Earth to find Dhanduka, the town nearest to the school. We looked at the bus stand—which had busses all lined up—and followed it past the main traffic circle and out on the road towards the school. Mukesh narrated the journey so that all the students could understand what they were looking at. We followed the road east, and Mukesh pointed out the train station and two local restaurants.
The aerial photos for this section of Gujarat were taken in 2004, and the school was built in 2005, so we weren’t able to see the school buildings. But we could see the land on which the school stands, and a big tree that all the children recognized. Then we moved into the village next to the school, and pointed out where two of the teachers live.
Next the kids wanted to see my house, so I showed them North America, Canada and the Great Lakes, and gradually moved closer into New York State and Buffalo, and finally to my house. I pointed out my high school, and the tennis courts I played on when I was on the tennis team. I also pointed out a restaurant, the post office, and a “petrol pump”, as they call gas stations here.
Then we switched to Google Mars for a few minutes, and found a picture of a recent vehicle NASA sent there. There isn’t as much to do on Mars, so we soon moved to Sky, the majority of the photos for which were taken by the Hubble. Mukesh is now in the middle of a Bachelors program in Biology, and has been studying his textbooks in the little free time he has, so all this astrological information is fresh in his mind. We looked at a detailed photo of the sun, and he explained what sunspots are, drawing a diagram on the chalkboard. He also explained the concept of a light year, and how far the sun and other stars are away from the Earth. We moved to a few different galaxies, and he explained how large a galaxy is in relation to our solar system. I also clicked on several nebulae, and Mukesh pointed out the young stars and how they are born from hydrogen and helium. There was one “deep field” photo taken by the Hubble of a field of galaxies, and we could zoom in on each galaxy and see its spiral shape, even though from a distance it just looked like a star.
The students were enraptured the entire time, and Mukesh had to keep telling them to sit back down because they wanted to move closer to the screen. It was the first time in their lives they’d seen anything even remotely like Google Earth or Sky, and it seems to have made a big impression.
This morning one of the boys pointed up at the rising sun, and then moved his hand towards the center of the sky. It was early, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. “What,” I asked. “What is it?”
“The universe,” he answered, smiling.
The science teacher here, Mukesh, had heard somewhere about Google Earth, and wanted to know if I had it on my laptop. I didn’t, but I have a portable modem that connects to the internet the same way a cell phone does, so I downloaded the program two days ago. It didn’t take long before we were able to find his village in rural Gujarat, and Mukesh was beyond excited when he found his house. One by one, we then found the villages of all the teachers here, despite the slow connection speed of my modem.
Apparently Google Earth has added two new features: Mars and Sky. Mars isn’t too exciting, but you can see where those little robotic vehicles landed and moved around. Sky, however, is incredible. They’ve added all these high definition photos of galaxies, stars and nebulas (nebulae?), and you move around and choose what you want to see. The only thing I’ve had trouble with is using it to tour our solar system.
Anyway, last night after dinner all the students and teachers gathered in one of the classrooms, sitting in rows on the floor in front of my laptop, which was set on a desk. First we used Google Earth to find Dhanduka, the town nearest to the school. We looked at the bus stand—which had busses all lined up—and followed it past the main traffic circle and out on the road towards the school. Mukesh narrated the journey so that all the students could understand what they were looking at. We followed the road east, and Mukesh pointed out the train station and two local restaurants.
The aerial photos for this section of Gujarat were taken in 2004, and the school was built in 2005, so we weren’t able to see the school buildings. But we could see the land on which the school stands, and a big tree that all the children recognized. Then we moved into the village next to the school, and pointed out where two of the teachers live.
Next the kids wanted to see my house, so I showed them North America, Canada and the Great Lakes, and gradually moved closer into New York State and Buffalo, and finally to my house. I pointed out my high school, and the tennis courts I played on when I was on the tennis team. I also pointed out a restaurant, the post office, and a “petrol pump”, as they call gas stations here.
Then we switched to Google Mars for a few minutes, and found a picture of a recent vehicle NASA sent there. There isn’t as much to do on Mars, so we soon moved to Sky, the majority of the photos for which were taken by the Hubble. Mukesh is now in the middle of a Bachelors program in Biology, and has been studying his textbooks in the little free time he has, so all this astrological information is fresh in his mind. We looked at a detailed photo of the sun, and he explained what sunspots are, drawing a diagram on the chalkboard. He also explained the concept of a light year, and how far the sun and other stars are away from the Earth. We moved to a few different galaxies, and he explained how large a galaxy is in relation to our solar system. I also clicked on several nebulae, and Mukesh pointed out the young stars and how they are born from hydrogen and helium. There was one “deep field” photo taken by the Hubble of a field of galaxies, and we could zoom in on each galaxy and see its spiral shape, even though from a distance it just looked like a star.
