Traveling Cloud, a line from a poem I wrote — The name, the lines from the poem, comfort me in hard times, if only a reminder of hard times that have been, and hard times that are now, and will pass. as the others have.

Some days are hard and lonely.  Here is the poem:

TO BE IN MY SKIN

If you came into my skin

It would take you a long time to

Get used to

All the trouble,

I am a rooting weed ,

A broken rock,

A traveling cloud

You cannot touch,

I am a bridge,

I am Jerusalem,

The Intefada,

The Holocaust,

Rwanda,

Looking for Redemption,

To be in my skin is

To feel God,

Know Satan,

And make my birthday wish

For World Peace.

MH

12/28/00

The cock doth crow
To let us know

If we be wise
Tis time to rise

English class, English rhymes, English language in Kolkata.  Next comes the alphabet:

A is for Ass

This is English in Kolkata, with words we would not use, and probably words the children will never use, unless they end up on the streets in the US, talking about cocks and asses.  As for "doths" they haven’t been heard from in a long time.  Where have all the doths gone? 

It just feels funny standing in front of a class of little kids talking about cocks, doths, and asses. 

I write only partly in jest, but also seriously, because the debate about teaching English is at times a volatile one.  To the poor, English being the language of the colonizer is less important than English as opportunity to rise above poverty.  In West Bengal, language is the great divide.

We send the children to a "Bengali Medium" government school.  The West Bengal government had removed English from primary education about 25 years ago, but due to public pressure has just reintroduced it at a minimal level.  One consequence of having removed it is that it is  difficult to find teachers fluent in English, except among the elite. 

Why our girls are in Bengali government school:

1. We had no papers to get them into schools, and we had a local connection with the school, a friend who persuaded to school to take the children. 

2. Our girls had never been in school.  They weren’t socialized with respect to behavior or language.  When angry or moody they use an assortment of Hindi and Bengali terms equivalent to cocks and asses, as well as female dogs — and other words no one is willing to translate for me.  This school was/is a place to start while they learned to behave, speak, show respect to teachers, take turns, raise their hands — and most important, learn the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

3. Mother tongue is the language of thought, emotion and memory.  I didn’t/don’t want them to lose that. 

4. They must be literate in Bengali, so when they do speak it, even if they learn English, they still speak in an educated way.  They must learn single and plural, tenses, parts of speech,  sentence structure, and the fastest way to learn that is in a familiar language.  Then it can be transferred/translated. 

5. Our girls are starting school very late.  It’s harder to do mental math problems when you don’t know what the words are. 

"A man went to the store and bought five apples; he gave two to the children standing outside.  Then he went inside and bought four oranges but one dropped and was run over by a bicycle. 

Oranges cost two rupees.  Apples cost 3 rupees 50 paise each.  The man left his home with 50 rupees, but two rupees fell out of a hole in his pocket. How much money did he have left?" It’s so much harder when you don’t even know what "pocket" means, or "fell out." 

6. We have no idea where these girls will find their places in society, what work they will do, whom they will marry, who will be their circle of friends — but they should not be alienated from their cultural origins.  Bengali is a lyrical language rich in artistic and literary heritage.  These girls should know that pride in their heritage.  And they do.

I am learning as we go, as are the girls.  What is the future, what can be the future, of real orphan girls, ones who have no families or communities waiting for them?  An orphan’s life is hard.  For our girls, English will be critical in their independence and upward mobility.  Whatever they do, whether it be nursing, teaching, taking care of children, having English will set them apart, give them an edge in the economic market.  They will become fluent, but not just yet.  It all takes time.

Ganga was sitting in on the class when "The cock doth crow…." was first being practiced.  She loved it, waved her arms, and called out in sounds she tried to approximate to what she was hearing.   So, in spite of my jest, my funny feelings, I find myself at times on the floor, looking her in the eyes, and enunciating clearly, "The cock doth crow, To let us know, If we be wise, Tis time to rise."  And when I then add, "A is for Asses" she giggles and giggles, somehow knowing that these words do not come easily to me either. 

