Thursday, August 9, 2012
Thursday, August 2, 2012
"Can you adopt someone older than you?"
When I came to India I expected to
make some amazing connections. I expected that I would have emotional
attachments to my teachers, my kids, and the exceptional 10 other students that
were on my program with me. I expected all of these connections to make it hard
to leave but, as I have learned over and over in India, it was the friendship
connection that I did not expect to make that is going to be one of the hardest
to leave behind. I did not expect Sanjeeb.
My first memory of Sanjeeb is on
the day that we moved in way back in June. Stacey and I were absolutely
dripping with sweat as we hauled our suitcases up onto our beds and began to
unpack the vast array of clothes, toiletries, and (especially in Stacey’s case)
medications. As we were doing this we heard a knock on our door and in entered
a young Indian man. Sanjeeb is about 5’6’’, has the slight build that so many
Indian men in the working class have, and has a misti (sweet) face adorned with
wispy, black facial hair. After entering, Sanjeeb proceeded to speak in broken
English to Stacey and I, all the while smiling and making grand arm gestures to
emphasize his points. We had no idea what he was saying, and I mean no idea. I looked to Stacey for help as
I had drawn to short straw of being closer to him but one look at the blank
expression on her face told me that I was on my own. After about 5 minutes
(filled with excessive smiling and nodding on mine and Stacey’s part) Sanjeeb
left the room to putter around the guesthouse making final arrangements for our
arrival. It wasn’t really a meeting to write home about and if you asked me
back then what I thought about Sanjeeb I would honestly say that I felt about
as much connection to him as I did to the lizard that had taken up residence in
my bathroom. As I put the finishing touches on my toiletry arrangement in the
bathroom and settled into my home for the next 8 weeks I had no idea what this
young man would come to mean to our group and me in just a few short
weeks.
Sanjeeb’s job in the guesthouse is
an all encompassing one. One minute he is bringing water into our rooms, the
next he is knocking on our door telling us breakfast is ready, several hours
later he is taking a nap on the floor by the terrace, sometimes, I swear he
must have a body double or a time-turner in order to do everything that he does
during the day. Every night when Sanjeeb asks us what we want for breakfast I
am always astonished by his superhuman memory. Shikha will rattle on a list of
foods and times at him in Hindi and he will stand there doing the
quintessential “Indian head nod” (a sort of bobble from side to side that
essentially means ok) and then remember everything PERFECTLY the next day. This
brings me to the first lovable quirk of Sanjeeb. He is on a mission to make us
all fat. Actually, scratch that. He is on a mission to make us all morbidly
obese and he is damn good at it.
Every morning we get the same array
of food: cornflakes, toast, cheese, boiled eggs, omelets, bananas, apples,
mangos, plums, sometimes papaya, and black tea. Now, back in the US, I would
usually just have a bowl of cereal and maybe an apple so I figured that I could
pick and choose what I wanted. False. We are expected to eat ALL of it. Also,
when I say ALL I mean approximately one bowls of cereal, an omelet, three
boiled eggs, three pieces of toast and a cornucopia of fruit. I learned this
the hard way when Sanjeeb came knocking on my door with a morose expression and
said, “breakfast finished ma’am?”. I wanted to say yes but he looked at me with
those sad eyes and I felt like I would be killing a puppy if I said yes. Three
minutes later I found myself sitting on the floor dutifully eating another
boiled egg while Sanjeeb jubilantly cut up fruit and deposited it onto my
plate. It has gotten to the point where we are all afraid of asking for
something for breakfast because we know that if we ask for one, four are sure
to appear the next morning. This bizarre reversal of the Hunger Games (more
like the Breakfast Games) always makes me chuckle as I spoon down different varieties
of food under the watchful eyes of Sanjeeb.
Besides the breakfast face stuffing
encounters that I had with Sanjeeb, I didn’t really have much contact with him
until one fateful night when a travesty occurred: the couch in the boys room
surreptitiously ate my phone as I sat on it eating dinner. I tore the room
apart, knowing that the phone had made it into Transit House but not knowing
where exactly it was and, unaware of what I was getting myself into, I asked
Sanjeeb if he had seen the phone. Rewind about 1 hour and it was fourth of July
and we were doing as any good Americans would do: watching Sanjeeb do sparklers
on the terrace in honor of America’s birthday. I was 100% positive that my
phone hadn’t made it onto the terrace since I had noticed its absence from my
pocket before we departed for the roof but I didn’t think anything of it at the
time. After I told Sanjeeb that I was missing my phone he made a beeline for
the roof with a flashlight and proceeded to look for 10 minutes all while
Bethany and Kristen yelled at him to come down. “Sanjeeb! Thick Achee! (It’s
ok)” while Sanjeeb yelled down “No Tika! Must find phone”. Of course this
turned an already stressful situation into one which was unbearably so. Eventually,
after perseverating for hours at school the next day, I came to the conclusion
that the phone had to be in the couch and Kristen (bless her soul) dove into
the couch (which contained who knows what…) with her arm up to the elbow and
found it. For some strange reason this situation created an uncanny bond
between Sanjeeb and I, somehow we were bonded by the shared experience of
stress.
