Polemics of Ambiance Mall

Joyce and I spent our Friday evening strolling through Ambiance Mall, and observing first hand the polemic nature of wealth within India. This was one of the most out of context experiences I’ve had yet during this trip to India, since Ambiance Mall turned out to be much fancier than most malls I’ve shopped in in America. Its vast selection of stores included no less than Louis Vuitton, Zara, Ferrari, Tommy Hilfiger, and BMW.

Even though I was there primarily to go to Reliance Trends, a trendier store that sells both Western and traditional women’s clothing, I ventured into some other stores out of curiosity. I was shocked to learn that the Forever 21 store sold clothes as Western, and so obviously as un-Indian, as in the United States. I was even more stunned when I realized that while some of the people I work with in Munirka may make 5,000 rupees in a year, others are spending the same amount of a trendy pair of short-shorts with a fancy belt or a meal. 

Ironically, Ambiance Mall is actually only a few miles around the corner from the Munirka slum community I work in.

In fact, Joyce and I had to tip toe around a frozen yogurt store for a couple of minutes before actually deciding whether or not we should go in as we were afraid that a small cup of yogurt would be far above our budget. As we sat there, we people watched and were self-conscious as we realized we were the only people NOT wearing Western clothes, for once. It is a very rare sign to see women wearing Western outfits, even here in the capital. Even when they do wear Western styles, it usually consists of jeans and a t-shirt or modest top. On one occasion I saw a girl wearing shorts, and in spite of the heat, it was clear that she was out of place. It is especially rare to see women of lower and even middle class status wearing anything but the sari and salwar-kameez style. 

Not so with the Delhi high class. At the mall, I witnessed a strange and even disturbing fusion of East and West. Women wore flashy high heels, tight short skirts, and spoke in English to their boyfriends and children. It was in this context that I saw a boy and girl holding hands for the first time, in what obviously appeared to be a romantic relationship.

I admit, in spite of the commonalities of these surroundings in America, it felt uncomfortable here in the context of Delhi. I even admit to feeling a hint of resentment towards these wealthy Indians that appeared to so clearly disregard the traditions and values of their own society. For the first time, I felt that I understood what Bela, my internship director, meant when she explained that Delhi had adopted all of the worst of the West, while simultaneously leaving behind all of the values associated with both cultures.

I’d hoped to be wrong, but the truth is that I think she might be right…Otherwise, I might not have felt as infuriated when I left the mall and noticed that alongside the parked BMWs and Mercedes’ was a shantytown full of makeshift homes and children playing in the dirt. 

Note: These are the children from Munirka, the slums I teach in. Their lifestyle is very different from the ones of the people who get to enjoy free time at Ambiance Mall.

I should clarify that I neither loathe the wealthy nor the poor for the circumstances of their lives that they could not help, but I can’t help but feel antipathy towards a system, or society, that breeds this kind of inequality of opportunity…or this lack of social mobility opportunities.

Like most experiences in life, Ambiance Mall holds bittersweet feelings for me. I was happy to enjoy this environment for a few hours…free from the predatory stares of young single men, the buzzing of the mosquitoes around me, and the chaos of unfixed prices and desperate salesmen of the open market...not to mention the amazing air-conditioner. Yet, it is difficult to enjoy such blessings when considering the many living nearby who cannot…and will not, unless something changes.

Find Someone Who...

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I arrived to Munirka today with a plan to play “Find someone in the class who…” with the women. I created a list of criteria that I imagined more of them could relate to before heading out there (find someone who is married, who has children, who likes to dance, who has seen Kuch Kuch Hota Hai-one of my favorite Bollywood films, etc.).

It went very smoothly, in spite of the incessant interruptions by the young grade school girls, who wanted my attention all to them. I think this is one of my greatest internal conflicts, as an English teacher here in India – should I devote my attention to the students who desperately, and sometimes obnoxiously seek to get it…or to the students who almost hide from me behind their stitches? When should who get what amount of my attention? I admit that it’s so much easier to give it to the women who demand it…women like Lata, or young girls like Nisha, who distract me when I am trying to give attention to the girls who are falling behind on that day’s lesson.

