Nanubhai's Co-Teachers Certificate Ceremony

On Sunday, February 27th 2011, the first group of Nanubhai Education Foundation co-teachers, Sameer, Yogesh, and Amita, were awarded certificates recognizing the truly notable work they've accomplished throughout this year. Sitting around the conference room table of the school's board room, the fellows and co-teachers took turns commenting all aspects of our experience this year, ranging from gratitude towards their working partners to ways in which the experience of teaching under the Nanubhai model had grown them.

As Zach very aptly noted during the ceremony, the certificates do more than simply recognize the work of the co-teachers for this one, isolated year. In reality, in the same way that they carry their certificates out with them through the door and into their hometowns, they carry with them a year's worth of experience teaching in a model that emphasizes the introduction of change in an educational system where change is in dire need. These teachers are now agents of change in the schools, and with Amita working closely with the Foundation in the upcoming year, Nanubhai's co-teacher model is inevitably going to witness a multiplicative effect.

I think that our certificate ceremony, albeit small and somewhat informal, gave us all a glimpse into what the future may hold for this Foundation. What counts is not a perfect model or a sales pitch. What lies at the core of the work that this Foundation does is the energy and dedicated passion of the local co-teachers, willing to step outside of their comfort zones and devote themselves to constant improvement. We communicated to our co-teachers during the ceremony that although they will likely never see or talk with many of the Nanubhai staff and volunteers in the United States, their efforts do not go by unnoticed.

Congratulations to our great co-teachers for their incredible work and dedication!

An Evening with the Bookoholics

Last Sunday, I was given the honor of ringing in the inaugural meeting of Surat's start-up venture, Bookoholics.com.

Something like the Netflix of books, Bookoholics.com is an emerging book rental company that loans out books on demand via postal service for a nominal monthly subscription fee. In a relatively short time, they've amassed a catalogue of more than fourteen hundred titles solely through book donations. To my thinking, this low-cost and potentially high-impact model is a prime example of the commodity of innovation, which has in recent years torn the economic spotlight away from India's established manufacturing powerhouse.

That such a venture should start up in Surat of all places bodes well for a city which is here often viewed in the same prism we Americans (perhaps only somewhat unfairly) pigeonhole New Jersey - that is, a land better suited for churning out producers than poets; where the only parks are industrial; a place where the romance of India's timelessness goes up on trial in sweat shops and commercial retail outlets.

Meetings like the one Bookoholics.com sponsors aren't just a place for idle gabbing; they're creating a free, public space for people to come together for the purpose of doing something (anything!) besides merely spending money. That, I believe, is a wonderful thing which is too often forgotten in the din of development.

Spearheaded by Mr. Rahul Kedia, Bookoholics.com is a refreshing idea whose value-added isn't just a culture of literacy, but a literacy of culture.

You can find out more about the Bookoholics by visiting their website, www.bookoholics.com.

A video of my speech may be found by clicking here.

The Life of a Student in Rural India

At Madhi High School, we are officially three weeks into the second term of the school year.  In fact, I am almost half way through this term’s materials as we are moving at a steady pace.  Classes are going well for me and my co-teacher Ameeta.  We have found our rhythm and are working well together to teach our students English. 

While my academic classes have been going well, lately my Spoken English class attendance has been at an all time low.  On most days I only have a handful of students.  I have talked to the students, the other English teachers and even the principal and they have all told me that this is normal.  Students are tired at the beginning of their second term. They will be more focused after Diwali break in November.  The students at Madhi High School finished their first term examinations on September 23^rd.  Their examinations lasted ten days- each day they would write one exam in the morning and another in the afternoon.  On September 24^th, the second term officially began.  Less than one day after they completed their exams, they returned to school and to their regular classes.  No wonder they are exhausted!

The lack of attendance for Spoken English classes left me frustrated.  I was arriving at school every day, an hour early, ready to teach my students and they were not showing up.  I had excellent attendance last term and was so disappointed at how drastically the situation changed.  However, the other day, I had a realization.  These students work so incredibly hard. How can I be upset that they need a short break from Spoken English?