As the weeks went on, we found
ourselves having more and more conversations with Sanjeeb about, well, about
everything. Half in English and half being translated by Shikha in Hindi we
talked about India, America, Food, prices of clothes, and even relationships.
Only a week ago we were talking to him when he admitted more about his life
than he ever has before. Sanjeeb lives in Sunderbans, which is about 3 hours
away from Kolkata, and he works in Transit House under the advisement of his
“Uncle” Ajit who manages the guesthouse (Uncle is in quotations because the
term is used extremely loosely in India. Your uncle might be related to you or just
a family friend. We aren’t exactly sure how Sanjeeb is related to Ajit but
regardless, he got the job through connections). We talked about his dreams and
where he would most want to visit. After he responded that he would want the
see the Taj Mahal, we asked him where he would like to see outside India and he
responded with “Ma’am, can’t even imagine…”. We were all shocked, though we
knew that we shouldn’t be, that this bright young man (we found out he was 24
after our 2nd Bengali class when we learned how to ask “how old are
you”) has such close limits on the world. Sanjeeb went on to say how he had
only been in his hometown and in Kolkata and even in Kolkata he had never
visited many of the historical sights. “Not even the Victoria Memorial?” we asked.
“No, ma’am, only home and guesthouse”. We settled it right then and there:
Sanjeeb had to come with us to the Victoria the following day. We asked and he
agreed with his usually beaming smile.
The next day we went to the
Victoria and Sanjeeb came in his best looking polo shirt and gelled over hair.
One image that I will never forget is that of Sean and Sanjeeb leaning against
the railing looking at the Victoria. Sean’s large muscular and pale frame next
to Sanjeeb’s small dark one presented them as an unlikely pair but these two
have actually developed an unbelievably tight (if improbable) friendship. Around
week five Sean turned around in the car on our way to Manovikas one morning and
asked Kristen and I, only half kidding, “Can you adopt someone who is older
than you? I would adopt Sanjeeb in a second…”. This attitude seems to be the
one that our whole group had adopted (excuse the pun). Tonight marks night one
of eight that we have left at Transit House and as Sanjeeb stood in the back of
the room after dinner as we watched Olympic badminton on the TV in the boy’s
room I looked over at him and felt a pang of sadness at the idea that our days
were numbered. A few days ago he mentioned to a small group of us that “In ten
day, you leave. No come back…”. He almost sounded as if he were about to cry
and Shikah said in return, “We are going to miss you Sanjeeb. Are you going to
be sad? Are you going to miss us too?” “Of course ma’am, I will miss very
much”. A lump formed in the back of my throat as I watched this and I don’t
quite think that it has gone away since.
So, as I looked over at Sanjeeb
tonight, I began to engage in what was going to be one of my favorite
conversations with him yet. Bethany, Shikha, Amber, Michelle, the boys and I
lounged in various positions in the boys room as we began to talk about
relationships and marriage. We had learned, much to our dismay/sadness, that
Sanjeeb believed that he would never marry. He said that he was “too old” and
that he should have found someone after he had finished school because now he
had a 24-hour job and didn’t have time to meet anyone. He also said that he had
someone read his palm and they said that he would never marry (Even though palm
reading is somewhat revered in India, let’s hope it is not true, especially for
Charles’ sake because the boys read his at Future Hope and assured him beyond a
shadow of a doubt that his first wife would die). As we went around the room
tonight we cracked up laughing as Sanjeeb scolded Bethany for not having a
boyfriend since college “2009??? Very bad ma’am!” and went through his own
timeline of how relationships should go. This was in essence the same as the
Manovikas teachers (see yesterdays blog post for clarification) except it ended
with “and then 28/29 babies, and then 20 years later, probably dead”. “DEAD?”
we all exclaimed with laughter and Sanjeeb went on to explain while laughing
that you have to get married by 30 because “really what time do you have left
after that (translated from Hindi by a giggling Shikha). This appears to be a
macabre conversation but it was done in the way that every conversation with
Sanjeeb is: multiple cultural faux pas’, Sanjeeb’s classic giggle, and smiles
on the faces of everyone in the room.
