Ra reim ta yeur o
As I reach, with slippery mud on the ground, my bike skills are not good enough to avoid skidding, and I put my feet down on the wet slimy dirty rain affected mud, fill my Converse with a dark brown thick gluey substance to try and get a bit of control and not roll over all the way down to the community of the hundred grey tin houses below. As the construction workers put in more than 10 hours shifts to create yet another big ugly cement monster in Pune, I reach the place of their temporary residence, to partake on my new temporary adventure.
As I station my bike outside the school area, kids crowd over to me, their arms on each others shoulders, pushing each other, some giggling and others looking at me blankly. I wish them “Hello” and trust my hand in front, and then, ten hands come violently forward towards me to shake mine. I enter the classroom, and see a huge puddle of water right in the middle of the room; the teacher comes to me and says “The roof is leaking; we’ll have the class in the other corner of the room today.” The drawings done by the kids hanging on the ceiling of the room are all wet with their colors fading, but they still flitter with the little wind that manages to find its way through this 4 small windows large room.
The class consists of approximately 50 kids, of all ages; it’s a mixture of a school, a day care center, a place where they cut vegetables, a kitchen and a storage place. The first thing that the teacher calls out to the kids when I enter the room is for them to wipe out their noses. One girl in the class is a mute, but she is very eager and usually jumps excitedly up and down to participate in the lesson, and when I ask her to repeat something, all that comes out of her mouth is “waaowwaaowwwoaaaw”. One boy is dyslexic, he writes numbers backwards. A lot of the kids are too young to learn anything, and when I speak to them, they just look at me blankly. One girl could not sit down; she fixated her stare at me, specifically on my “Osama” beard (it doesn’t look at all like Osama’s beard, but that’s what two people I know referred to it as). The others have a lot of difficulty understanding my accent, and so when I tell them to repeat “I am ten years old”, they come up with something like this “Ra reim ta yeur o”. One very young girl imitates my accent perfectly and it is weird to see a small little slum dweller with a mixed Moroccan, Indian and French accent while speaking English. If I taught for a long time, I could maybe finally have a clan with a similar accent to mine! One boy of the group is very very smart.
As I finished the class last Thursday, I came out and saw a small girl shitting just outside the classroom. Not squatting down but just showing her ass to the world and small little droppings coming out and getting mixed in the mud. And then a hundred other kids came rushing waving me goodbye.
It’s been three Thursdays that I’ve been there and I love it. These kids, along with my work, have been my saviors in what is otherwise, I think, a crappy Pune.
As I station my bike outside the school area, kids crowd over to me, their arms on each others shoulders, pushing each other, some giggling and others looking at me blankly. I wish them “Hello” and trust my hand in front, and then, ten hands come violently forward towards me to shake mine. I enter the classroom, and see a huge puddle of water right in the middle of the room; the teacher comes to me and says “The roof is leaking; we’ll have the class in the other corner of the room today.” The drawings done by the kids hanging on the ceiling of the room are all wet with their colors fading, but they still flitter with the little wind that manages to find its way through this 4 small windows large room.
The class consists of approximately 50 kids, of all ages; it’s a mixture of a school, a day care center, a place where they cut vegetables, a kitchen and a storage place. The first thing that the teacher calls out to the kids when I enter the room is for them to wipe out their noses. One girl in the class is a mute, but she is very eager and usually jumps excitedly up and down to participate in the lesson, and when I ask her to repeat something, all that comes out of her mouth is “waaowwaaowwwoaaaw”. One boy is dyslexic, he writes numbers backwards. A lot of the kids are too young to learn anything, and when I speak to them, they just look at me blankly. One girl could not sit down; she fixated her stare at me, specifically on my “Osama” beard (it doesn’t look at all like Osama’s beard, but that’s what two people I know referred to it as). The others have a lot of difficulty understanding my accent, and so when I tell them to repeat “I am ten years old”, they come up with something like this “Ra reim ta yeur o”. One very young girl imitates my accent perfectly and it is weird to see a small little slum dweller with a mixed Moroccan, Indian and French accent while speaking English. If I taught for a long time, I could maybe finally have a clan with a similar accent to mine! One boy of the group is very very smart.
As I finished the class last Thursday, I came out and saw a small girl shitting just outside the classroom. Not squatting down but just showing her ass to the world and small little droppings coming out and getting mixed in the mud. And then a hundred other kids came rushing waving me goodbye.
It’s been three Thursdays that I’ve been there and I love it. These kids, along with my work, have been my saviors in what is otherwise, I think, a crappy Pune.
posted by manu at 10:33 PM
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