Shishur Sevay

The teacher was responding to my question as to whether she had marked and scored the practice examinations she had just given to the girls.  No she had not.  She had marked mistakes but had not scored the papers.  Why?  Because the girls are nervous.  She said I must meet with them because they are nervous. 

So, I summoned the girls.  I called out, "Boro Bacchas (Big girls), meeting, meeting…"  They came quickly and stood around nervously.  Some sat on the floor.  I said, "Auntie says you are nervous.  Is that true?"  They looked at me nervously and nodded.  "Well," I added, "This is normal!!!!!  Of course you are nervous.  Everyone taking exams is nervous.  Every girl taking an admission test is nervous.  I can't tell you not to be nervous.  It doesn't work.  But, I can tell you that nothing bad will happen if you don't do well."

We have talked and talked, and will continue to talk about their fears.  I told them I am so proud that they are even able to sit for these exams.  I reminded them of how far they had come, what they couldn't do when they arrived.  They liked that.  I told them they had courage to go on even being so much older and bigger than others in their classes.  And I reiterated that we would make the decision together, considering what each girl wanted… At present though there seems to be general agreement that they want to go to a school with transport.  They want to ride a bus each day.  I supported this.  I told them how they would meet children in the neighborhood by riding the bus, and then others at the school in their classes.  I pointed out that riding on a bus is a good time to talk to friends, or to sleep.  The sleep part appealed to a couple of them.

The girls believe me that I will not force anyone to go anywhere.  They also understand that I want them to go to a school where they will feel good, where they will have fun as well as learn.  And I said that sometimes it's good to go to a school where you can be a little bad once in a while.  I talked about what it would be like for me seeing them off, having them on their own all day, waiting for them to come home. 

It's really OK to be nervous. Sometimes it's totally appropriate.  But in this community such emotion evokes panic among teachers and other adults.  Our girls grew up mostly using avoidance as a response to nervous-making situations.  Here they have had to face so many challenges.  I'd be more worried if they were not nervous.  That would make me very nervous.

Today is Children's Day.  We spent it in the country.  We went to visit a home for children with disabilities started by a friend here.  She has spent her life in the area of social services. The children are sent by the government, and the monthly allowance from the government barely covers the cost of food, much less anything else.  The government depends on these NGOs finding funds, mostly from foreign sources.  My friend must beg. Basically that's the government's solution.  And I have to interject my perspective, namely that India is not a poor country but it is a country of poor people.  In my ten years here the divide has become wider.

The home has just relocated to a new place.  We had been to visit the children in their previous home in the city.  I think of our girls as doing "community service" in spending time with the children there.  I am attached there, even though I promise everyone I won't get involved.  But the woman who started it is older than I am, and asked if I could take care of her children if she died.  What could I say?  So I said yes and now she tells me they are my children also. 

The Shishur Sevay mission is about our children.  My personal mission includes the children I can't take care of.  I want to know about them, what can be done for them, how to bring attention to their lives… We are a model here.  A model must be used, talked about, held up as a way to care for others. 

We made our visit a picnic, brought our own lunch, and then brought misty doy (sweet yogurt) for the children.  We came with all our children and the staff.  One of our childcare workers broke down in tears, cried on my shoulders, when she saw a severely ill hydrocephalic baby.  Some of these children are not expected to live long.  Others look to me like children who would be gladly adopted by those (mostly) foreigners who reach out to adopt children with disabilities.  When adoption was easier, too many healthy children were labelled as having disabilities in order to get them adopted.  I used to read posts from new adoptive mothers in the US, "My son was deaf but when he got here he could hear."  I've heard the same about blindness and even about Downs.  I spoke once with a doctor in India who used to do the clearances and he stopped doing it because it was all so fraudulent.  But still, I wish these children could have a chance.  At the moment this home is a good one.  I don't know what will happen when the government forces them to "fill up."  It's complicated.

Two older girls are working there, both "given" to the home as workers from the same institution where my girls were.  One of my girls knew one of the girls there.  Those girls have not been educated, won't be educated.  Our girls understood the opportunity they have been given.  The message did not go unnoticed.  One of our girls talked with my friend about getting education for those girls.  It was a good discussion and she learned that vocational training will start.  My girls have their missions too.