Today was Raksha Bandhan, a
celebration in India between brothers and sisters. Traditionally this
celebrated a sister’s lover for her brother and the appreciation of the
protection he gave her and in honor of this, the girl would tie a Rakhi (a
small bracelet) around her brother’s arm. In this age, girls tie the bracelets
around men in their lives who they see as being their brothers and for the last
4 weeks the streets have been full of vendors selling the various types of
bracelets. Last night I went with Amber, Sean, and Kristen to buy some Rakhi’s
for my male students and, as per usually with my shopping in India, I went a
little crazy and bought quite a few extra. I sent the Rakhi’s to school this
morning with Kristen since I was staying at home due to events back at home and
told her to simply bring me back the extras in the afternoon. As we sat around
the table talking tonight Bethany asked Sanjeeb, “No Rakhi Sanjeeb?” he
responded that his sister was far away and that he did not have anyone else
here in Kolkata to give him one. Wrong. There was no way that I was going to
let Sanjeeb think that he had no one here. When he left the room to clear the teacups
from the table I ran upstairs and grabbed one of my extra Rakhi’s and headed
back to the boy’s room. When he came back into the room I simply called his
name and showed him the bracelet. Without saying anything he looked at me and
held out his wrist. When he said “Thank you ma’am” after I finished tying my
clumsy knot, I felt a connection with him that I know will never go away no
matter where I am.
Sanjeeb promised to send me a Rakhi
next year on August 2nd as long as I leave him with my address and I
believe he will. When I get on the plane next Friday I am going to be leaving
behind India, Manovikas, Transit House, the crowded streets, the overwhelming
smells, the heat, the calls of the vendors in the early morning, the cold
showers, and Sanjeeb. I will leave him and go on with my life as he goes on
with his. I know, however, that I will never forget him. I meant it when I tied
that Rakhi onto his arm tonight. Sanjeeb has become the most unorthodox brother
that I could have ever imagined and you never forget your brothers.
(sorry that this post is so long but I had to do proper
justice to this person who has become so important to us all)
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
"And then, MARRIAGE!"
Here are Kristen and I with some of the teachers from Manovikas at a fancy dinner. They all laughed at our sari's and then descended on us to fix what we had done wrong (Thank you youtube for getting us as far as we got...). Moumita is standing next to Kristen (girl in red) and Sukanya (my teacher) is in the middle with her daughter.
Each day the three of us that work
at Manovikas step out of the car to the sound of the security guard’s usual
“Morning! Morning! Morning!”, walk up the small staircase and in the front door,
and then part for the morning shift to our different classrooms (since Kristin
and I have the same afternoon class we are together again later in the day). As
soon as I step into and then nestle myself on the floor of my crowded classroom
I can always expect a beaming smile from my teacher, Sukanya, followed by some sort
of comment. The following are several that I have received over the past 6
weeks:
•
“Bangles on one wrist is not looking good. Two
wrists is good. Very good”
•
“Your hair today is not looking good. Too much
back. You need to have your bangs down” Guess
that headband was a no-no…
•
“Blue is a good color for you. Why do you not
wear more? You wear too much white…”
•
“Your blouse is khub bhalo (very good). Where
did you buy? Oh, America? I think made in India. Too much expensive in America”
•
“Your eyes look tired today” Guess I can’t get away with skipping putting
on makeup for a day…
•
“Your hair is too long. Why so long?”
This barrage of comments is never
meant in a hurtful way, it is just a cultural
difference and one that just usually makes me laugh (though
I was bummed when I realized that I had to put on makeup everyday since I feel
like it just melts off my face in the heat). The other cultural difference is
the acceptability of asking how much something cost. After every compliment on
a piece of clothing or jewelry there is the inevitable follow up of “How
much?”. If we did good in buying the item (assuming it is from India) then we
get a “Very good!”, if they think that we were slightly ripped off but not too
bad they will say, “It’s ok…”, and if we really messed up then they will say,
“They cheat!”. As our time in India has gone on and our haggling has gotten
better we are usually proud of the prices we get for our items and the teachers
like to laugh as Kristen mimics her extreme haggling skills, “200 rupees??? NO!
