From Meghan to Meghna

This is my first blog entry of my new life in India. I should preface this with the fact that this is my first time out of North America. The common reaction to this response is, “WOW, you’re brave.” I don’t yet find I need bravery to face India, but I am feeling overwhelmingly excited to be in a place that is vastly different from my home country. So far I feel the necessity of drinking in every moment of this experience. The excitement of discovering all the wonders of my surroundings is amazingly overwhelming, from soaking up delicious curries with rothies, to feeling the wind through my hair in the tight rickshaw with horns screaming in the background.

I will be staying in Bajipura, Gujarat, which is directly across from a temple that has daily prayer at 7am and 7pm, a mosque is also located behind us that has call to prayer five times a day. Outside my bedroom I have the roaring highway and I wake up to the camp fires of mothers preparing breakfast. We also see the farmer preparing his cows to carry him down the road.

The rest of the town is small, quaint, and friendly. From beautiful elaborate houses to small shanties, or simply whole families living under a tarp or tree for shelter. We have a dairy where the whole town gathers just before dinner to collect their milk. The river runs behind the town and women do their washing while their children swim naked. Also the farmers bring their cows to come cool down and take a long refreshing drink. The town highlight is an ice-cream stand that we frequent. They also have 10 rupee sodas that are so refreshing in the heat.

We seem to be the main attraction of the town currently. As we walk down the road traffic accidents occur and people nearly fall over. As I sit talking on the phone a crowd begins to circle and they don’t seem to mind the ten minutes of awkwardness they share as they take me in.

Both the Gujarati Medium and English Medium schools are a short walk from my home. We walk down the busy highway, me nearly being hit by the elaborately painted trucks. We pass busy bus stops, street vendors, and the occasional animal. The most commonly sighted animals are goats, cows and the dogs that are not friendly, which is a great source of unhappiness for me.
We arrive at the school and are quickly greeted with GREAT enthusiasm. Every child says, “ Hi Maim, Good Morning.” I will hear good morning all day long even if it is 5pm. Some students also progress to “How are you.” The response to this is always, “I am fine,” or if they do not know the answer they just laugh and run away.

I also have another name at the school. The challenge of introducing myself as Meghan, has quickly been alleviated by adapting my new Indian Meghna. It is helpful for all the students and teachers and also quite entertaining since they think that I was born with an Indian name. Now if only I could come up with a quick solution for learning everyone’s’ names. With classes of over seventy students and my horrible pronunciation problems I don’t think I will be able to come up with an easy fix for this problem.

School in India has been such a culture shock to me, from the loud rambunctious children of the US to the well mannered robot like children of India. As we walk into the class all students stand and say, “Good morning teacher.” The atmosphere of the school is very formal. All students wear a full uniform. They also have to sit up straight on benches that have no backs, quite different from the students in the US slouching in their desk chairs. Also any time the whole school comes together the children pile themselves into tight efficient lines and then squeeze into the tightest space. This is all done in minutes and seemingly with no complaint of the limited space. In the US I can picture fights breaking out over the lack of space, but here it is just the norm.

Now it is not that the students are exactly robots because I certainly have students that misbehave, but it is a different type of disobedience. While students in the US walk around like they own the school, students here know that there is a higher authority and that if it is not the teacher in the room there is certainly no one that will try and defy the supervisor or the principal. I have not seen students respond to any adult quite the way children in India respond to their principal. Also there is a much more clear feeling of a culture of achievement. It is not so cool to be at the bottom of class in India. There is embarrassment in misbehaving and for doing poorly in school. Students understand that being successful is cool in the end because it can get you out of the poverty that you may be living in or the poverty that you see your neighbor living in.

My students in the US had limitless knowledge of sex and drugs, but here the students seem years behind in the street knowledge that my students had acquired. The students are so playful in their naivety and it is such a wonderful thing after seeing many of my students struggling with the amount of knowledge they had about grown up issues.

The religious presence in the school is also, quite a shock for me. Although there are different religious groups represented within the school, all students come together for Morning Prayer and all the festivals celebrated at school are from the Hindu tradition. This does not seem to cause division in fact all students seem to participate regardless of their religious background.

So far I am feeling quite at home in my little village. I am also feeling completely welcomed at the school. While the teachers and students are most certainly pointing out all of my difference they are also certainly welcoming me into their community and are completely willing to learn about my different background.