The typical schedule for an average secondary school student is as follows:

                6: 00 am: Wake up and get dressed

                6:30am/7:00 am: Go to tuition classes

                9:00 am: Finish tuition classes and return home for breakfast

                10:00 am: Arrive at school

                10: 30 am: School begins.  Classes start at 11 and go until 4:50 pm

                5:00 pm: Go to tuition classes

                7:30 pm: Finish tuition classes

                8:00 pm: Eat dinner

                8:30 pm: Study or do housework

                11:00 pm: Bed time

Tuition classes are extra classes or tutoring sessions offered by teachers before and after school.  Usually there are ten to fifteen students who go to a teachers’ house for supplemental lessons in several subjects.  At Madhi, like many other government schools, there are no clubs.  There are sports teams but students do not regularly practice.  Sometimes they get in a few minutes of cricket during recess or kick the soccer ball around for a while.  They have no fun extra-curricular activities to participate in.  Their lives revolve around school and there is much pressure on them to succeed.  Of course there are the students who do not work hard, just as there are in every school around the world.  But most students work tirelessly to pass their classes in hope for a better a better future.  They do not get a break after exams end.  They have one long break in November, for Diwali and another break at the end of the year, but no long summers off like we have in the States.   No summer camp or Little League.  What’s more, they go to school six days a week.  Monday through Friday they have full days and on Saturdays they start school at 8:00 am and finish at 11:30 am.  Then, they have more tuition classes.  Can you imagine?

When I taught in a rural village in Malawi for two and a half years, I noticed a similar situation.  Actually, it may have been worse.  I taught at a boarding school and in general, my students slept for 2-4 hours a night.  They studied late into the night every night.  Their weekends were filled with study halls and they were only allowed to leave campus one Saturday each month.  They did have extra-curricular activities but most clubs were for additional academic support, like Maths Club, Science Club, Writer’s Club, etc.  Still more, these students worked literally around the clock to succeed in high school in order to be eligible for university.

The education systems in developing countries are weak.  There are insufficient and poorly trained teachers, limited resources and a lack of schools and universities.  In both of my experiences, the students work so hard because there are fewer spots in college than there are students.  They study endlessly, hoping to make it to college and get a decent job that can support their family.  In both India and Malawi, there is a strong family bond and even when a child is grown, marries and has children of his own, he is still responsible for supporting his parents and other siblings.  Thus, there is a great demand on these students to succeed in school.  I am not sure about you, but I cannot imagine taking on the rigorous schedule these students face daily.  I think I will cut my Spoken English students a little slack.  

India's Gender Justice Gap, Part II

Greeetings all!

After some much-needed R&R in Rajasthan, it's back to business as usual here in Kadod. I last left you with what, for me, was a thought provoking article about the so-called 'Gulabi gang' of female vigilantes who are literally tackling India's timeless patriarchy head-on, one flogging at a time. Writing for Slate magazine, Ms. Amana Fontanella Khan queries, (almost rhetorically, I might add):

"Why aren't they turning to political activism as opposed to vigilantism?"

At least one explanation is intuitive enough: The Gulabis are symptomatic of a larger pattern in India's State-society relations in which the contemporary State has a nearly-uncontested grip on political authority while, at the same time, a great deal of society (especially disenfranchised groups) is pessimistic regarding politicians' capacities to effectively govern - to say nothing of nearly ubiquitous doubts over the veracity of leaders' commitments to legitimacy.

Naturally, periodic features of the news cycle send moonlight politicos into fits of jingoistic saber-rattling and partisan flag-waving. Today, for example, the verdict to a centuries-old-dispute between Hindus and Muslims was conclusively adjudicated by India's Supreme Court. Electricity grids and cell-towers were down throughout our (majority Muslim) district for the better part of the day. (Tangentially, some have speculated that this was a ploy to disrupt communications-technologies which would have been critical for organizing an impromptu riot-turned-bloodbath, of which nearby Surat has painfully recent memories). At any rate, so far as I know, all's quiet on India's western front. Still, party leaderships were quick to chime in on the ruling and what has for centuries been a matter of faith and decades a matter of litigation, finally died a matter of party politics in the course of a few hours.

