Dear Becky and Sheree,
India is not for germaphobes. In fact neat freaks or people who are concerned about tidiness in general will have their limits of decency pushed, even in nice areas of Kolkata. There is garbage everywhere on the street, and most neighborhoods dump their garbage in nearby open air pits that don't seem to be maintain as local dogs will rummage through the trash and drag it half way down the street. Gutters are littered with trash swept from the sidewalks; disposable clay cups for chai, wrappers, food from the street stalls, it all ends up on the ground somewhere. This is a stark contrat for me from the cleanliness obsessed Japan I visited last year where even eating on the street was considered a no-no, lest you drop a crumb or a wrapper. The US is somewhere in between, our cities have definitely gotten cleaner, but they still retain a grungy feeling in certain parts.
Needless to say a weekend in trip to Darjeeling with Linda and Kate, two often other teaches in the program, helped me see India's garbage problem is not limited to the cities, it's everywhere.
The three of us took an hour-long flight to Bagdogra, the nearest airport to Darjeeling. From there we hired a taxi service to take us up the mountains. The ride was close to four hours, but the scenery was spectacular the entire trip. As we drove out of Siliguri, tea plantations and rice paddys covered the lower plains. Houses where scattered and there were no honking cars, but garbage pits still decorated the occasional roadside and local lakes and rivers looked grey-brown and polluted.
As we climbed, our driver explained that local elections had just taken place and a newly formed party had won all the seats. This new party promised to fix the roads that led in and out of Darjeeling, the main road having been closed for three years now due to massive landslides. Like any other democratic citizen our driver was a little skeptical of the promises the new party made, but he said if the roads could be fixed the trip to Darjeeling could be reduced by over an hour. For a main route carrying thousands of people and hundreds of kilos of goods a day, the road we traveled resembled more of a backcountry byway, ill repaired and dangerously narrow. However our driver seemed to know the road well and took no risks, going slow and using his hour to let downward traffic know we were just around the corner.
During our journey we stopped at a tea plantation and a Buddhist monastery, arriving just as evening prayers started. It was quite an experience to still inside a high ceilin-g monastary while monks changed and prayed around us.
We arrived at our hotel near dusk, the room not looking nearly as good (or clean) as it had in pictures. That was ok though, the view right outside on the balcony was beyond words. Green mountains rolled and plunged before, with white specks of houses Dottie g the trees and seeming to grow straight up from the mountainside. The rest of Darjeeling faced away from our hotel, on the other side of the mountain top where the view was no less spectacular.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
"There Are Two Indias"
Dear Sabia,
On Tuesday my mentor teacher, Subha, took me to visit the second schools St. John's supports with fundraisers and donations. These schools are located in highly impvierished areas of Kolkata. Subha had warned me several times before we visited that the neighborhoods we were going to pass through are very poor. I was not prepared for what very poor meant. The first school we visited was in a neighborhood that consisted of streets that narrowly progressed into a kind of cul-de-sac. The street near the school was so narrow that our driver could not fit the tiny, Ford Fiesta sized car down it. We got out and walked to a low-ceilinged building that functions as a community hall for marriages, festivals, etc. The school rents space from the landlord at a rate I thought was exorbitant for such a dingy ill lit building, but where else can there be a school? About 35 students greeted us with a "Good morning, ma'am", face lit in expectation. The room we entered was hot and a little crowded. There were no decorations on the walls, no posters or drawings. Only three chalkboards and the rows of tired benches and tables gave in indication that a school operated here.
Although st. John's is a girls school, boys are included in instruction at second schools, and instruction begins at the same age as it does at St. Johns, age three. The students also wear uniforms just like the girls at St. Johns. The boys in dark blue slack, the little ones in short pants.
One of the students placed a garland of tube roses around my neck as a show of honor, though to be honest I was the one honored. For the next twenty minutes or so, Subha and I were treated to recitations and songs from the littlest to the eldest students. The eldest would leave eventually to study at nearby English medium schools or at free night schools that allowed them to study for Board examinations.
One very lucky girl would be absorbed into the St. Johns school proper, her tuition waived, her supplies donated. Seven such girls go to St. Johns right now, and a new one will join soon.
The children at this school come from home lives heartbreakingly similar to those in America, unemployment, broken families, alcohol and drug abuse, but with one monsterous difference: the children at this school have no social safety nets. None. Not free schooling beyond the two and a half hours provided by St. John's; not health care, not child protection services to remove them from dangerous or exploitative situations, nor a food program to keep them nourished.
All of the social programs that people complain about in America as coddling the poor and keep them from work are simply not here, and the results are sad, and cautionary. I'm not trying to compare America to India, they are two very different countries with different cultures, histories, and needs. But humans have basic nessessities, adequate food, proper shelter, access to education to allow them to change their life. Life without these seems to be,well depressing, an endless cycle of poverty and sickness. When the basic needs if all people are cared for, life seems to get a lot better for everyone.
