Benefit Concert

So I’ve been disappearing for a week at a time these days, but I promise I had good reasons. Now that I’m reaching the last few weeks of my stay, it’s time that I caught up on my thoughts and experiences. So check regularly for the next few weeks, as I intend to make blogging one of my official wrap-up activities.

Last weekend I concluded one of my projects here, which was learning a classical Indian dance and then performing it. This goal was not mine, actually, but my policy of saying "yes" turned this into a focus for me over the last month.

I’ve mentioned that I’ve been taking dance lessons with a student from school, and her mother is enthusiastic about me, to say the least. She is the principal of a school for preschoolers, and every year she holds a dance concert. Her daughter is often show-cased, but this year the big attraction would be . . . an AMERICAN.

So after school each day I got into a routine. I would ride with Sweeya on her mother’s bus to her house. There they would feed me a delicious home-cooked meal with ghee and pickle and curd (this was the best part, really). Then I’d lazily nap for awhile on their couch or bed until the dance master finally showed up around 5:30 or 6. I’d wait for him to have his tea and snacks before we finally rehearsed a couple times.

It all culminated in the final benefit concert for the blind last Sunday night. I got all dressed up in my rented outfit and jewelry. They did my hair all up, and I got some fancy make-up. My hands and feet were painted with red dye, and I even got a nice nose ring. (Don’t worry, any administrators reading this; it’s not actually real.)

The performance went off, if not perfectly. The stage was a little bigger and the music a little slower than usual, but we concluded without too many glitches. Many of the key people in my life here were able to attend—my mentor and facilitator and their husbands and even my dearest Secunderabad friends, Patrick, Jessie, Evan, and Eli. My mentor’s husband decided that I should become a famous Indian classical dancer in the US, begin a dance school, get rich, and then fly them over to visit.

Patrick and Jessie teamed up to take video and still shots during the show. I’m sure their shots are a lot better than mine, but I thought I’d post the one that I have now so that you get the idea. Next to me is my dance partner, Sweeya, of course.

Bargain, Baby, Bargain

So I’m totally going to steal a good idea from my pal Patrick and attempt to capture the bargaining process. I first met with this system in Thailand, and although I was initially quite uncomfortable with it, I’ve now grown to enjoy it. It’s really a great method to make you more of a self-advocate (or maybe just pushy). For better or worse, that’s one aspect of myself that’s really developed—my ability to take a hard line and make demands.

So let’s say I’m strolling through a bazaar, and a man comes up offering me a coral necklace. Our interaction would go something like this:

Seller: Coral necklace! Very beautiful.
Erin: Uh, I don’t know. . . (as I take a sideways glance at it)
Seller: For you, good price.
Erin: (if I’m interested) I don’t really like it.
Seller: Very beautiful on you. (he holds it up, tries to put it into my hands)
Erin: I don’t know. It is ugly. (I scowl)
Seller: Good for you! Very cheap.
Erin: How much do you want? (skeptical)
Seller: 450 rupees only!
Erin: Too much, too much! (I put my hand up, and walk away)
Seller: (he runs after) Make a price!
Erin: (if I want it) I do not like it. 50 rupees!
Seller: Not possible! 300 rupees.
Erin: No way, dude. I am poor teacher.
Seller: OK, no business today, so 300 rupees, very cheap.
Erin: I live here. Give me Indian price. (blank-faced)
Seller: Coral for you. 250 rupees, last price.
Erin: Too expensive. Good-bye. (I walk)
Seller: One more price. Name price.
Erin: 80 rupees only.
Seller: Impossible! (I continue walking)

At this point the seller either gets fed up with me because I’m seriously low-balling him, or he follows after.

Seller: OK. Your price, your price!

And I win!

A Day of School at KV Kanchanbagh

Today was a pretty classic day, so I thought I’d try to capture it for you. After the usual routine of getting ready in the morning, I walk out my door and to the main street. Today my 9th class friend, Mudassar is waiting for me. He’s just barely reached the age when he thinks it just might be possible to win me over. Poor boy. I don’t think he realizes just how old I am, as many Indians look older than they are, and I’m just the opposite. We do our usual greeting and stand in silence, watching for a 7-person auto-rickshaw.

