Shishur Sevay

The summer heat has broken; monsoon has begun.  Vacation is over as school had closed for the intense summer heat.  Now begins the season of figuring out if and when the girls go to school.   For Ganga, yesterday was her first day back at school.  Ganga has CP and cannot speak but she attends Class II in the local government school.  Yesterday was her first day back.  A massi (childcare worker) goes with her.  On the way home yesterday Ganga started to cry.  She wanted to go back.  She loves school.  This morning at 5:30 it was wet out but not raining, so I said to get her ready and if the weather clears to take her, if not she would stay home.  At 6:30 she was ready to go and they took her to the doorway and then told me it was raining. (not the best sequence of events) so I said to keep her home.  Ganga protested, yelling and thrusting her body towards the door.  So we covered her up, and they went to school.

Ganga has fought to go to school since she arrived at four years weighing 17 pounds.

Those were the words written in their diary exercise books during our vacation at Mondarmani Beach, a barely developed stretch of coastland along the Bay of Bengal.

My life has taken me to new places.

She was terrified of the water at first!

Everything is new, except for big sisters taking care of little sisters

Sisters....

She loves life and lives it to its fullest

"Holy cows walk beside us as though time were forever..."

Today is the first day of the rest of this blog….. We have moved from Typepad, in the still of the night, communicating over oceans and social networking sites, and now I want to bring you up to date on life here at Shishur Sevay.  First of all, I’m back at Shishur Sevay after three wonderful weeks visiting my family in NY, especially my new granddaughter, whom I miss a lot.  I’m stretched across the world.  That’s how it feels.  I was also thrilled to be back home with my kids here.  I’m anchored in two continents. 

We at Shishur Sevay have never gone away overnight.  I was reluctant to do so until I felt I had a good team, and that the girls would be well-behaved.  And we needed to find a place we would be safe, as we have not always been safe here.  Mondarmani Beach is a stretch along the Bay of Bengal, not yet built up, still without even a road, or electricity (except for individual generators).  The beach is almost empty except for some few vacationers, and a herd of cows walking peacefully along the water twice a day.  The vacation was wonderful.  The girls were wonderful.  Our girls with disabilities were able to enjoy the beach and the vacation with the others.  My team worked well.  I did not have to carry the full burden of the trip.  It was as good as it gets and I felt a wonderful sense of peace about the girls, their growth, poise, behavior, and all that we have achieved.  The feeling remains.

I brought back two wheelchairs donated to us by the A Harry Moore school in Jersey City.   great about letting me take them.  So, we had four chairs and were able to use them on the beach, even indulging in a bit of wheelchair racing, which was totally disorganized and just a chance for the big girls to have fun with the little ones.

Our new Associate Director left while I was away so that was a blow and the work load is enormous once again.  It really was nice to have some relief, but this is a very tough place.  I think I’ve written before that originally I wanted to write a “how to” book for others who wanted to do this.  But one day I asked myself, “Who?”

Well, life here… the girls still have three days of vacation and they are back to studying.  I discovered today that our math teacher was giving exams using the same problems she showed them, not changing the numbers at all.  It came up because in marking, for one of the girls, the work was all wrong but the answer was right — so she must have remembered the answer.   It’s like a conspiracy to not have them think, or need to think what they are doing.  So I crumpled up the papers and said for her to give a new test with new numbers. 

Our new special educator is working out very well and she is excited to explore the technology i’ve brought back.  Ganga is working on the keyboard, trying with toes, hand, nose, and tongue….  We are also having a head pointer made for her.  Bono has learned to use the communication board to tell us she likes to eat, is sad when food is delayed, and she doesn’t like to study.  Rani was quiet and at peace for the whole vacation.  She is bored here and we are working on that.   And our little Sonali remains happy and playful all the time.  We are working on choice making, and also seeing if she has any useful vision.

As for me, I’m sitting at the computer too much, not exercising, missing the hours of walking in the US.  It’s been hot like an oven here, though monsoon should start within a week, and then we will have some relief.

Jelly, our dog missed us and didn’t eat much while we were away.  The guards and our house supervisor took care of her.  It’s been quiet in the neighborhood, but still, the guards were actually afraid to be on duty alone while we were away.  I agreed to have them double up at night, two guards on for the night.  Everything was fine though.

It’s late on the night of this first blog of the rest of the blogs here.   I’m very grateful to the friends who helped me through this transition.  Some problems actually get solved!!!!  What a wonderful thought.  On this note, I say good night to those of you in India and “Have a great day” to those who are just beginning the day.