I didn't know until last evening that we were going there, namely I hadn't decided.  We were supposed to be somewhere else, at a program for Children's Day at a museum.   Yesterday we were at the museum with the school where the girls go.  It was a hard day with an absence of adequate supervision, and just too many things that went wrong, including one child being left behind.  It was a day spent in a situation where I mostly didn't know what was going on because of language.  But I do know chaos.   The trip was supposed to be about education but it became more of a social outing for the adults while the children ran wild in the museum. It's complicated and I'm assuming there will be repercussions due to my disapproval.  It was a clash of cultures.  I understand now what happens when Shishur Sevay goes on trips.  Teachers just don't get involved.  I took it personally but it's the culture. 

Yesterday it was also clear how different my girls are.  They were well behaved throughout.  I was mostly disappointed as I had sponsored this trip so their classmates could see what they had seen.  I once took 150 girls to Fun City, from an orphanage, and they were well behaved.  This was an anomaly, anarchy and mob rule by 6-9 year olds.

I had to re-think today, what we would do.  I just wanted a good day with the kids, without tension, without expectations of anyone else.  This is the last break of any sort before exams.  And, then there is the problem of taking ANY trip to the "countryside."  At some point I expect to say more, but during an outing this summer we inadvertently became hostages to a rioting mob.  We barricaded ourselves in a room in the house we were visiting, while the mob smashed windows.  We were able to reach police by phone, and then the RAF or Rapid Action Force.  We were eventually released, one by one, like you see on TV in hostage situations.  With policemen holding rifles and shields across their chests, we had to wind through a mob of screaming men, calling us the most vulgar names they could think of. The press was there snapping pictures, but it was never reported.  It was complicated.  It is the reality of life here.  Mob rule pervades.  

I suppose you could call what happened to me yesterday PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  When the 6-9 year olds went screaming through the museum, out of control, all I could think of is what they will be like one day as rioting adults. Yes, I was reminded of that day. Writing this is therapy.  I have a better understanding of yesterday.

We visited Ramkrishnapur a few weeks ago.  We have all been there many times, as Bubbi used to live there.  The girls were nervous.  We talked about it.  They were fine.  But Ganga was not fine.  She kept trying to move her body in the direction of getting off the bus.  She was tense, went into more spasms than usual.  When we got there she started to cry until we guessed, and asked her if she was afraid.  We asked if she wanted to go home and she gave the biggest yes she can do.  So then I could tell her this was different, that the bad people were not here.  She didn't really relax until the ride home when she fell asleep on my lap.  Today she was fine.  We all talked about how the countryside reminded us of what happened.  In the worst of it I kept asking, "God, do you really think you can get us out of here?"

So today was for healing, for us as a traumatized family, helping others as a way of healing ourselves.  I wrote last about the girl who prayed for God to give her the power to heal her little sisters.  Today another girl said to me, "When I die I hope my eyes can go to that baby who can't see."

I'm holding a wonderful little girl here.  I was trying to see how much she and Ganga would communicate.  Ganga recognizes Cerebral Palsy in others. Ganga was happy to hold her hand, but in this case she preferred to pose for the camera.

As you see, this little girl makes eye contact, or tries to!  She is basically "with it."  I wish she could find a home.  I truly understand the problems with international adoption, but sitting here, holding her on my lap, watching her look at Ganga, I wish she had a family.  So does my friend, who loves her but still wishes for a family.

ORPHANS:  The Lost and Unclaimed Luggage of Humanity

Jumping right into the subject, this afternoon a teacher told me about an interraction she had the day before with one of the girls. "Aunty, every night I pray to God.  I don't want anything for myself.  I just pray that God would give me the power to touch my little sisters and then they could speak.  I pray to God for this every night."

The little sisters she speaks of are our four children with severe disabilities, including their inability to speak.  This is a child who had one of the most brutalized childhoods, who carries huge burdens of anger and need, but whose bottom line is that she wants most is to be able to give her sisters the ability to speak.