After a few minutes, one arrives and I squeeze in beside three other women. One man sits on the seat across from us, but it is the unspoken rule here that women are separated from men, even when it’s uncomfortable. Although I’d personally rather just sit next to the man, I decide it’s better to follow the custom. I’d hate to get a reputation as a "loose American" who sits next to MEN.

On the way to school, the auto-rickshaw does its usual swerving to avoid goats, motorcycles, pot-holes, and trucks full of bricks (those are the ones that still get my blood rushing). Everyone is out doing their morning routines: the female street sweepers are working at a 45 degree angle with their straw brooms, the farmers are rolling in on carts pulled by water buffalo, and the pan sellers are rolling up their tobacco sweetness. It’s loud with horns and people, but it’s even more smelly. I wear sunglasses to keep the dust out of my eyes. It doesn’t work.

I reach my intersection (Phiselbunda) in about 20 minutes and pay the driver 5 rupees. After walking a short distance past the fruit carts, I walk through the school gate and past the guard. Now the greetings begin. "Good morning, Madam!" The students are going out of their way to "wish me," as they say here. After signing my name and time of arrival in the great big, master book, I continue to the ladies staff room.

Here a few teachers are in the midst of a heated discussion over, well, something. I can’t understand a word, but I know I don’t want to get involved. I open my locker, take out my books, store my purse, and the bell rings to signal the beginning of the morning assembly. I walk amid a sea of greetings and take my position in the back of the long rows of lines. I won’t describe the details of the morning assembly now, as I’m planning to post on this later.

After the assembly, the students file out of the playground and to their classrooms in line. I have the first two periods free and return to the staff room to read the newspaper. There are a few people who basically run errands all day for the teachers. I call them "helpers," but the teachers look on them as servants. Teachers give them grocery lists, mail, lunch orders, etc. So one of the "helpers" has me sign for an arrangement (subbing period). This is their technique for covering absent teachers. I usually only get one arrangement a day, but one of the other Fulbright teachers has had to teach all nine periods a few times!

My arrangement is with my VIB class, who is adorable and lovely. When I peak in the window of their silent classroom, four student monitors are leading the group in some way exercise. They keep the children in line better than I do! I walk into the room and the class stands up, "Good morning, Madam!" And they won’t sit down until I tell them to, little darlings. I don’t know many of their names, so I really do call them "darling" or "honey" or "sweetie."

In the middle of class, one class VI student comes in asking me for the class’s unit 2 exam grades. I need to write the grades onto a master sheet for the class teacher. Now, at this very moment. In the middle of my 35 minute class. In front of all of the students. And then I’m to give this list to the student, so he can bring it back to the class teacher. Growl. I do not like this. But I sigh away my frustration at this lack of respect for my class time, as well as lack of confidentiality for my students; this is the system, and I work with it.

During third period I meet with class VIIIB. This is my largest (48 students), liveliest and brightest class, and I notice that a number of my stars are absent today. I find out they are at home, studying for exams, probably with tutors. As counterintuitive as this sounds, it’ll probably work out for them as the school day is full of interruptions and distractions. I do some revision (review) with the class and answer many of their "doubts." They use the word doubt here like we use the word question. On my first day, however, I was shocked at the impertinence of the girls in this class who kept insisting that they doubted me!

Fourth period I go back to my class VIB class, and I find it in chaos. One of my sweetest girls is crying, I’m told another boy is vomiting, a parent stands outside talking to a few kids, and when I walk in, eight kids leap up to greet me in person. After only 10 minutes of settling them down, however, I’ve got them copying the blackboard, ready to work. One good thing about teaching young children is that they’re resilient.

Fifth period I have free, and I write a letter asking for Principal Sir’s permission to take leave. This letter feels legitimate because I’m having to take days off for a conference next week, but I’ve written previous letters asking permission to go out of town during the weekend. I can’t imagine how teachers would react to reporting their whereabouts to the principal every time they left town. Are we children or professionals?