They often urge me to continue, to move on to the next activity, or to come away with them and do something different altogether. These girls are so eager—too eager perhaps, that I often wonder if the have even given themselves enough time for the lesson to sink in. However, even though focusing my attention on them is certainly the path of least resistance, I feel drawn to the girls who avoid me. I always think of Pooja, Krishna, Arti and Soniya,  ~14 year old girls who hide behind their friends who know more English then them whenever I ask them a question in English. I also think of Kavita, who I did not have a chance to meet with today, as she preferred needlework to combating for my attention.

These are the girls that I want to give my time to. Danielle, another volunteer who teaches with me at Munirka usually focuses her attention on Lata and Rajkumari, two excellent middle-aged women who are anxious to learn English in order to keep up with their children’s English education. Since Danielle is here for a shorter period of time, she wishes to focus on them…which I understand, but I wish we could have a third teacher, or a better system set up, so that we could break the girls into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced levels. Lata, Rajkumari, Parvesh and Shabnam fit in the same approximate level. The younger girls are in the most beginning stages, and then there are girls like Kavita and Babita, who would highly benefit from a teacher that could focus on reading comprehension, since they can read and understand, and even hold brief conversations. Perhaps I will pitch the idea of breaking them into levels for the next group of volunteers that arrive next week. Maybe I can even request a third teacher to join me? If not, I’ll work on developing another system. In any case, I suppose this is the nature of teaching as a volunteer…you have so many students in one classroom of so many differing ability levels with the subject matter, that you end up being spread thin, and having to choose one group to focus on. I hope I can battle this trend.

Pardeep, Me, and Babita

 On the upside, I spent the last hour of my morning getting to know Babita and Pardeep. Babita is a 17-year-old girl, and today was the first day I met her. She spoke English at the advanced level, and could understand most of what I was communicating to her, even when she had trouble finding a word or expression. I’m hoping that if she shows up on Monday, I will be able to unofficially dub her my assistant. Pardeep is 11 years old, and he is the funniest little boy ever. He kept asking me random questions about life in America: are there homeless people there? How much was your camera? Are your children going to be white or black, since you are black and your husband is white? It was hilarious. He also kept asking me about Justin Bieber, who apparently is really hot here in India. He told me he wants to be like him. I told him that was fine, but that he’s too young, so I don’t really know his music. That blew him away. I love how frank people here can be. It’s refreshing.

That’s all for now. No crazy weekend plans yet, except shopping...so I’ll post again soon.

Teaching Kavita...& other pleasant surprises

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I had a startling and wonderful experience at work today. As I was handing out my worksheet on sewing vocabulary and associated pronouns and verbs, I noticed one of my students, a 20-year-old girl named Kavita, walk into the school. Kavita and I had spoken briefly twice before today, and she had always appeared to be an independent, but quiet girl, with mixed interest in my English lessons.

I haphazardly asked her if she was interested in today’s lesson and handed her the worksheet. I had been turned down by two shy girls earlier that morning, so it would not have shocked me to learn that she was also too embarrassed or too engrossed in her stitching work to be interested in my lesson. She nodded, looked down at the paper I had handed her and sat down away from the students and me I was helping with pronunciation at the moment.

Kavita, Raj Kumari, and Lata.

I had always been curious about Kavita. She rarely spoke to me, but she also didn’t seem to be partaking of the social scene of Munirka. She came to the school strictly to sew, and then she left. She carried herself with pride, but never overbearing. I was naturally curious about her, but preoccupied with the 20 or so other girls to really be able to take the time to visit with her.

Though I imagine she must have had help with the instructions, at least, from some other girl, Kavita was back at my side within a few minutes. She had completely the entire worksheet that had taken me hours to teach the other girls in about 20 minutes. Intrigued, and half suspecting the other girls had just given her the answers; I invited her to sit down beside me to review the work she had done.