Navami, the last day of Durga Puja, is a day of prasad, food that has been given to the Gods for their blessings, and then returned to be eaten.  On this morning, two groups came bearing prasad for us.  We had already begun cooking for the day, but there was also enough prasad so we really didn’t have to.  To the children, all this had some familiarity.  To Gibi, it’s "of course."  I am forever trying to catch up!

One of young women who came on Astami is in Montessori training.  She had stayed to teach for two hours, and came again on Navami.  She called first to see if we remembered she was coming.  The children were already upstairs in the classroom waiting for her, going through their alphabet drills until she arrived.  Towards the end of the class I joined in and we did "opposites."  We walked in opposite directions.  I drew "same same" buildings and then opposite sized.  We had night and day, sun and rain, boy and girl, elephant and mouse, laughing and crying, quiet and noisy.  Of course, it’s not really all that simple, but good enough for now.

For us, it was really just a lazy day at home.  No one was ever naughty enough for punishment.  They even kept the TV at reasonable sound level.  Boro bacchas and choto bacchas spent a lot of time together.

I write all this on Dashami, the day of Durga’s sad farewell.  Today the processions to the water are to begin.  But if you go out to the pandals this evening, you will rarely see this happening.  Like clinging children, we hang onto Durga, the mother goddess, begging her not to go, and canceling her mode of transportation.  What can she do if her lorry does not show up?  Her gorgeously painted and decorated clay form cannot walk the distance to the Ganges.  So she stays, and stays, sometimes until a city ordinance is passed that she must go to the river.  As children we do not easily let our mothers leave us, and as mothers we linger with our children for as long as we are able.

Astami, this day of worship of little girls as mother goddess.  I didn’t know this.  I’d lost the day before fighting with the Government.   We are close to some of the neighbors at Gibi’s flat, as my room there was home for me when I was in India.  So some of the neighbors have followed our work, and the creation of Shishur Sevay.  Now they come with gifts and praise for the children.   So the evening before, these friends had called to ask if they could bring breakfast for all the girls, which of course I said yes to.  I imagined one of them stopping by with some breakfast treats.  Had I known this was a day of worship of little girls, I would have dressed them up.  I am not only an anxious mother, but a self-critical one too.

At nine in the morning they arrived, the whole extended family, with shopping bags of food, utensils, and a special plate with elements of worship.  It was beautiful.  They tied a red string around each girl’s wrist, and put vermilion powder on their foreheads (mine too).  The food preparation began and we set up in the classroom to eat, bringing choto bacchas upstairs too.   Really, this was how I’d imagined it would be.  In class the children are learning the meaning of "opposites."  This morning was the opposite of their socially isolated and acultural lives in the institution.

It was a quiet home day for the children.  Gibi and her children were with them for the day.  I went hunting for a courier, and then came back to sleep.

Another evening of pandal strolling…. this time our first stop being the pandal close to our home.  The local "clubs" get together to build pandals.  They solicit contributions door-to-door.  So this year, as they came for donations, I reminded them we were an orphanage, and asked, "And what will you do for our children?  We are in your community?"  The response was really lovely.  One club put up a big banner with our name and address, in Bengali, as I’d requested.  Another club took our Annual Report and put it on poster board just outside the entrance of the pandal.  So, on Astami evening, the children posed in front of the poster with their pictures, and again under the banner with our name.  Some local club leaders joined us for pictures too.  It was so good for all of us.  Then we made rounds of other pandals.  Along the way we met one of our teachers, also out for the evening.  The children called out, "Auntie, Auntie," and crowded around her.  We are a familiar sight, the community is familiar to us.  With the local leaders we mention our troubles with the Government.  They assure us we are safe, that no one will come to disturb us.  The community now feels blessed to have us with them.  They feel chosen.