Lunchtime and I listen to a lot of conversation that I don’t understand. Two teachers share their food with me, which is much appreciated as it’s always better than mine. I catch a few key words that make me inquire as to the subject of discussion, and it’s told to me that there is a parent-teacher meeting today during 8th and 9th periods. Yes, I’m required to go. It’s two days before exams, and we’re taking class time to meet with parents. Fabulous.

So during my free 6th period I jump onto a computer and whip up a review sheet for my class VIIIA students, whose class I should be having during 8th and 9th periods. Then I run up to my VIIB class for seventh period. They are characteristically slow to get going, but I’ve trained them to become quiet at the count of 5, which actually works. This is my most valuable tool in all of my classes, as I was having a lot of trouble getting their attention without yelling at the top of voice and acting very mean. After counting slowly up to 5, I rate each class’s progress, telling them whether they are winning or losing in comparison to my other classes. This integration of competition when it comes to quieting down has been key.

After class VIIB I rush off to sit on the right side of the room with the other six female teachers. Across from us, the two male math (or maths, as they say here, which drives me crazy) teachers sit. (I think I’ve mentioned the division between male and female teachers. . . I’ve even noticed a bit of antagonism between them. Some women feel that the men gang up on them, taking sides during competitions, etc. It is amazingly petty.) I really try to stay awake listening to the principal lecture on school policies. Then some of the teachers speak about their classes, and the parents are free to ask questions. Every few minutes a cell phone goes off over the din of children running in the hallways outside. I just can’t imagine why they’re in the hallways. Only nine teachers plus the principal are in a meeting in the middle of the school day.

After the meeting, parents are invited to come up and ask individual teachers about their children. This is the best, awkward moment for me—perhaps you can guess why. I don’t know most of the children’s names! In fact, I’m so bad that I’m not even 100% sure from the name whether their child is a boy or a girl! So I fudge as best I can, making broad statements and avoiding pronouns. "Doing OK. Could volunteer to speak more. Studying for the exam, I hope?"

The day ends at 2:40, and the staff room is locked within the hour. I don’t know how the officials can expect teachers to correct all of the little books thoroughly with less than an hour of work-time after school. And taking home 50 books at night is rather impossible. There are certainly some admirable qualities about this school, and many among my students, but I still do not fully understand this system. I think few of the Indian teachers do either. Part of me just wants to take the school over, become the principal and implement some necessary changes. And then part of me just wants to go home to a system that makes at least a little more sense.

Mysore, Colorful Mysore

Mysore speaks the best through photos. So we'll start out by climbing the 1000 steps to the Sri Chamundeswari Temple. There's a road to the top, but we chose to make the climb with the other good pilgrims. There's nothing like working for your spiritual awakening.

That evening we taxied over to Maharaja's Palace, which was all lighted up for the Dusserra Festival. A couple days later we took a tour of the inside.

The next day was the annual Mysore Parade, which I've heard is the best in India. After a long wait in the sun, we were gratified with painted elephants, dancing girls, firebreathers, and more.

No parade is complete without a tribute to the nation's missile defense system.

The next day we found one of the most colorful and photogenic bazaars that I've seen so far in India.

It was a beautiful holiday, but I found it hard to capture with any meaningful detail partially because I wasn’t very good about writing every day, but even more because I think I was just too happy during those 13 days. There is something to the idea that good writing (which is so much about good observation) is really born out of suffering. With a packed schedule, good food, and excellent company, I really had little time to contemplate the minute details of my experience. I was too busy enjoying it all!

School Inspection

This week all the teachers were in a tizzy because the annual inspection was to take place on Thursday. Suddenly the staff room was filled with stacks of little orange-covered notebooks for correction. The normal intensity of the room was magnified, emotions flared, snapping ensued, and it generally became an even less healthy working environment. I was relatively cool, as I’m only a guest here, but when the day came even I shuddered as the stern AC Officer walked through the ranks of uniformed children and onto the stage for morning assembly.

She began ripping into the school during her morning address. The prayer was off-key. The music madam must correct this. I began to realize why people were getting so nervous. This was a PUBLIC evaluation of each and every member of the school. At the end of the day the AC Officer and the inspection team of different KV principals would hold a meeting with all of the teachers and staff and personally report their findings.