The students were enraptured the entire time, and Mukesh had to keep telling them to sit back down because they wanted to move closer to the screen. It was the first time in their lives they’d seen anything even remotely like Google Earth or Sky, and it seems to have made a big impression.
This morning one of the boys pointed up at the rising sun, and then moved his hand towards the center of the sky. It was early, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. “What,” I asked. “What is it?”
“The universe,” he answered, smiling.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Holi
Today is the Hindu holiday Holi (that was an unintentional alliteration), the festival of colors. If you saw the movie Water, it's the holiday when everyone throws colored powder at each other.
Last night I went to the village of one of the primary school teachers, Suresh. Suresh is married to a fieldworker of the NGO, and they live together in the village of Tokrala, a 2 km ride away, with their three-year-old son, Ashok. The school and village are both right off Indian National Highway No. 8, which bisects Gujarat from the Arabian Sea in the Southwest, to the Northeast where it extends into Rajasthan. It's one of the only decent roads I've been on in Gujarat, though it still slows as every other road here does for tremendous herds of sheep or water buffalo, or Hindu revelers dancing as they push a shrine-on-wheels.
We arrived in the village a little after 5 in the afternoon, with the sun low enough to provide a respite from the heat, which had been around 100 degrees a few hours earlier. The main road of Tokrala is unpaved. We passed by the Bharvard (shepherd caste) and Koli Patel (another "mid-level" caste) communities before reaching the Dalit locality on the far side of the village. Suresh’s house is part of an enclave of five or six houses, all packed in around a narrow path. A few cows and buffalos were lounging around the front of the enclave, and Suresh’s home—a one-story concrete structure with two rooms, high ceilings and a clay tile roof—was two or three in on the left. One of the NGO’s village libraries was sitting in the corner of the first room, next to a portable blackboard. The NGO runs these informal education centers in several hundred villages, and I’ve written about them for several reports. Last year I rarely got into the field, though, so I was curious to hear about how this one was working. Suresh said that they run programs every day, and close to thirty children, of all castes, come to play educational games and reinforce the lessons they learn (or, in many cases, don’t learn) at school.
I had tea with Suresh and his wife, and then had more tea at the house across the way, home to one of the students at the primary school. We then walked for about five minutes to Suresh’s in-laws’ home, just outside the enclave and down the way a bit.
I hate to sound like I'm idealizing village life, but the scene there was almost absurdly beautiful. Two grown water buffalos and one calf were relaxing next to a fence in the evening light, which made everything seem to glow. Suresh's father-in-law was just coming back from his farm, and was riding on the back of a bullock cart with one of his daughters and a few grandchildren, all of whom sat on top of some white sacks overflowing with freshly-picked cotton. Two gigantic bulls, their massive horns extending upward and back towards the cart, bobbed their heads under the weight of the yolk.
After his family got off, Suresh’s father-in-law started to place the sacks, each one about three feet in diameter, on his head and carry them towards his house about 15 feet away. I wanted to try and carry one, so he placed one on my head and helped me balance it until I let it fall on top of the other sacks. It was surprisingly heavy and very difficult to balance. He told me it was 30 kg, which is about 66 pounds. The cotton is so light and fluffy, it’s hard to imagine it being so heavy until you have a giant sack of it on your head. I took a closer look at it after I let it drop, and saw that it was crawling with tiny red and brown insects, some of which were no doubt now in my hair. I made a mental note to shampoo when I got back.
Dinner was at Suresh’s house, and was prepared by him, his wife, and his wife’s little sister. It was one of the best home-cooked meals I’ve had in India. I’m not going to be able to describe it well, because I don’t know the names of most of what I ate…but there was a sweet appetizer of chappati, ghee (purified butter) and some kind of sugary thing, fried vegetables in batter called bajiya, a chutney of cauliflower, onions and potato, more chappatis and a kind of whole-grain chappati made from a grain called bhajari, a rice and lentil mixture, milky curry, and butter milk. It was great.
We began to hear the Holi drums towards the end of the meal, so after we washed our hands we headed out towards the sound. Earlier in the day I’d noticed a large pile of wood and dung cakes, some of which were strung into garlands, sitting in an open area of the village, set to become the Holi fire. Yes, in case there is any confusion, I do mean that there were garlands of cow and buffalo dung decorating what would soon become a huge bonfire of flaming poop.