The highest I can go is 30!”.
After
clothes, the teacher’s next favorite thing to talk about is finding me a
boyfriend/husband. When they found out that I was single you would have thought
that I said I had three heads, “But you are 19! And have such fair skin! How this
possible?!”. When I try to explain that it is not unusual to be still single at
19 I am immediately shot down. The teachers will often sit together at our
breaks and talk in Bangla and whenever I hear the word “boyfriend” or see eyes
flicking to me I always know what is coming next: the timeline of my life. The
teachers at this school have decided that since I am clearly slacking in the management of my own love life that they
are going to have to step in and help me out. Below is the timeline that they
have thus set out for my life
19 yr (find
boyfriend)------------->22/23 yr (marriage)------------->25/26
yr (children)
Every time after the exclamation of “And then, marriage!” I
try to explain the whole problem of finding
a boyfriend/husband but I am just brushed off. Sukanya had a love marriage but
the other two married teachers both had arranged marriages so they REALLY don’t
understand my problem. These discussions are always filled with laughter and
descriptions of what I want to find in a man.
One particularly hilarious/awkward
conversation took place on the floor of my classroom which is right next to
Kristen’s classroom and they are only divided by 5 ½ foot tall walls with no
ceilings. Sukanya was yelling back and forth with Moumita (Kristen’s teacher in
the morning) about what my boyfriend should be like.
Jessie: “And tell her I want him to
be tall!”
Sukanya: (yelling in Bangla to
Moumita)
Moumita: Silence then yells back
something in Bangla
Sukanya: “Moumita asks why he has
to me tall? There is nothing wrong with short men” then she whispered, “She
says that her husband is the same height as he but he is actually shorter…”
It only took one look between us before Sukanya and I were
basically rolling on the floor with laughter. It is moments like these that I
am really going to miss about India. The teachers at Manovikas are some of the
most genuine people that I have ever met and, even though they may not like my
clothing sometimes, I am truly going to miss this gaggle of women who never
fail to brighten my day.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Inside a Rally
I stared out the front windshield
of our car at the bumper of the bus in front of us and read, for perhaps the 15th
time in the last 10 minutes, the red block letters that proclaimed, “Sealda”.
What that means I couldn’t tell you. I then looked around the car as Ashok, our
driver, paced outside the window as Shikha talked to Bethany out the window
while Stacey proceeded to have a full conversation with the rest of the car
with her eyes closed because it “made her headache feel better”. The other half
of the group that was in the car next to us stood outside their car and shifted
their weight from foot to foot as they scanned the cars around us. Oh, and all
of this was happening in the middle of the road, and by road, I mean something
more akin to a parking lot. We were on a bridge in beyond bumper-to-bumper
traffic and if we knew one thing and one thing only it was that we were stuck.
This was at about 12:00pm so let’s rewind to how all of this started.
We started out this weekend by
planning a trip to go to see the Marble Palace and the Tagore family house.
After a long week, we were al ready to get out and explore the city and then
got back to Transit House at a reasonable time so that we could take naps and
work on our projects. It had been awhile since something had gone terribly awry
so I think all of us were lulled into a sense of security that centered around
the mindset that we were finally “able to predict India”. India chose today to
remind us all that predicting it is about as easy as predicting Lady Gaga’s
next outfit, you never know WHAT is going to show up.
As we set out on the road we
noticed more traffic than usual but thought nothing of it since it was a
weekend and a pretty nice day out at the time. It wasn’t until we had gotten
about 10 minutes away from Transit House that we started to ask questions to
each other about the increased flow of foot traffic, louder than usual
speakers, and the springing up of new Indian flags all over the city. Luckily,
I had Shikha in my car who proved yet again to be an invaluable resource as she
asked Ashok what was going on. It was at this point that he told us that a
political rally was going on for the lady in charge of West Bengal. Fine, I
thought, I’ve been through rally traffic before, living near to the mess of a
city known as Los Angeles, this will delay us a bit but it shouldn’t be TOO
bad. When Shikha asked Ashok what he thought this would do to our time schedule
for the day he responded with an all too knowing laugh. As uneasy silence then
filled the car and we looked around at each other, Ashok said (translated by
Shikha) “Slowly, slowly the city of Calcutta will become completely blocked”.
Uh-oh we though, but at this point it seemed a waste to turn back because we
already had permission to go to Marble Palace this day and we were already half
way there.
