This is a revised post about Cyclone Sidr.  I didn’t get a chance to finish writing about the morning we woke to a clear sky, a light breeze, and no sign of the hurricane force winds we had been expecting.    We all had fun laughing at my preparations — but our moods changed over the course of the day, and then over the next several days as we learned about the devastation caused by Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh.  Kolkata was braced for the storm.  As of midnight, trains were still canceled.  Much of the Sunderbans was evacuated.  But then sometime after midnight, Sidr shifted East.

I grew up in the US when "atom bomb drills" were common in school, and when people built underground shelters stored with food and water.  Part of my childhood was spent on a farm, where we were often snowed in for days at a time.  So getting food in, making sure we had enough coal, closing windows and shutters against hurricanes, making sure the animals were safe — these are ingrained routines for me.

My preparations:

1. We brought in food supplies for a several days.  We had plenty of staples, but added vegetables, eggs, and bread — flexible foods.

2. We made sure we had enough kerosene for the generator in case electricity stopped.

3. Bijoy and I went hunting for warm clothes for little and big girls.  It was raining, and this was the day when local stores are closed.  But we found a lone hawker selling from under a tarpaulin, and bought him out.

4. We got out the wool blankets from last year.

5. Our building is part old, and part new.  I moved us to the newer part, 2 story and a very strong roof.  Most of the girls slept upstairs with massis.  I stayed downstairs with two of the little ones — Poomina needs her crib, and Ganga just wants to be with me.  The others are happier with the big girls.

6. I had staff stay overnight because in bad weather they couldn’t get here in the morning. 

7. Bijoy’s wife was sick at home so we brought her here so she wouldn’t be alone, without electricity or water when the storm hit.

8. I simply didn’t consider the possibility that the weather would be clear, with NO wind or rain this morning.  So I didn’t get up to wake girls, check, etc.  So, they missed school today.

I’d shown the girls the red colored cyclone on the weather.com map.  And I’d made all sorts of sounds to describe thunder and rain and wind… making them all laugh, but teaching about Bay of Bengal, and Bangladesh, and Kolkata…   We followed the weather map as late as 8 pm, and the cyclone was still coming our way.  Lowland villages and islands nearby were evacuated.  The next day we looked at where the cyclone had been…. It was all an experience in Time, Place, and Person — essentials of consciousness, and anchors to reality —

I slept so well knowing I’d prepared.  A few times I woke, aware of the LACK of sound of wind or rain, and fell back to sleep.  I slept right through what should have been the time to go to school, which of course was open.  I felt really stupid.

p.s. Cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons are more about where they are located geographically than about their properties.  This is my conclusion after Googling "hurricane vs cyclone."

We are all fine.  We had a beautiful Diwali/Kali Puja/Lakshmi-Ganesh Puja.  I am consumed with work regarding our battle with the government.  I’m working around the clock to prepare a formal history of the difficulties and harassment.  We are still knocking on doors, still trying to find someone who will match their outrage with action on our behalf.

It’s exhausting and painful, painful because of the extent of the lies and betrayals.  None of this is about the children.  Everyone knows they are fine and that we are taking excellent care of them.  It is a warped and perverted game of control, in a system that perpetrates abuses of power.

But, we have the children.  That is what is most important.  They are with us instead of living in a government institution.  This is just ‘stuff’ we have to go through to keep them.

I love thinking about this blog, writing in my head, but until I get all this work done, I may not have the time to make the leap from thought to post.

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.