I’m here in NYC, at the home of my older daughter, her husband, and my new granddaughter.  But my mind keeps going back to India.  I can honestly say that nothing I’ve seen or experienced in India over the last ten years has literally shocked me as this has.  The whole story  keeps going around in my head.   From New York I’ve already made trouble for my kids in India.  The times I find my life hard are unpredictable.  This is one of those blogs we write, uncertain if it will be erased, or sent…. I still don’t know.

Here is the story.  Some weeks ago a child of ours had an “accident” in the midst of an exam.  This child is very tense, self-driven to do well, and also frightened due to past violence against her by people in authority.  She has rope scars on her body.  So, during the second of three exams that day, her body took over.  She had asked the teacher for permission to go to the bathroom and the teacher had said no, which is understandable during an exam.  But this child had another problem, namely that the bathrooms in that school had neither water nor soap.  Further details are unnecessary, except that when she came home she was terrified that she would be in trouble.  At our place she was initially sent to the shower and told to clean up.  When I learned of all this I went to help her, and hugged her.  I felt so badly for her.  I knew the school had a “toilet” problem, but I had no idea there was no water, much less soap.  Our girl was in tears.

The next day I went to the school and expected that surely the children had exaggerated and there was water.  No, they were correct.  I also asked if any concession would be given to the girl if she did not do well, as I thought the school had some partial responsibility.  (Anyone from India must be laughing hysterically by now at my naivete).  I was told, “If she failed, she could repeat the year.  it wouldn’t be so bad.” This is actually standard. “Mercy” is not part of the school curriculum of this missionary school.

That day I was also given a tour of the facilities and the bathrooms.  There was an outside tank of water that the workmen were using for cement mixing.  But otherwise there was no water at all, not a drip.   I saw new toilets — but no water.  It took some digging but the administrator learned that there was an unannounced work stoppage going on, namely the pump hadn’t been turned on, due to a labor conflict. Another source of water couldn’t be used because the workman responsible for it had taken the key on leave with him.   

I know the problem will eventually be solved with a new water line, but this is a school with 500 girls.  I keep coming back to the issue of how children are to go to the toilet without any water?  They come back to class with soiled hands, clothes, books, anything they touch.  It literally boggles my  mind.  I’m shocked.  This is NOT a government school!  People pay money to send their children there.  But it is a missionary school, one my girls chose to go to because they wanted to learn in a more open environment.  There is no attempt to “convert” children at all.  It’s recognized that the vast majority of children are Hindu.  I feel like I’m treading on such treacherous political ice, but as a mother here, it feels like this is what the Church deems adequate for Indian children.  And what of the VALUES?  What of cleanliness?  What of self pride? Don’t they know that the biggest reason girls drop out of school is because there are no bathrooms? 

The issue of no water and no soap is not a matter of poverty.  I wrote previously about a hospital with no soap in the bathrooms outside the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.  The doctors said, “nothing we can do.”  My ‘doctor mind” is screaming about all this.  But all this was before I left for NY.  It’s a thirty hour trip, place to place.  Sometimes I find it easy; sometimes my bones rebel and I can’t really rest.  It’s just what it is.  Well, I’d been in NY a few hours and received a call from Shishur Sevay.  Our girl who’d had the “accident” in class had been called to the teacher and told she had to bring ten rupees to school to pay the person who cleaned up her seat.”

I was shocked!  I was really shocked, and upset more about the further embarrassment of our girl than the ten rupees.   No Mercy — I have to remember this.  I called the principal who I thought of as a friend by now, a major mis-judgement on my part.  She was furious at my call and defended the practice, said they couldn’t employ someone to clean up after children.  She totally missed my concern about how it was done.  She told me to send someone from our organization to the school the next day.  I got the message.  I sent Seema Gupta, board Joint Secretary, and Assistant Registrar of Kolkata High Court, Criminal Division.  She knows her way around.  That meeting did not go well, and apparently the school has a long list of complaints about us.  But they also told her that if a child vomits it is also ten rupees. They questioned what was our intent in educating the girls.

Here is our list of complaints, and I’m beginning to understand more of what is going on.  I watched a video documentary this morning about a Dalit Ph.D student of Medicine, who suicided because of the torture he felt, and because he was told over and over he would not be a doctor.  He had placed very high in National exams.  it didn’t matter.  That resonated with me because over the last few days I keep thinking maybe we should move “back where we belong.”  Maybe we aimed too high, not academically, but socially.