We continued on to the Marble
Palace and made it there with minimal issues and had an awe-inspiring walk
around this amazing house. The house itself was built in 1835 and, for a lack
of a better term, is a building in which anything you could ever want built in
marble is. Bust of George Washington? Check. Greek gods? Check. Entire flooring
built of Italian marble? Check. Not only was there all that marble but there
was also tons and tons of assorted finery. There were gold statues,
chandeliers, beautiful paintings, floor to ceiling mirrors, and even a cage
with parrots. All of this was thrown with out any apparent rhyme or reason into
this mansion in which the owners still live. After we saw the inside of the
house we decided to go see the menagerie. After trotting past the peacocks we
saw a giant squirrel, a pheasant, and finally came to an open enclosure with a
large, light pink bird. Sean and Charles immediately ran over to “photo-bomb”
the pictures of the bird with bunny ears but as soon as they got within 5 feet
of the bird it swung it s enormous head around to face them and let out a sound
that was unlike anything I have ever heard before. If I had to make a
comparison I would say it was a mix between a lighthouse foghorn and an air
horn. I don’t think I have ever seen two people run as fast as I saw Charles
and Sean do after that noise. After seeing the animals we all piled back into
the cars to head over to the Tagore house. The house was kept up very well and it was amazing to be able
to walk through an area of such historical significance.
Once we left the Tagore house,
Ashok said that it would be a good idea to take the metro home but the traffic
seemed fine so we decided that it should be ok to stay in the car. Well… We may
not have gotten the car ride that we expected but I learned a lot of things on
out 2 ½ hour ride home.
1.
Never get sick during a political rally. When I
say the cars were at a standstill I mean ALL the cars. That includes fire
engines and ambulances. We all watched as some poor person tried to get to the
hospital in an ambulance only to get stuck on our same bridge for 30 minutes.
2.
When people stare at you, don’t stare back. You
know when you look out the window of a car and make eye contact with a person
for a brief second and then they (or you) speed away? Well, here, if you made eye
contact with someone you had better hope that you like them because chances are
you will be stuck next to them for the next 20 minutes. I made awkward eye
contact with a man in a dark green shirt in the bus next to us and instead of
looking directly away I accidentally continued to look it his extravagant
mustache. Bad choice. I was stuck next to mustache man for the next 15 minutes,
feeling his eyes bore into the side of my face as he continued to look at me.
3.
Things are what you make of them. Yes, we were
stuck in a car for 2 and ½ hours on a day that was supposed to be our break
day. This fact, however, was not going to change so Shikha, Michelle, Stacey,
Tierney, Amber and I (the whole group in Ashok’s car) decided to make the best
of this. We had some amazing conversations that ranged from musicals to body
image to Duke in general and it made the time go by faster than I could have
imagined.
4.
Ashok is hilarious. As we were driving, Ashok
was telling Shikha in Hindi that going out during a political rally was “very
bad” and that our “program” (schedule) for the day was unbelievable. He said
all of this with his usual smile and then went so far as to wave the piece of
paper out the window at Bethany (our current site coordinator not that
Baishakhi is gone) and shout “Bad!”. Our car burst out giggling and shook our
heads.
5.
Political rallies in India are CHAOTIC. The
streets were filled with men (it was mostly men that were out, not women) who
were shouting, waving sticks as they tried to direct traffic, cramming
themselves 10 at a time into 4 person cars, sweating, arguing, and waving
Indian flags. This site was one that I am so glad that I got to see because we
have been removed so far from the political scene. The best part was that I
felt safe sitting in the car but I got to see the literal inside of a rally.
6.
There probably isn’t a group of people that I
would rather get stuck in traffic with. The five other girls I was in the car
with and I had a great time and even when I felt a little frustrated at the
situation they helped bring me up and made me appreciate the amazing
opportunity that this “accident” had thrown us into.
After we finally got back to Transit House after the ride
(ok, after we finally got back to Transit House after the ride and a trip to
get us all chicken rolls to eat…) we still were able to have a relaxing
afternoon. It’s opportunities/accidents like these that make India the place
that it is. A place of chaos mixed with beauty, fervor mixed with ancient
culture, and inefficiency mixed with generosity. Most of all, it make it a
place that I am so glad to be spending 8 weeks of my summer.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
My Kids
I FINALLY got permission from my teacher and some of the kid's parents to take pictures of them. The following are four boys who I work with in my morning class from 10-11 Monday through Friday. There are also two girls and another boy who are in the class but one of the girls was sick while the other boy was out of town and the second girl was taking a nap in class so I figured I would wait till I could get a better picture.