The fire was not yet lit when we arrived. A Brahmin priest sat in front of it, performing some kind of pooja ceremony for two young men from the Rajput community (dominant Kshatriya caste). All the while another young man, standing a bit apart from the rest of the crowd, banged on his drum. Tokrala has just one Valmiki family, and one of the caste duties of the Valmikis is to play drums on certain occasions. The making of drums is considered polluting, because of its association with the tanning on animal hides, which is why it is assigned to a Dalit sub-caste.
Eventually someone came and lit the fire, which quickly engulfed the entire pile of poop and wood. Dung cakes are highly flammable, and are often used as fuel in kitchens here. When the flames got big enough, some men began to approach it with small bundles of hay. They circled the fire, touching the hay to it so that it would catch, and then lifting it over their heads and smashing the flames out on the ground. Suresh and his wife explained that many villagers believe that the fate of the coming year is determined on Holi. Those with buffalos and cows perform the ritual to prevent their animals from getting sick over the next year.
Later, people started throwing coconuts into the fire, sending a geyser of sparks up each time a coconut hit. I didn’t quite understand the explanation for this act, but the sparks have some connection to the rain for the upcoming year. A group of village women had gathered, dressed in the red saris typical of the Koli Patel caste. They started singing wedding songs in honor of the young man who was now circling the fire, coconut and sword in hand. He eventually tossed his coconut into the fire as well.
The fire began to die down, and we headed back to the school around 9:30 at night. We passed another fire or two on the way. When we got back, I was telling some of the other teachers and a few students about the evening. One boy, Asvind, a very clever student in 7th grade, said that in his village only the Darbars (feudal landlord Kshatriya caste) are allowed to circle the fire. The right to dance around a pile of burning buffalo crap seems like such a silly little thing, but it represents social status and power. It's interesting to think about how caste dynamics extend into the minutia of village life here.
Last night I went to the village of one of the primary school teachers, Suresh. Suresh is married to a fieldworker of the NGO, and they live together in the village of Tokrala, a 2 km ride away, with their three-year-old son, Ashok. The school and village are both right off Indian National Highway No. 8, which bisects Gujarat from the Arabian Sea in the Southwest, to the Northeast where it extends into Rajasthan. It's one of the only decent roads I've been on in Gujarat, though it still slows as every other road here does for tremendous herds of sheep or water buffalo, or Hindu revelers dancing as they push a shrine-on-wheels.
We arrived in the village a little after 5 in the afternoon, with the sun low enough to provide a respite from the heat, which had been around 100 degrees a few hours earlier. The main road of Tokrala is unpaved. We passed by the Bharvard (shepherd caste) and Koli Patel (another "mid-level" caste) communities before reaching the Dalit locality on the far side of the village. Suresh’s house is part of an enclave of five or six houses, all packed in around a narrow path. A few cows and buffalos were lounging around the front of the enclave, and Suresh’s home—a one-story concrete structure with two rooms, high ceilings and a clay tile roof—was two or three in on the left. One of the NGO’s village libraries was sitting in the corner of the first room, next to a portable blackboard. The NGO runs these informal education centers in several hundred villages, and I’ve written about them for several reports. Last year I rarely got into the field, though, so I was curious to hear about how this one was working. Suresh said that they run programs every day, and close to thirty children, of all castes, come to play educational games and reinforce the lessons they learn (or, in many cases, don’t learn) at school.
I had tea with Suresh and his wife, and then had more tea at the house across the way, home to one of the students at the primary school. We then walked for about five minutes to Suresh’s in-laws’ home, just outside the enclave and down the way a bit.
I hate to sound like I'm idealizing village life, but the scene there was almost absurdly beautiful. Two grown water buffalos and one calf were relaxing next to a fence in the evening light, which made everything seem to glow. Suresh's father-in-law was just coming back from his farm, and was riding on the back of a bullock cart with one of his daughters and a few grandchildren, all of whom sat on top of some white sacks overflowing with freshly-picked cotton. Two gigantic bulls, their massive horns extending upward and back towards the cart, bobbed their heads under the weight of the yolk.
After his family got off, Suresh’s father-in-law started to place the sacks, each one about three feet in diameter, on his head and carry them towards his house about 15 feet away. I wanted to try and carry one, so he placed one on my head and helped me balance it until I let it fall on top of the other sacks. It was surprisingly heavy and very difficult to balance. He told me it was 30 kg, which is about 66 pounds. The cotton is so light and fluffy, it’s hard to imagine it being so heavy until you have a giant sack of it on your head. I took a closer look at it after I let it drop, and saw that it was crawling with tiny red and brown insects, some of which were no doubt now in my hair. I made a mental note to shampoo when I got back.