I am humbled.  This story came from a meeting I was having with a few of the teachers, and a few of the girls — about pencils, rulers, making correct margins… seemingly irrelevant to that story.  But at one point I said the the girls, "I KNOW where the pencils and rulers go.  They can all be found at Sabitri School!"  My girls are incapable of holding onto something if their friends must do without.  I've known from the beginning why these things disappeared, and that our girls were content to be scolded or even punished for "losing" things.  Today we joked openly about who the first girl was to start giving things away. 

Two days ago the girls were learning maps of India.  Our girls had blank maps from home that they had filled in.  I guess some of them took extra copies, because two girls gave them to friends who didn't have them.  Their friends cannot afford these things, or rather their families can't.  It's been a tension here because to staff and even teachers, the "losses" represent the girls not valuing the pencils, not "appreciating" their "good fortune" and "everything Mummy does for you."  Much as I try to counter these concepts with the teachers, they continue anyway.  The girls do know not to take it seriously.  They know that I do not think of them as lucky.  Sometimes I keep a box of pencils that I'll slip them if they ask. 

So that's how this story came out,  told by a teacher with us in the meeting.  She is a teacher and an "Auntie" and sensitive to what the girls need, and I think also humbled by my girls.  

The giving away is kept as a "secret."  I've thought about that.  But if we really put it out in the open then it would be I who was giving them the pencils to give away, not their giving away the pencils given to them.  And maybe it's a good skill to learn.  It happens spontaneously, from the heart.

Growing up in the United States, I do not recall tension over exams in primary or middle school.  But here in Kolkata, the examination is the single marker of success or failure.  In the US, we had papers, class participation, extra-credit, homework evaluation, projects, all of which became factors in final marks.  But here we live from exam to exam.  I'm not sure if I wrote of the year we had Chicken Pox during exam time.  We were told to bring the three affected girls wrapped in sheets, covering their full bodies.  They sat in the office with other sick children and took the exams.  There are no "make up" exams.  If you are sick one day you could be held back for the year. 

Our system here, in the Bengali Medium schools, is broken into primary (K-IV), secondary (V-X) and higher secondary (XI-XII).  Six of our girls will complete Class IV this year.  We are preparing them for entrance exams to some higher-ranked Bengali Medium Schools.  It is an incredible achievement of theirs to even be able to meet the basic qualifications and sit for these exams.  They are psyched.  Their first exams are end of November, which is also when their final school exams begin.  When teachers aren't here, they study in groups and on their own.

The ubiquitous scratching of the head, looking for answers.

For the first entrance exam, points will be distributed as 100 for Bengali, 100 for Math, 50 for English.  What they are to expect:

English: word meaning, spelling, make sentences, jumbled words and sentences, fill in the blanks, translation, parts of speech, articles, prepositions, paragraphs, and reading comprehension.

Bengali: spelling, fill in the blanks, opposite words, similar words with different meanings, convert sentence into one word, reading comprehension, gender, numbers, synonym, breaking words into syllables, paragraphs, parts of speech, make sentences.

Math (Bengali): written words and numbers, ascending and descending order, prime factor, common multiples, lowest common factor, highest common factor, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, decimals, fractions, averages, weights, money, time, simplification, geometry.

We had a visitor earlier in the week who was concerned that the girls did not have enough "play" time, so here is a picture of them playing before class this morning.  The teacher arrived as I was taking this picture, so upstairs to the classroom they went… without protest, and even if there had been protest, they still would have had to go.

We play lots of mind games, the girls and I.  One day a while ago they complained that there was too much work, that all they did was study.  Usually this happens when teachers sympathize with them, sometimes around their being "poor orphans."  By the way that's a term we all joke about…  Well anyway, I said to them, "It's not my fault you are here.  The government could have sent you anywhere, but they sent you to an education home!"  The girls are smart.  They got it.

We are on holiday.  School is closed for another two weeks.  Friday is a Puja.  The girls decided to celebrate the Puja in the morning and to study all afternoon.  I'm proud of them.