I really look forward to my morning class. It is the same kids every day (unlike my afternoon class) and even though they usually hate me when I am making them do puzzles or color, there are times when we are together that they show me in small ways that I am making a difference. The class is set up in a cubicle with blue faded mats on the floor. Everyday I walk up, take off my sandals and worm my way onto the floor of the small room. There are usually 5-7 kids and their mothers along with me and the teacher in a room the size of a large bathroom. As I sweat it out on the floor (there is no AC and the fans go on and off with the power outages) I spend time working individually with the different kids and helping them to learn how to take turns without killing each other.
I am going to have to write a different blog post about the mothers and teachers that I interact with because they are an absolute hoot. Lets just say that half of them are trying to find me a husband while the other half seem intent on feeding me so many sweets that I feel like I am turning into a Gulab Jamun (some sort of fried, sweet, delicious ball of wonder). Anyways, that is for another night so without further adieu I present my boys:
Shom
This little boy is the most high functioning boy in my class. He is usually content just sitting by himself bouncing up and down in his little desk. He is one of the kids, however, who gets really antsy when he is away from his mother. Last week we had computer class and since the room is so small that mothers do not go with the kids so it was just me, the teacher Shukanya, and three of the little boys including Shom. When we got into the room, Shom became visibly upset and kept trying to climb out the door. Then, as I sat in to corner in a small chair, Shom came over and climbed into my lap, grabbing my hand to hold along the way. This was the first time that any of the kids showed my physical affection and to say it made my day would be the understatement of the century. As I bounced him on my lap and sang twinkle twinkle little softly in his ear he began to quiet and was calm for the rest of the class. Another thing I love about this little munchkin is when he does his puzzles. After putting in each piece he looks at me with a small smile to get some affirmation. After having to physically drag some kid's hands to and from each puzzle piece it is nice to go over to him.
Ashmit
This picture might look a little strange but in reality it is Ashmit's favorite activity: spinning a plate. This guy would be as happy as could be if everyone let him just sit by himself and spin that little metal plate until the end of time. His second favorite thing is when we go in the sensory room. This is a air conditioned room that is an Autistic child's dream. There are music toys, yoga balls, and in the very back, an infinite mirror. This is a mirror with flashing lights that when you look into it appears to go back forever. Ashmit will spend the full thirty minutes in from of this mirror giggling and flapping his arms as if he just won the lottery. No matter what kind of morning I have had so far watching his happy dance never fails to put a smile on my face. The other funny thing about this kid is that every time we go to dance class or yoga class or music class the phrase that it heard at least 3 times is "Someone grab Ashmit!" He likes to escape, and by escape I mean run like a little gumbie out of the room on wobbly legs.
Shyak
This picture of Shyak was taken as he peeked around me to watch Ashmit spin his plate. This kid cracks me up. Every time that we do the animal puzzle he insists on meowing like the cat and barking like a dog and "walking" the pieces into their spots. He has also gotten into the habit of holding my hand every time we walk to dance or yoga class and even though I have to stoop over a bit since he is so small I always have a grin on my face when we walk into the room hand in hand. One of my favorite memories from Manovikas so far was one day when I said "ta-ta" (how they say goodbye here) to Shyak and he unexpectedly said it back to me. This is from a kid that is almost completely nonverbal. I was speechless as I watched his skinny frame walk out the room and Shukanya just patten my shoulder, knowing that words couldn't express what I was feeling.
Mrinmoy
This is Mrinmoy during his "tiffin time"eating sweet biscuit cookies. Unfortunately, like many Autistic kids, he has a few bad habits. The most prominent of these is throwing. At any given time during the class it is not unusual to see a puzzle piece go flying by one's face (of if you are more unlucky, feel it whack your face). Anything and everything that this kid can get his hands on will go hurdling across the room. He also really likes to "stimm" by looking up at the ceiling while shaking his head and singing. During music class he usually sits in my lap so that he won't get up and try to throw the instruments and he loves it when I help him clap his hands to the beat.