But back to the issue of gender justice, why indeed do the Gulabis lack a legitimate political parallel? To my thinking, it's because, like many Indians, they tend to see the politics of the State as an obstacle to (not a source of) social progress. Their very existence is proof enough that the India's legal system of protecting equality-between-genders (or lack thereof) is fundamentally broken. Noting that, the Gulabi movement is expressly invested in compensating for, rather than fixing that system. While state leaders use party lines to dither about oughts, Gulabi women use their homemade cudgels to point to what is. But are they a reasonable, or even sustainable vision of what could be?

I don't think so, but absent a legitimate (preferably nonviolent) alternative to improving what is now a decidedly bleak outlook shared by most of India's nearly-60,000,000 women, one can only fault the Gulabis to the extent that s/he believes that justice only trickles down from the Law, rather than surging up from the people who follow it.

It can be difficult to imagine for those of us who hail from a government which self-consciously purports to be "of the people, for the people, and by the people;" but at least here in rural India, there's enough of a vacuum between the government and the people that groups like the Gulabis have more than enough room to do something like lynch a rapist without legal consequences. This same political vacuum exists in India's neighbor to the west - to the effect that Taliban and al-Qaeda cells have established a virtually impregnable outpost in South Asia. So, given the dramatic contrast of terrorist training camps in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, shouldn't we be relieved that India's legitimation crisis has taken the form of women banding together in the face of a cruel and oppressive patriarchy?

Maybe so.

When it comes to women's issues, the Indian State is a broken record (and to their credit, these Gulabis are doing one hell of a job to put a spin on "revolutions per minute"). They're bold beyond convention and assertive to the point of violence. They are, in the truest sense, radicals. Historically, they remind me less of early 20th century America's legions of flappers and feminists as they do later 20th century America's radicalized civil rights activists. Lamentably, it took more than their tragic assassinations to clear (or at least mildly polish) in America's history books the names of Malcolm X and Huey P. Newton. In spite of that - perhaps in part because I'm writing to you on the last day of September, a month as auspicious for American social justice in 1862 as it was in 1957 - it is my suspicion that more traditionally celebrated and relatively moderate agents of change (most notably Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) may not have been given their national platforms but for the much less palatable picture of radical alternatives cropping up in mainstream America's headlines.

Whether we like it or not, the attention it's garnering from the international media is itself a testament to the hypothesis of the Gulabi experiment: that when the oppressed contend with their oppressor, a sharp blow from a bamboo stick may now and again leave a deeper impression than a manifesto of words.

Unfortunately for those of us who hold stock in Mahatma Gandhi's cautionary truism that, "An eye-for-an-eye leaves the whole world blind," Indian political leaders have yet to give meaningful evidence of both the depth-of-insight and range-of-foresight necessary to (legally) close India's gender justice gap.

Very Near, Not Very Far

On Tuesday evening, I returned from my first adventure in India.  While the students at Madhi High School wrote their first term examinations,  I travelled through four states in India for twelve days, exploring cities and ancient architectural wonders, meeting people from all over the world and of course relaxing over ice cold beer.

Party in Bombay

My trip began on Friday September 10^th.  I decided to commence my tour of Western India in Bombay (Mumbai) for the weekend because my friend Carrie was returning to St. Louis permanently and I wanted to wish her farewell.  After another action movie scene of running after the moving train (sadly, this is becoming normal for me), four hours later I arrived in sunny Bombay.  I hadn’t seen the sun in a couple months so I was ecstatic!  That night, Carrie’s friends threw her a huge farewell party.  Over fifty people showed up- many other Americans who live and work in Bombay as well as all of her Indian friends.  After an hour or so, the party was dying because someone was playing soft rock music.  We were talking about playing more party-friendly music, but no one knew how to work the sound system, so I went for it.  As some of you might know, I have some experience as a DJ, so one thing led to another and I became the official DJ of the night.  It turned into an awesome party and finally started dying down at 5:00 AM.  I had an awesome time DJing and everyone seemed to like my music selections.  Anytime someone had a request, they approached me and asked, “Miss DJ Emily, can you please play....”  It was quite a fantastic night!