Our list:  Seema and I went to visit the school in November just to find out requirements.  The principal was very accepting and said she would take the girls.  One teacher in the room started to object, and the Principal said she would just meet with the girls and take them.  Seema and I celebrated at a tea stand, as she had to get back to work.

The girls had an admissions exam the following day at another school, but we were all relieved that they had been accepted.  Now it would be a matter of choices.

Seema fixing their hair as we waited for school to open the gates for the exams.  The girls had a hard time because fathers heckled them about their being older and a couple of girls inside insulted them.  I’ve written before and will continue to write that they have courage.  They also have support.

Well, the girls passed the entrance exams and were accepted, but they really wanted to go to the missionary school.  We all imagined a better reception, and we would not have to face parents there during an examination.  We were under the illusion they could walk in just like any others, in uniform.

We were wrong.  The first problem was that teachers kept referring to them as, “the girls who didn’t take the exam.”  They were asked why they didn’t take the exams.  Truly it wasn’t until today when I saw this two-part documentary that it clicked in my mind, reservations, quotas, the Indian version of affirmative action.  The teachers may see them as having gotten in by quota.

The Death of Merit — two parts

Part 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L3y9O1HCBw
Part 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADXnFf_5JT4

When we went to enroll them, on the dates the Principal had told us, we were told by the office that the girls would have to take an exam.  We objected as we had now turned down two other schools, and their terms had begun.  So the Principal intervened, but I think we still pay a price for that.

About the second week, the girls were asked about religion and caste.  One of them asked why, and the teacher said so they could assign “house” to them.  I’ve now been told by the school that this conversation never happened.  I went to the school.  (Indian readers may be laughing at how easily I thought to go to school, but I’ve been properly punished now.)  I was told this question was only for census and had nothing to do with “house assignment.”  As for caste, I told the girls to write “general” as that’s what lots of job applicants offer on their resumes.

You see, caste is a function of family, and community.  As these children have neither, they were totally unaware of the issue.  The school could have gotten all this information at the time of admission, directly from the parents.  But there, you just ask everyone in the class.  It’s a cultural difference.  As much as I read that caste is not so important anymore, it is talked about a lot.  One’s last name equals “Title” equals caste.  It doesn’t represent economic condition.  It is about who talks to whom, and in what way. It’s about who is up and who  is down.

Of course there also seems to be the category of “parent” which is a very low position to be in.  Gibi’s daughter Preeti told me years ago, “Mummy, in India, a teacher is higher than a parent.”  I think this is true.  With the exception of our local government school where I’ve been President of the Mother-Teacher Committee for two years, my dealings with schools have been very bad.  My concerns were consistently ignored.  My children with disabilities cannot communicate, but when I wanted to know about what they did in school I was told over and over, “We don’t have time to talk to parents.”

I have a funny recent story of my low status.  Lopa, our new Associate Director and I went to IICP (Indian Institute for Cerebral Palsy) about a separate program they run as part of the National Open School System.  We met with the Principal, with whom I have had good and bad times before when my children were there.  As we were speaking she mentioned a workshop they were having, and indicated I might be able to attend.  Then she called someone and said, “I have a parent here who wants to attend the workshop.  Is that permitted?”  Forget that I’m a doctor, forget a long career and expertise, and forget that I established a home for orphans.  I’m a “parent.”  Lopa was shocked at how the Principal treated me, but I’m used to it.  It’s not pleasant but it’s what I’ve come to accept.  I save my feelings for blogging, sooner or later.

It is almost a week since I started this post.  I saved it, started another, saved that, came back to this one.  A week later, with some perspective, what do I think, what do I feel?

I’m still upset at the no water.  I asked for an update from the girls but they just don’t use the bathrooms.  I’m more troubled by the sense we “don’t belong” there and what does that mean?  If I feel that, what are the girls feeling?  I started Shishur Sevay to identify obstacles.  The sense of “not belonging” is an obstacle.  We have had four years of struggle with teachers even at Shishur Sevay.  I believe that over and over the girls were shortchanged because of low expectations, because of subtle and not so subtle caste-ism.  I remember one teacher telling Gibi and me, “These children can’t learn like ours can.”  She said it in front of the girls! So I told her it was a waste then for me to pay her to teach and sent her off.

The girls know we believe in their ability to learn, and their ability to change the course of their lives.  We are in the struggle with them.  Water, soap, a right to education… what more can we ask?