I'm not going to lie, there are definitely day when I come home from Manovikas and wonder why I am here. I sit all day with kids that for the most part hardly seem to know that I am there or cry every time I make them do their work. They are all almost totally nonverbal and are more apt to throw a puzzle at your face than give you a smile but I can't help but love them. One small littel gesture of kindness or recognition can make up for hours of frustration and I am already starting to feel sad knowing that I am going to leave them in less than four weeks.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Family Dinner
When I found out that I had been
chosen to participate in this program in early December I did what any college
kid would: I immediately looked at the other names that the email was sent to
and stalked each and every one of them on Facebook. As I looked through
everyone’s pictures I quickly realized that while I knew of many of the people
and would consider several of them acquaintances, I was definitely not friends
with any of them. After a few group meetings in Baishakhi’s room laughing over
sandwiches or pizza I found myself really looking forward to getting to know
these 10 strangers. It was obvious that we were all different, there were 4
different sororities represented, one fraternity, three selective living
groups, different dance groups, club sports, and multiple different friend
groups but that no matter what background we came from there was one link
between us, the desire to serve the community of Kolkata. Sitting with Michelle
and Celina in the LAX before we got onto our flight to Dubai we discussed how
it was amazing that we were about to spend more time with people we hardly knew
than we had with some of our closest friends. The thought both excited and
frightened me.
Flash forward almost four weeks,
three more plane flights, hours sitting in a car on bumpy roads, one taxi ride,
hundreds of stares from strangers, several gallons of sweat, and hours of
furious typing later it is 8:30pm and we are getting ready to have dinner. The
boy’s room became the designated dinner room from day one and after a few weeks
we have finally moved the furniture around into the optimal position to eat
food. There are three large armchairs, one couch that seats 3, an end table
that is used as another seat and those left without seats perch on arm rests or
sprawl out on the floor. We all huddle around the brown coffee table that is
always overflowing with bowl after bowl of home cooked food. The Manovikas and
Tulipdale kids get home before the Future Hope kids but we always wait till
they get home so as to make sure that no one feels left out. The second we hear
their voices drift up the stairs from the first floor we all reach for plates
and silverware, ready to dig in.
Dinner is one of my favorite parts
of this trip and it is not only because of the amazing (and spicy!) dishes that
the Transit house cooks us. It is the company. We came into this life-changing
trip being complete strangers but if anyone watched us as we sat around in a
circle sharing food and passing napkins they would never guess that only 6
weeks before we would often pass each other at school and not even say hi. Over
the exclamations of what foods we think are the best on a particular night
there is always the overtone of someone laughing. I don’t know if I have ever
smiled as much as I have on this trip. I can honestly say that each and every
person on this trip has surprised me in some amazing way and it is only the
fourth week.
I have begun to call dinner “family
dinner” because that is actually how I feel. I grew up in a family with a
severely Autistic brother so I never really got to exerience normal family
dinners since mine were usually filled with screaming or nonexistent since
5-7pm are usually filled with my brother’s in-home therapists. This doesn’t
mean that I have never had a dinner with my family but it was honestly never
really anything I would look forward to. Here, we go around every night and
tell some of the things that happened to us at “work”. Every time Michelle does
her impression of the teacher’s at Tulipdale scolding a child or Sean describes
the daily dose of antics that a particularly naughty child named Animesh did
that day I can’t help but laugh. We are a group of people who could literally
sit in a room and talk about anything and not get bored, and we do. It is an
amazing feeling to be able to have conversations with people my age about
politics, religion, pop culture, gender roles, and even Harry Potter without
ever feeling attacked or bored. As we share experiences and opinions over
pieces of chicken tika and bowls of sliced mango we are creating a bond that I
know will stay with us for life.
When Baishakhi said to us in
January “Do not expect this to be easy. After all, you are going to India in
the middle of the summer” I don’t think I really understood what that meant.
Now that I truly understand the weight of her words I couldn’t be more grateful
to have this spectacular group of young men and women to go through these
experiences. 6 weeks ago we were basically strangers but now as I joke with
Lindsay over our massive consumption of mango and watch as Stacey demonstrates
one of the songs that they learned at Tulipdale while simultaneously teasing
Sean about his fear of “non-domesticated animals” it becomes obvious to me that
not only are we now friends, we are a family. A quirky family it may be but a
family nonetheless and I can’t wait to see what the next four weeks bring us.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
How Many Teachers Does it Take…
I never thought I could hate a
puzzle, let alone a simple one that only required sorting colored rings onto
poles. I never thought that someone could truly hate an inanimate object so
much that they honestly wished it into oblivion. I never though these things
but there I sat, shifting back and forth on the brown mat, filled with
impatience as I stared down a little boy named Junid over a rainbow ring
puzzle. Rewinding a bit, it is around 12:15 in the afternoon on Tuesday and I
am working at Manovikas Kendra Rehabilitation Institute with my 11am class
which today only consisted of two kids.