Spinning cotton at Gandhi's house

After a relaxing weekend hanging out in Bombay, late Sunday afternoon I hopped on a train to Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat, not far from the state of Rajasthan, my destination.  I arrived in Ahmedabad at midnight and the city was wide awake, celebrating another festival, Ganesh.  I definitely should have booked a hotel, but the procrastinator and poor planner that I am thought I could find something when I got there.  Thankfully, my rickshaw driver spoke English and drove me all over the city until I found an available room at Safar Inn.  (A note about rickshaw drivers in India- their favourite phrase is “Very Near, Not Very Far” when you ask for directions anywhere).  The manager, Francis, is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.  He is Indo-Portuguese and has been to over one hundred countries around the world.  He and his wife own a medical tourism business and travel frequently to promote their work.  He was so happy to talk to a foreigner and we actually spent most of the day talking about our experiences in Africa while he gave me a personal tour of the city on the back of his motorcycle. 

Francis took me to Gandhi’s house where I learned to spin cotton just as Gandhi did every day.  We also went to the best ice cream parlour for mango lassis, to a famous textile museum, and a night market where I shopped for beautiful and colourful Gujarati fabric.  We finished our evening with a delicious dinner from McDonald’s.    I look forward to going back to Ahmedabad again and spending more time with Francis and his family.

Udaipur

The next day, I arrived in the lake city of Udaipur in Rajasthan.  Immediately, I knew I was in paradise.  This small, quiet European-like city surrounds a large lake.  The weather was excellent and in no time I fried in the sun that I hadn’t seen in so long.  I spent my time exploring the ancient lakeside palaces where famous Indian kings had once lived.  I even took a boat to the palace located in the centre of the lake. Udaipur is unique because every building has a rooftop restaurant and bar overlooking the city and the lake.  I spent each night leisurely enjoying Rajasthani thali (small samples of several kinds of food) and sipping ice cold Kingfisher beers with other travellers from all over the world.   One night, Zach met me in Udaipur and we had dinner with an older British couple who is driving around the world.   Norman and Barbara spent 25 years working six days a week at a convenience store to save up for a trip around the world in their Land Rover. They had arrived from the Middle East and Iran was actually their favourite country they’d visited thus far.  A year earlier, Barbara was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease and they decided to speed up the trip so she could enjoy it before her disease progressed.  They were fascinating to talk to and had so many great experiences and words of wisdom to share.  Another day, I spent the whole afternoon walking around the city with Joe, a graduate of a school, just outside my hometown, St. Louis.  We took an electric cable car to the top of a mountain that overlooks the whole city.  At the top, we talked about the Cardinals and St. Louis,  as well as our travels, while drinking ice cold beers.  It was a great afternoon.

Wearing a snake

Snake charming

After a few days on the lake, I hopped on an overnight bus to Jaipur, the pink city and capital of Rajasthan.  Eric met me here and together we walked around the city where all buildings are a light shade of pink.  We explored ancient forts and climbed to the tops of mountains all over the city.  At Amber Fort, we met a group of snake charmers (snake charming was outlawed several years ago) and learned how to play the wooden instrument that makes snakes rise up from their sleep.  The charmers then wrapped the black python around my neck which was an incredibly strange feeling.   At Sun Temple, nicknamed Monkey Temple, hundreds of monkeys roam the hills.  Here, we fed them peanuts which they took straight out of our palms.  We witnessed a macho monkey grab a dog and continue to punch it until it limped away.  We also spent a good half our throwing peanuts high into the air, making the monkeys jump for them so we could try to get a mid-air shot with our cameras.  Unfortunately, the city of Jaipur was slightly overcrowded and much polluted.  People all over the city try to take advantage of tourists and we had our fair share of run-ins with scam artists. Nonetheless, we enjoyed everything we saw and still managed to have a great time.

Monkey training

At night, in Jaipur, we ate delicious tandoori chicken at rooftop restaurants.  One night we ate with a couple, Holly and Adam, from London.  After dinner, they taught us some famous British drinking games and we continued on to a few more pubs.  After two days in Jaipur, we’d felt we seen it all, so we impulsively decided to hitch a five-hour ride to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.  What can I say? The Taj Mahal is just as magnificent as you imagine it to be.  This massive monument is positively stunning and I could just stare at it for hours. I would like to go back in the future because you are supposed to go at sunrise and unfortunately it was pouring when Eric and I visited and our visit was slightly tainted.

