In search of Saraswati…

Nerrel called me yesterday after her second afternoon with the teenagers she’s recently started tutoring. She was telling me how they had a sing-along session, similar to the one we (i-to-i volunteers) were having on the roof of Mrs. Katari’s (sp?) guesthouse the other evening. She told me how she got choked up in the middle of the experience, and that’s when we started discussing the concept of “choke-up moments”, and just how many we’ve had since we’ve been here.

Choke-up moments = Those moments where all sorts of feelings hit you at once, your eyes get moist, and you do your best to stop any tears from escaping the creases of your eyes and rolling down your cheeks.

The first choke-up moment that I can remember, was on either the first or second day I had with Nerrel at the pre-school, in the Jeevanahalli district of Bangalore. All the kids were seated on the floor (thanks more to the efforts of Lalitha, than Nerrel or me) and looked up in shock/awe as Nerrel and I performed the dance moves that accompany the “Chicken Song”.

I don’t know exactly what it was about that experience that caused it to be a choke-up moment. I think it was a combination of a few factors: being in an underprivileged urban district of Bangalore, entertaining the children of hard-working, disadvantaged mothers, with a very awesome and impressive woman (Nerrel) that I’d never met before.

I had another choke-up moment yesterday as I left the ~35 girls I’m teaching English in the CUF Community College classroom that CUF has rented in one of the local Jeevanahalli schools (at quite a price, I must say). I spend approx. 1 to 1.5 hours with these girls each day. (I have a day off today as it’s a public holiday for many, including the CUF Community College – some Hindu holiday/celebration beginning with “B”.)

In the first week, I planned and executed classes that focused on specific themes: self, inspirational/admirable females, local festivals and celebrations, local news, and environmental problems in their communities and potential solutions. The idea was to get them to start thinking and bonding with one another.

I hope the girls found each class as beneficial as I did, from a eye-opening/learning experience. I was hoping to introduce the concept of “reduce, reuse and recycle” to them with the class focused on “environmental problems in your community”. How naïve/“Western” of me. Their communities are still dealing with issues of sanitation, access to clean water, waste disposal, the correct keeping/housing of farm animals, etc. They’ve got much more basic problems to solve for first.

This week (my second week with these girls) I started going through vowels and the various ways in which each vowel can be pronounced, as well as words that begin with each vowel and how these words are used in sentences. So, Monday was the letter, A, Tuesday, E, Wednesday, I, and I’ll have to do O and U together tomorrow, unless I decide to make Friday “Fun Day” and do something different, leaving O and U for next week. (Sorry, that was one of those moments where I’m having more of a discussion with myself “out loud”; some of you are quite familiar with this habit of mine.)

Despite the seemingly dry subject matter this week, going through the words I’ve selected for them to learn and explaining them and how they are used has been fun. It’s been very satisfying to watch the looks on their faces as they “get it”, grin then help explain it to a struggling neighbor.

I like it even more when they laugh at me, so I will do stuff or say stuff (often unintentionally) to invoke their laughter. What gave them a kick yesterday was when I was explaining the word “item”. I was telling them that I was wearing two items of clothing. Then I corrected myself and said I was actually wearing five items of clothing – I’d forgotten my singlet, bra and underpants. This seemed to thoroughly entertain them.

As I left class yesterday I got a loud and resounding, “by Aunty”. Even thinking of it now I’m having a choke-up moment. As I asked the other CUF teacher/coordinator in the classroom with me yesterday to provide feedback on my teaching and how she thought the class went, she said something along the lines of, “I can see you are getting attached already”, with regards to the students. I am. And I know that attachment will grow stronger with each day. It’s going to be a tough process to eventually leave. And I’m sure there will be plenty more choke-up moments between now and then.

(And no, Mum, it wasn’t me who told those kids how to poke out their tongues for the photo above. They did that all on their own!)

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 7:22 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.