When I first entered the room I was
met by the smile of a small Down Syndrome boy who bashful waved back at my
enthusiastic “Hello!” I immediately loved this little boy even though my
teacher Sukanya proclaimed him “a very naughty boy”. Naughty? Ha, I had no IDEA
what naughty even was until it walked in the door a minute later. Naughty
looked demure at first, just a 5-year-old slender boy in an orange sleeveless
t-shirt. Naughty then proceeded to beam at me with his small pearly baby teeth
in perfect array. I should have known that the end of my sanity was near as he
wiggled when we put him in his desk but I was in the thrusts of denial. It
couldn’t be that bad right? He was just one little autistic boy and there was a
whopping four teacher and two parents for only the two little boys. In terms of
underestimates mine was on par with the guy who said “Oh yeah, 20 life boats?
That’s definitely all the Titanic needs!”
Since that day there was a woman doing her internship for the special
education teacher credential program Sukanya gave the Down Syndrome boy to her
and instructed Kristen and I to work with the little boy in the orange shirt
whose name we learned was Junid.
The first task of the day was
putting plastic bottle caps into a box that had a hole cut out of it. As if to
make what was to come even worse by comparison, Junid performed this task with
flying colors. His fingers flew as he grabbed the caps to prodding’s of “Tolo!
(pick)” and “Roko (put)” from Kristen and I. After that task was done Kristen
pulled over another task that consisted of putting round wooden balls onto
sticks. This was where the first signs of trouble appeared. Every other piece
that Junid picked up somehow seemed to end up in his mouth. Frantic shouts of
“No Junid! Put Down! Not There!” rang throughout the humid room in between
tense moments of silence where we would watch him pick up the piece and observe
it. We would stare at him, listening to the buzzing of the ceiling fans, all
the while nudging him to put the ball on the stick. More oft than not he would
make as if to put the ball on the stick then fake us out and pop it into his
waiting mouth. Luckily, this particular task was not that long and soon it was
off to matching and coloring.
The next activities were done in
his workbook and they consisted of one page of connecting the dots to practice
straight lines, one page of matching shapes, and one last page of coloring in a
picture. The second that Junid’s mom handed him the pencil, he did as most autistic
children will do when handed with their object of choice. He stimmed. This is
layman’s term for sensory stimulation, which for Junid consisted of him
pinching the small pencil and shaking it back and forth in his mouth hitting
his teeth. Every attempt to get him to do the workbook was met with grunts and shrieks
of distaste until finally Sukanya stepped in and forcibly held his hand and
made him do the task. After this
particular lesson was over we moved on to what was going to be the most
difficult 10 minutes of my Tuesday: the color ring puzzle.
The color ring puzzle consisted of
six stakes upon which colored ring of blue, red, orange, yellow, green, and
white were to be placed. I don’t know what it was about this particular task,
maybe the rings looked like candy, maybe it was the straw that broke the camel’s
back, maybe it just hit that time of day when he decided he turned into a
pumpkin but Junid was NOT having it. Every piece went onto the wrong ring or
straight into the mouth. When he was prompted to “Dako (look)” he would tip his
head back and pretend to sleep. I hated that puzzle. It got to the point where
there were literally four of us (Kristen, Sukanya, Junid’s mother, and I) all
holding down one 60lb five year old trying to make him do the puzzle. Based on
his screams you would have thought that we were asking him to grasp hot coals.
I looked over wistfully as the Down Syndrome boy dutifully traced his letters
in his workbook, looking up every once in awhile for praise from the intern.
Junid did not care if we pleaded, scolded, or demanded. He just wasn’t going to
do it. So, how many teachers did it take to get a five year old to do a puzzle?
4. And we barely won. Barely.
After the hurricane had passed and
Junid sat happily hitting a spoon against his teeth as the kids had “Tiffin”
(what they call lunch here) I sat crosslegged with Kristen and wiped sweat from
my brow. I felt like I just ran a marathon, without the satisfaction. Something
I am starting to learn here is that not every encounter that I have with the
kids is going to be rewarding. I have kids cry when they see me coming over
because they know that I am going to make them do work and one girl even peed
on me in an attempt to get out of doing a puzzle while she sat on my lap. Not
every experience is enjoyable but I come away knowing something new from every
one. Junid taught me that even when I want to give up and let the kid have
their way, I have to persevere to teach them that acting out does not
accomplish anything.
Within a week I plan on having a
post about my morning class and hopefully some pictures to show of their
smiling (maybe) faces!
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