We had been informed that on the inspection day we should use a teaching aid (what a façade!), so I armed myself with my true/false cards and went to my classes as usual. And sure enough, at the beginning of my second period she settled herself down in the back of my class. Luckily, I’m rather accustomed to being observed, and class progressed normally and even better because the students were terrified and thus little angels.

Half-way through the class she stood up and addressed my students. "You love your English Madam, yes? You will cry when she leaves? You must learn as much as you can from her before she leaves." Well, that wasn’t so bad. I had expected her to start critiquing me there, because this is what the principal had done during his inspection at the beginning of my teaching term. (He decided to observe my class the day after I had come back from having dengue fever—oh, so kind of him. . . He scolded me for not walking around the room to be sure everyone was involved. Little did he know that I was supporting myself on the front table so that I wouldn’t fall over!)

Every time a teacher entered the staff room there was a flurry of excitement as everyone would ask, "Over? Over?" which is the word they use for "finished." They all demanded to know what the AC Officer had said. No privacy here!

At the end of the day we all gathered in the hall and awaited the Judgement. The inspection team filed in 15 minutes late and sat at the front. The principals reported their observations first, and they were quite kind and didn’t mention teachers’ names. Criticisms were made, however, and everyone was a little on edge when the AC Officer finally stood up to speak.
After critiquing the school grounds, she began by speaking about, oh joy, me. I braced myself for the assault, but it was almost worse than I had expected; I sat there red faced as she complimented me through the roof. Her barrage of flattery ended with applause, to my mortification.

Then her tone changed and she progressed to more scathing remarks about an upper level English teacher. I don’t know how that woman wasn’t reduced to tears, her rebukes were so personal. After berating a few other teachers, she whipped out the test scores for this year and started interrogating individual teachers about why the scores were so low. I sat cringing in my seat.

Teachers in the US complain about not being treated as professionals, but in comparison to India, I don’t know if any US teacher can say that. The inspection was particularly unfair because it’s not clear to the teachers what they are being judged on. Is there a rubric, criteria, or checklist? No. A couple teachers were so reduced to children, that they began arguing back with the AC Officer. . . making things even worse. This is what happens when the practice of public shaming is extended to teachers.

After the meeting, I hoped to slip out quietly as I was seriously mortified at being the only teacher praised. But immediately after we left the hall, my fellow teachers started smiling and shaking my hand, one of the first being that English teacher who was ripped apart. I meekly smiled back, and they told me I must bring them sweets tomorrow.

This is a lovely custom in India that I would wouldn't mind bringing back home. When someone experiences great joy—an honor, a Birthday, a marriage of a loved one—they bring sweets for their colleagues to share their joy. Isn’t that nice? (Although my teeth are probably going rotten with the daily sweets I get from the Birthday children.)

I happily took part in this tradition by bringing back some special Kerela sweets after my south India trip, but this time I wasn’t so excited about bringing sweets. Wouldn’t it be kind of rubbing my honor in my colleagues’ faces? But my mentor insisted it was appropriate so I brought them, but it was ridiculously awkward for me.

I think I’m glad that I got to experience the inspection process; it was certainly Indian in many ways. But I am just as glad that it is over.

Ooty of the Mountains

Ooty is a hill station up in the mountains. It was where the English went to escape the heat, and it's where the well-to-do Indians now vacation during the hot, summer months. We went during the off-season, which meant that everyone wanted to sell us something and it was rather CHILLY. We went from wanting air-conditioning to building a fire to keep warm! It was actually quite cozy to have a couple of evening conversations around the fire. If we hadn't concluded the evenings by returning to our cold and slightly musty beds, it would have been better.

The town of Ooty was a bit of a disappointment. It had fallen to the clutches of over- development, and its old charm was overrun pretty completely. Luckily, the surrounding tea plantations were still lovely, and we hired a guide to take us around the countryside for a day.