Dinner was at Suresh’s house, and was prepared by him, his wife, and his wife’s little sister. It was one of the best home-cooked meals I’ve had in India. I’m not going to be able to describe it well, because I don’t know the names of most of what I ate…but there was a sweet appetizer of chappati, ghee (purified butter) and some kind of sugary thing, fried vegetables in batter called bajiya, a chutney of cauliflower, onions and potato, more chappatis and a kind of whole-grain chappati made from a grain called bhajari, a rice and lentil mixture, milky curry, and butter milk. It was great.
We began to hear the Holi drums towards the end of the meal, so after we washed our hands we headed out towards the sound. Earlier in the day I’d noticed a large pile of wood and dung cakes, some of which were strung into garlands, sitting in an open area of the village, set to become the Holi fire. Yes, in case there is any confusion, I do mean that there were garlands of cow and buffalo dung decorating what would soon become a huge bonfire of flaming poop.
The fire was not yet lit when we arrived. A Brahmin priest sat in front of it, performing some kind of pooja ceremony for two young men from the Rajput community (dominant Kshatriya caste). All the while another young man, standing a bit apart from the rest of the crowd, banged on his drum. Tokrala has just one Valmiki family, and one of the caste duties of the Valmikis is to play drums on certain occasions. The making of drums is considered polluting, because of its association with the tanning on animal hides, which is why it is assigned to a Dalit sub-caste.
Eventually someone came and lit the fire, which quickly engulfed the entire pile of poop and wood. Dung cakes are highly flammable, and are often used as fuel in kitchens here. When the flames got big enough, some men began to approach it with small bundles of hay. They circled the fire, touching the hay to it so that it would catch, and then lifting it over their heads and smashing the flames out on the ground. Suresh and his wife explained that many villagers believe that the fate of the coming year is determined on Holi. Those with buffalos and cows perform the ritual to prevent their animals from getting sick over the next year.
Later, people started throwing coconuts into the fire, sending a geyser of sparks up each time a coconut hit. I didn’t quite understand the explanation for this act, but the sparks have some connection to the rain for the upcoming year. A group of village women had gathered, dressed in the red saris typical of the Koli Patel caste. They started singing wedding songs in honor of the young man who was now circling the fire, coconut and sword in hand. He eventually tossed his coconut into the fire as well.
The fire began to die down, and we headed back to the school around 9:30 at night. We passed another fire or two on the way. When we got back, I was telling some of the other teachers and a few students about the evening. One boy, Asvind, a very clever student in 7th grade, said that in his village only the Darbars (feudal landlord Kshatriya caste) are allowed to circle the fire. The right to dance around a pile of burning buffalo crap seems like such a silly little thing, but it represents social status and power. It's interesting to think about how caste dynamics extend into the minutia of village life here.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Finally at the primary schools
Last Tuesday I finally arrived at the first of the primary schools I plan to stay at. The schools were set up by my NGO as a response to the discimination that many Dalit children experience in rural government-run primary schools. I've been here for a week now, and it's been really nice. It’s a boarding school, and the students and most of the staff sleep in the school's classrooms. Thin, roll-up mattresses are piled up on one side of the rooms during the day, and then taken out at night. People sleep right on the floor just like that, with just the thin mattress as padding. There are a few cots, one of which I've been putting my mattress thing on top of and sleeping on. The first night I slept in one of the classrooms on the floor, along with a teacher and about 10 students. The bell is first rung at 6 AM, and then students start to study and do homework for an hour or so. The light got turned on, and I had a hard time staying asleep, and also being on the stone floor wasn't the most comfortable. So since then I've slept in the school's office on the cot. Unfortunately the bell is directly outside the office...but the privacy and cot are worth it. I always wear ear plugs when sleeping in India (it muffles the barking dogs, trucks with absurdly elaborate horns, firecrackers, singing, etc.), but they can only do so much.
Anyway, life here is nice. The school is for grades 5 through 7, and is coed. There are about 44 girls and 80 boys, which is a real success; it's very difficult to convince parents to invest in their daughters’ education, let alone send them to a boarding school. Everyone here is extremely enthusiastic about learning, and it shows. When they first enrolled, about half of the students had trouble reading and writing Gujarati, while more had trouble with Hindi and only a few could write the ABCs in English. Now all the students are reading and writing all three languages, a testament to the school's heavy schedule of classes and unstructured reading and study periods, along with the dedication of the teachers to provide extra tutoring in the evenings to students who need it.