The Taj Mahal and I

Royal Rambagh Palace courtyard

We returned to Jaipur for one more day before the long journey back to our village.  On our last day in Jaipur, we hung out with a couple from the Vermont, Julia and Tom, who are also travelling around the world.  We found out that the best hotel in the world is in Jaipur, so we made reservations for high tea at the Royal Rambagh Palace, once home to a king but was converted to a hotel in 1950.  It was exquisite as we snacked on scones and tasty pastries while sipping the “champagne of tea”.   I then pretended that I was touring hotels to find one suitable for my parents and we asked to see a room.  The cheapest room runs $2000 a night, in case you’re planning a visit!

Late Monday night, we ended our journey as we boarded our night train back home.  All in all, I had a great time and enjoyed travelling by myself much more than I expected.  I met so many interesting people and saw a much different side of India than I experience in the village.  Fourteen noisy and uncomfortable hours later, we arrived home in the village.  While we were gone, the monsoon ended and now it’s scorching hot and sunny once again.  I knew I was back in the village when I walked into my house and went to my cupboard and found a rat inside.  While I was away, a rat managed to break into my cupboard and ate my year’s supply of DayQuil and NyQuil, of all things.  There is one very medicated rat somewhere in my house right now.   I think I’m ready for another vacation.

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi!

Ganesh Chaturthi is a 10-day long festival honoring Ganesh, the Hindu god associated with wealth, success, and the removal of obstacles. In the weeks leading up to the festival, idols of Ganesh are constructed all over India, some as small as an inch tall and others as tall as 25 feet! The celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi ends on the 10th day when the idols of Ganesh are taken to be submerged in bodies of water, symbolizing a sending off of Ganesh to his home in Kailash while also taking with him the misfortunes of his worshipers.


I came back to Kadod just in time for the last day of the festival, otherwise known as Ganesh Visarjan. In Kadod, there's a road that stretches down to the bank of the Tapi River, making this town the most convenient place for Ganesh Visarjan to take place within a 10km radius. From noon until 7:30pm today, more than 60 Ganesh idols were brought in on ornately decorated carts pulled by tractors and vans. With each procession, the devotees of that particular idol would dance to music booming from loudspeakers, throwing handfuls of pink-colored powder at each other and at bystanders, like me.



When I was asked several times by friends and familiar students to dance with them and play dodgeball with globs of colored powder, I felt so relieved to be back in Kadod where, unlike cities like Jaipur, I feel people make genuine efforts to make me feel like a part of their community. I was happy today being able to comfortably call Kadod my home away from home.

Happy Ramzan Eid!

Weeks earlier, one of my Spoken English students, Rizwan, invited Zach and myself to celebrate Ramzan Ei (also known as Eid ul-Fitr) with his family. Ramzan Eid marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan during which Muslims fast from sun up until sun down every day.

Traditionally, it is forbidden to fast on this day, so the day began with Zach, myself, and Rizwan's family sharing a small breakfast. We showered compliment after compliment on Rizwan for his enthusiasm in Spoken English, but his parents still told us that if he ever acts up during class, we shouldn't hesitate to do what we have to put him back in line. We didn't ask them to clarify.

At 1pm, I returned to Rizwan's house to have lunch, which was chicken biriyiani, assorted vegetables and popper (fried, fluffy, corn chips kind of dish). I arrived at 1, as I was told to do, but the rest of the family had already eaten right before I got to the house. I was really confused why I was the only one with a plate while the rest of them were just watching me. I begged them to at least a little with me, but I think they preferred and actually enjoyed just watching me eat.

After lunch, Rizwan's father drove me to the cosway (bridge) which had been underwater for the past few weeks due to the monsoon's. Just this morning, the waters had receded enough to let bikes and cars drive through. We spent at least half an hour walking through the water coming up to our ankles talking about the village, his career as a bus driver, and Rizwan's future. Although I have a long long way to go before I feel comfortable with my Hindi, I was so happy that I had this conversation with him and was able to spend time like this with someone in the village.