We all felt quite at home as we tromped through the tea fields, up gullies, and through sheep pastures. At times I felt as if I was back in Switzerland, and Jessie commented that she felt she was in Ireland. The scenery was quite different from what we were used to in India. We stopped in a little village for lunch, and watched the man make tea. I was full of anticipation, since we were in tea country, but was disappointed by how sweetened the tea was--you couldn't even really taste the tea! But at least Patrick snuck a great shot of the man cooling the tea. Perhaps I should take this moment to comment that I am totally stealing all of Patrick and Jessie's photos from the trip for the blog. We saved my photos on Patrick's computer, and the back-up disk is not working for me. So I hope you're enjoying their quality shots!

As we passed through the village, children began trailing behind us. It still amazes me how fascinating we are just because we're lighter in color. They all wanted to kiss Eli and pinch poor Evan's cheeks, and Patrick was forced to carry him as a protective measure. Even some of the water buffalo were afraid of us because we were strange looking. In this shot you can see the buffalo staring Jessie and children down.

After a few days in the brisk, clean air, we were ready to move on to Mysore, a city that was working itself up into a festive frenzy for Dusserra.

Houseboat in the Backwaters

After negotiating about prices and bopping between a couple boating companies, Patrick finally got us a good deal on a 3-bedroom houseboat that would serve us meals and take us deep into the Kerala backwaters overnight. Jessie and I really got the best deal because we avoided most of the sweaty bargaining process by dipping into a local restaurant for some tea under the fans. Then, when we heard that the houseboat had been prepared, we followed the men carrying our luggage across the bridge, by the slightly-too-aggressive cow, and onto our luxury houseboat.

And we were off. Slowly puttering our way into the backwaters, which really don't feel too unpopulated, it turns out. Kerala is actually the most densely populated state in India, and thus it was not surprising to see houses precariously balanced on slivers of land between two large bodies of water. You can see one such sliver in the photo of Patrick and Evan, actually. A house was located right next to our docked houseboat here, and in the morning the inhabitants slowly walked by the houseboat, staring at us silently. It was quite uncomfortable. I guess I should be used to this feeling of privilege, but it just seemed too extreme when we had hired an entire boat with a crew of three for a "glimpse into the Kerala backwaters." Did these people feel like a cultural exhibit that I was paying to view? I actually hid in my room for a little while in the morning, because I was too embarrassed to face them.

But, in any case, we did get a glimpse into the lives of those who live on the waters of Kerala. And all I could think about was how jealous I was. Why couldn't I have been placed here?! Why did the Fulbright people put a Vermonter in one of the largest cities in India? I guess I came to India to get out of my comfort zone, so I shouldn't be complaining but . . . it was really nice in Kerala.

There were so many fabulous photos to be had, but the slow pace of the boat was just fast enough to make them hard to catch. Just to set things straight, Patrick did try to hire a punting boat, but it seems that these are being "phased out." Disappointing because it would have been more peaceful and environmentally friendly if we could have avoided a motor. Then perhaps I wouldn't have felt so guilty about all the raw sewage that we were contributing to the river.

The scary mass in front of the boat is actually a flock of ducks. Amazing? Yes, it was pretty cool.

The food on the boat was great, and our boat hands enjoyed taking turns bouncing the happy Eli. Patrick heroically leaped out of the boat at one point to venture into a local village and score Jessie and I a bottle of Indian red wine. It was sweet, which isn't surprising since Indians are quite famous for their love of syrupy items. Have I mentioned the sweets in India? We'll save that for a future post.

The houseboat stint ended too early for my tastes, and we were again on the road. A long travel day lay ahead of us, and it ended in a train station in the rain-soaked Coimbatore. The monsoon rains were coming down so hard that we had to hire a van to take us across the river of a road to our hotel which was right across from the train station. Then Patrick and I had a serious conversation with the manager of the hotel when he tried to charge us for a triple room, when what we really had was a double with a cot. I must admit that I was pretty proud when the conversation had reached a deadlock, and I said off-handedly that I would need to write Lonely Planet a little letter about the hotel they had recommended. A few minutes later we were walking away with what we wanted, and the manager was just oh-too-friendly for the rest of our stay. . . which happily wasn't long because we were off to hill station Ooty.