Last year when I was in Gujarat I went with the Director of the NGO to a bookstore in Ahmedabad to choose some English children's books for the schools. I’ve been happy to see that many of those books are now well-worn. A few days ago some of the 6th grade girls asked me to read them the books in the "Benjamin Bunny" series, which are apparently a crowd favorite, so we spent about half an hour doing that. It was in the evening after dinner, and we were sitting on the lawn just outside one of the buildings. One of the girls, Mina, has really taken to English, so she read and tried to translate it into Gujarati while I held the book. We went through four or five of the books like that, with the kids sitting in a semi-circle around me as I helped Mina along. I don’t like everything about being here—I get a bit tired of people asking about the cost of my computer or plane ticket, or staring at me while I wash my clothes, or laughing about my use of toilet paper—but moments like that, outside reading on the grass with the students, a cool breeze coming in after an extremely hot day, far outweigh anything negative about being here.
I’ve been teaching some simple English songs to the students during the day as well. “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” is so popular that some of the boys whisper the words under their breath just walking around the campus. “Hello, my name is Joe” is also a good one, along with a few others. I think I’m going to introduce “Simon Says” today. We’ll see how that goes.
I interviewed two of the teachers yesterday, and will interview the rest today and tomorrow in order to write a report about them. They’re very interesting people, and their dedication is impressive. Most of them are happy to spend 6 or 7 days a week at the school. One of the teachers joined the school after she felt humiliated because of her status as a Dalit by the wife of the principal of the school she had worked at before. Another had been seated separately in the classroom and at lunchtime when he was a primary school student, which motivated him to become a teacher himself and teach children about equality. His father dropped out of school after grade 3 to start working, at age 10 earning 100 Rupees a month (about two dollars today, probably about ten dollars back then). His mother is illiterate. But he has a BA, and MA in Gujarati, and a B.Ed., and he also completed two out of three years of law school. Each one of them has their own story, and that’s what I’m trying to document in the report.
I’ll post some photos later on….I haven’t taken many yet.
Anyway, life here is nice. The school is for grades 5 through 7, and is coed. There are about 44 girls and 80 boys, which is a real success; it's very difficult to convince parents to invest in their daughters’ education, let alone send them to a boarding school. Everyone here is extremely enthusiastic about learning, and it shows. When they first enrolled, about half of the students had trouble reading and writing Gujarati, while more had trouble with Hindi and only a few could write the ABCs in English. Now all the students are reading and writing all three languages, a testament to the school's heavy schedule of classes and unstructured reading and study periods, along with the dedication of the teachers to provide extra tutoring in the evenings to students who need it.
Last year when I was in Gujarat I went with the Director of the NGO to a bookstore in Ahmedabad to choose some English children's books for the schools. I’ve been happy to see that many of those books are now well-worn. A few days ago some of the 6th grade girls asked me to read them the books in the "Benjamin Bunny" series, which are apparently a crowd favorite, so we spent about half an hour doing that. It was in the evening after dinner, and we were sitting on the lawn just outside one of the buildings. One of the girls, Mina, has really taken to English, so she read and tried to translate it into Gujarati while I held the book. We went through four or five of the books like that, with the kids sitting in a semi-circle around me as I helped Mina along. I don’t like everything about being here—I get a bit tired of people asking about the cost of my computer or plane ticket, or staring at me while I wash my clothes, or laughing about my use of toilet paper—but moments like that, outside reading on the grass with the students, a cool breeze coming in after an extremely hot day, far outweigh anything negative about being here.
I’ve been teaching some simple English songs to the students during the day as well. “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” is so popular that some of the boys whisper the words under their breath just walking around the campus. “Hello, my name is Joe” is also a good one, along with a few others. I think I’m going to introduce “Simon Says” today. We’ll see how that goes.
I interviewed two of the teachers yesterday, and will interview the rest today and tomorrow in order to write a report about them. They’re very interesting people, and their dedication is impressive. Most of them are happy to spend 6 or 7 days a week at the school. One of the teachers joined the school after she felt humiliated because of her status as a Dalit by the wife of the principal of the school she had worked at before. Another had been seated separately in the classroom and at lunchtime when he was a primary school student, which motivated him to become a teacher himself and teach children about equality. His father dropped out of school after grade 3 to start working, at age 10 earning 100 Rupees a month (about two dollars today, probably about ten dollars back then). His mother is illiterate. But he has a BA, and MA in Gujarati, and a B.Ed., and he also completed two out of three years of law school. Each one of them has their own story, and that’s what I’m trying to document in the report.
I’ll post some photos later on….I haven’t taken many yet.
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