Education seems to be a key component in the quality of life, yet at this community the facilities for the students were only available for two and a half hours a day. And community members grumbled that the school shouldn't be in their neighborhood to begin with. Without an education it's hard to know the value of education, with an education it's difficult to know the approximate worth of that education.
India has millions of students working hard everyday to get into the top college slots in the country, or to prove themselves worthy to study abroad. Countless still are the children in neighborhoods like the ones I visited, cheap labor for their parents, or the only breadwinner in an ailing family.
"There are two Indias", Subha has told me more than once. The India of the Oberoi Grand Hotel, Park Street, South City Mall. This India is really indistinguishable from the US, busy, happy Indians spending money and enjoying life; drinking coffee or chai, shopping for salweer suits or sarees, reading books and investing in the future. It's a bright hopeful India, full of energy and promise. Then there is the India I saw very briefly, children manning counters or running errands. Men gambling, or hauling goods on bicycle rickshaws or pushcarts, women endlessly washing and scrubbing, carrying water, cooking. The elderly seemingly wasting away, their bodies no good for work, they might care for a child or tend small stoves. This is an India seemingly left behind, at least to my western eyes, things here have gone on as they always have.
Of course in the end, I am a foreign visitor, and have an incomplete understanding of what I see, I can only think, 'thank God education is free at home' and come home and teach.
On Tuesday my mentor teacher, Subha, took me to visit the second schools St. John's supports with fundraisers and donations. These schools are located in highly impvierished areas of Kolkata. Subha had warned me several times before we visited that the neighborhoods we were going to pass through are very poor. I was not prepared for what very poor meant. The first school we visited was in a neighborhood that consisted of streets that narrowly progressed into a kind of cul-de-sac. The street near the school was so narrow that our driver could not fit the tiny, Ford Fiesta sized car down it. We got out and walked to a low-ceilinged building that functions as a community hall for marriages, festivals, etc. The school rents space from the landlord at a rate I thought was exorbitant for such a dingy ill lit building, but where else can there be a school? About 35 students greeted us with a "Good morning, ma'am", face lit in expectation. The room we entered was hot and a little crowded. There were no decorations on the walls, no posters or drawings. Only three chalkboards and the rows of tired benches and tables gave in indication that a school operated here.
Although st. John's is a girls school, boys are included in instruction at second schools, and instruction begins at the same age as it does at St. Johns, age three. The students also wear uniforms just like the girls at St. Johns. The boys in dark blue slack, the little ones in short pants.
One of the students placed a garland of tube roses around my neck as a show of honor, though to be honest I was the one honored. For the next twenty minutes or so, Subha and I were treated to recitations and songs from the littlest to the eldest students. The eldest would leave eventually to study at nearby English medium schools or at free night schools that allowed them to study for Board examinations.
One very lucky girl would be absorbed into the St. Johns school proper, her tuition waived, her supplies donated. Seven such girls go to St. Johns right now, and a new one will join soon.
The children at this school come from home lives heartbreakingly similar to those in America, unemployment, broken families, alcohol and drug abuse, but with one monsterous difference: the children at this school have no social safety nets. None. Not free schooling beyond the two and a half hours provided by St. John's; not health care, not child protection services to remove them from dangerous or exploitative situations, nor a food program to keep them nourished.
All of the social programs that people complain about in America as coddling the poor and keep them from work are simply not here, and the results are sad, and cautionary. I'm not trying to compare America to India, they are two very different countries with different cultures, histories, and needs. But humans have basic nessessities, adequate food, proper shelter, access to education to allow them to change their life. Life without these seems to be,well depressing, an endless cycle of poverty and sickness. When the basic needs if all people are cared for, life seems to get a lot better for everyone.
Education seems to be a key component in the quality of life, yet at this community the facilities for the students were only available for two and a half hours a day. And community members grumbled that the school shouldn't be in their neighborhood to begin with. Without an education it's hard to know the value of education, with an education it's difficult to know the approximate worth of that education.
India has millions of students working hard everyday to get into the top college slots in the country, or to prove themselves worthy to study abroad. Countless still are the children in neighborhoods like the ones I visited, cheap labor for their parents, or the only breadwinner in an ailing family.
"There are two Indias", Subha has told me more than once. The India of the Oberoi Grand Hotel, Park Street, South City Mall. This India is really indistinguishable from the US, busy, happy Indians spending money and enjoying life; drinking coffee or chai, shopping for salweer suits or sarees, reading books and investing in the future. It's a bright hopeful India, full of energy and promise. Then there is the India I saw very briefly, children manning counters or running errands. Men gambling, or hauling goods on bicycle rickshaws or pushcarts, women endlessly washing and scrubbing, carrying water, cooking. The elderly seemingly wasting away, their bodies no good for work, they might care for a child or tend small stoves. This is an India seemingly left behind, at least to my western eyes, things here have gone on as they always have.
Of course in the end, I am a foreign visitor, and have an incomplete understanding of what I see, I can only think, 'thank God education is free at home' and come home and teach.
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