IACD

On Wednesday Rosana from the Learning Systems Unit took me to the ICRISAT Association for Community Development (IACD) which is a sort of community center/school where I can volunteer. I met with some of the teachers and learned some of the details about what they do. I was expecting to be teaching kids in classrooms, but the students are actually my age or older, and usually are either relations of ICRISAT laborers or from local villages and could not afford normal education. So they can come here for affordable classes in computer skills, accounting, and complementary spoken English, or to learn skills like sewing, stitching, cloth painting, and so on. They sell products and vegetables from their home garden in the gift shop at ICRISAT to help run the school, which is also funded by the wife of ICRISAT’s Director General.

I was a little overwhelmed after leaving. It seems like they want me to be playing a really significant role in these spoken English classes. While I guess I am an English ‘expert’, I’ve never actually taught, let alone to people my age. I looked over some of their grammar books they use for lesson plans, but otherwise had no preparation.

View approaching IACD - there are homes constructed of metal sheets and tarps right across the path

At work on Thursday, I had an interesting conversation with Usha, Neeraja (from India) and Huyen (another intern from Vietnam) on the subject of marriages. I was aware of most of the things they brought up, but it was still striking to hear from the mouth on an Indian woman. They very candidly talked about how many Indian parents preferred male children, and how some pregnant women would do gender tests and abort the baby if it was a girl (although this is on the decline). It’s just more economical, as it is more expensive for girls to go to school, and you have to pay a dowry to their future husband - “buying a husband.” Furthermore, almost all marriages are arranged. They talked about how it would not be abnormal for a girl to be beaten or even killed if she tried to marry for love out of her caste or religion. Hindu-Muslim marriages are rarely approved of. They frown on marriages out of love, as they think that after a year or so things will deteriorate anyway. It’s more practical to do a sensible family marriage. When asked about the U.S., I said that arranged marriages are virtually unheard of in the US, but our divorce rates are also incredibly high. Trying to be diplomatic, I suppose.

The first actual teaching at the IACD was not bad. For the first half hour, I simply talked with two of the teachers – Surekheh and Lakshmi (I think). They wanted extra English practice, and as I didn’t have any other ideas, we practiced conversation. I asked about their families, what they liked to do, about the city, and so on. Then I stayed to help with the computer class. I didn’t feel like much help, as the students were just practicing using Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel. I sat with two girls and showed them how to change the background colors, add timings, change the layout, etc. They were both 17, supplementing other classes at the IACD, to which they walk about 15 minutes from outside every day. Towards the end we just talked, and they were really nice. It would have felt like an average chat, except they always addressed me as “Madame” and were very surprised when I said I was only 18. They both said their favorite music was Michael Jackson, and one said she liked Harry Potter (I was very excited about that). Marriages and the like also came up with them. They very candidly told me how it was unlikely to continue your education as a woman after marriage. “It’s up to the husband, the father, the father-in-law. If they all want you to work, work, work, there is no time for education.”

On Friday, I went back to the IACD again to help with the spoken English class. Or, rather, to teach it myself. I seated myself with the students; but then the teacher gestured for me to come to the front of the room, and invited me to begin. I went blank for a minute, and fumbled through introductions, asking everyone to tell me their name and spell it (so I could write it down), and to tell me about themselves. Everyone stood up when they spoke, and was very polite. The class ranged from 17-year-old students to self-described house-wives. With no idea what they were studying or what they already knew, I clumsily tried to teach. After doing a scattered review of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, I finally turned to the teacher and asked, what exactly are they learning right now? Most of them seemed pretty fluent already, so I didn’t want to insult them. She said they had been working on tenses, but when that came up one of the girls begged not to work more on that. So then for the rest of the class, I did little rhyming and letter change games on the white board, and finally a simplified version of Scattergories (they name a object in a category beginning with a certain letter; whoever gets a unique one gets a point; an example was Animals starting with G). Even though I felt uncertain, it was fun because the students seemed so enthusiastic. Afterwards we posed for a picture, and then some of them wanted individual pictures with me as well. They requested I bring prints, so I’ll have to find a printer, and to see some pictures of the U.S., so I’ll pick some out to show them a slideshow one of these days.

Ravakirah, Bindu, Lalitah, Kamela, Bushpa, Ashwin, Anita, Tanuj and I

These two, I think, also wanted their pictures taken. I ran into them on the way out of IACD. They seemed excited to see their pictures afterwards.

Tonight, Helene and Shraddha and I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. We are going to watch one movie a night until we see Deathly Hallows Part 2 in theaters next Friday. It feels so strange to not be home for that!