Letters, Numbers, and Kids...Oh My!

Though I’m not sure what I expected before I came, being in India has been harder than I thought. Life moves differently here, and it’s been a challenge to fit myself into that.

This past week, I spent mornings volunteering at The Happy School, a charity school for nearby street children. As a short-term volunteer with very slight knowledge of Hindi, my ability to help was limited to manually copying worksheets for each of 30 nursery-level children – there are no copy machines or bright white paper, simply the backs of donated, used paper and four markers – and helping them write out their uppercase letters and numbers 0-9 correctly. Many didn’t understand my accent (Z, for example, is pronounced “zedt,” and T must be formed by placing the tongue at the top of your mouth rather than behind your teeth), and others got upset when I couldn’t produce an eraser (there are only 4 for the entire classroom, and I made it a point to avoid holding onto them – 5-7 year olds can have sharp finger nails). By the time I left this afternoon, though, I had several followers on my way to the cab, all yelling some combination of “bye,” “ma’am,” and “deedee” (the last being a term for sister, interchangeable with teacher at the school).

As cute as the children were, being at the school was hard: the teachers are by no means kind to the children, the supplies are severely limited, and many of the children are falling behind already – some because of apparent learning disorders, others simply because they need encouragement rather than yelling – and it’s hard to know that, as much as I can stay after school with them to correct their letter reversals or trace out the number 2, they may never get the real attention they need. As I wrote in my journal early in the week:

…when it comes down to it, it seems that all these kids really want is to be touched. They run up to me and grab my hand, tug on my skirt, and hold up their books every few letters for a smile or approval. One of the girls came up to me during the morning and latched onto me – I could hardly get her to release her hands. The same thing happened with 3 of the girls and 1 boy as I tried to switch their pencils for colored pencils. The same happened again when the children came in from lunch. I feel helpless – on one hand, to help them really progress with their learning (without significant knowledge of Hindi, it’s hard to understand a simple request for an eraser, let alone to explain an academic concept); on the other, to simply hold or hug each one as much as they deserve – two hands only go so far.

Outside of mornings at school, my time has been spent mostly confined to the apartment where I’m staying. I’ve finished my first book and am flying through Les Miserables – who knew that nineteenth century Paris could be so fascinating? I did manage to survive the cab ride to a market in Delhi yesterday afternoon to refresh my clothing supply (5 tie-dyed undershirts can only get one so far…), and now have a few sets of brightly colored clothing complete with my very own Jasmine-style pants (in both bright pink and light bluish purple) – pictures to come eventually, I promise.

In other news, the count now stands at Powerful Antibiotics – 1, Non-bottled Water – 0; I temporarily resumed my post-South Korea, rice-only diet, but I’ve begun to slowly expand my horizons once more.

This weekend, my originally scheduled week of language and culture will resume. I’m looking forward to being a tourist as I visit some of Delhi’s notable sights before heading out to the orphanage in Jaipur next week.

Enjoy the wonderful fall weather for me!

Betsy

Current Location: Gurgaon, Delhi