I was shocked to learn that she was able to perfectly pronounce each vocabulary word without hesitation, a task I had not been able to accomplish with any other woman at the center. She read my list without hesitation: “needle”, “neckline”, “sleeves”, etc. Even though her accent was not perfect, Kavita could read without hesitating. Accustomed to working with the shy Indian girls from the slum, I was taken aback by her bold approach to tackling the English assignment I had handed her.

After a brief conversation, I asked her a few simple questions in English, which she comfortably answered, and then invited her to read a simple alphabet “I Spy” book I had brought with me to the school. As we made our way through the first four pages, I realized she was way above this level, and she freely read without vacillation…I told her that she didn’t need to continue, and she asked me if she could return to her sewing. I nodded.

I was mystified. She had the kind of foundation I had hoped for when I first arrived, but had not really expected. This, and the fact that today, for the first time, the women began calling me “Didi” as I sat with them around a circle on the floor and taught them vocabulary associated with sewing activities, made me feel like I was finally beginning to break ground.

 I’m bringing Kavita a few books to look over with me tomorrow. I had to search through our resource center; and it was difficult to find a book that was not as advanced at George Orwell, but not as basic as “I Spy.” On another note, my Hindi is progressing, and thought I can slowly read now, I still have no idea what I’m reading about. Maybe the girls can help me…maybe Kavita will prove to be a dream student. Maybe I should not get my hopes up. We'll see.

Reflection: Teaching Women English

This is my third week working at Vidya with the women’s group, and I am only now starting to realize the extent of the task I have undertaken. As an English teacher at Vidya, I had expected a structure conducive to the teaching environment, much like the one I had in Guatemala when I taught a fourth grade class English for about an hour every day. In Guatemala, the teachers, who were already in control of their class, would step back and allow me to take my hour to teach an English topic of my choice. The children would sit reverently at their desks in their uniforms grasping their pencils in their hands, hovering over a blank page of paper, ready for whatever lesson I had for them that day. Naturally, under such favorable circumstances, I flourished…and I began to believe that teaching was something that came naturally to me—through the years, I began to believe that this was my life calling.

Of course, the fact that I already knew how to speak Spanish was more than just a little helpful. In India, I have no such advantage. Hindi is an interesting and conceptually simple language, but I had not had nearly enough exposure or experience with the language for it to make much of a difference at my work environment. Furthermore, my circumstances proved much more complex than the one I had encountered a few years back in Guatemala. Munirka, the slum community (or urban colony, to be politically correct) I work within had little foundation for me to build on. On my first day I learned that it had been about 10 years since the last time the women’s group at Vidya had been offered the opportunity to learn English. When I arrived, I was met by shy and curious stares by women who understood my alien language about as much as I understood theirs. In spite of my best efforts to communicate with them, they could not understand me. With time, they began turning away from me, standing at the front of the classroom, to visit together and sew clothes for themselves or their family members. Two older women always seemed enthusiastic to learn, but the younger girls seemed more interested in gossiping and sewing. Still, as they silently stole glances at me from behind their needlework, I realized that the structure I had so depended on in Guatemala did not effortlessly exist at Munirka. I was so devastated…and I felt so inadequate for what was being expected of me.

Some of the women sewing (attendance varies from day to day), backs turned away from the blackboard, but always stealing glances at us.

Lata and Rajkumari, two older students that spend most of their time with Danielle. They are very enthusiastic about learning English so that they can keep up with their children's education. It was hilarious trying to get them to smile in this picture.

For a while, I found myself withdrawing from my internship assignment. I escaped silently, and unnoticed, from the long, dusty and ragged rug on which the 30 of us sat together as often as I could, choosing instead to play with the children who also attended the school. I imagine I must either driven the other two classroom teachers mad, for distracting their classes, or relieved that they no longer had to teach because the foreigner was distracting their students. I found it easier to associate with the children, who, still young and enthusiastic about life, were at an age that seemed to defy language barriers. They would signal their wishes…”Didi!” they’d yell to catch my attention (a word that means older sister in Hindi), and then point to a ball and kick it my way. Or “Didi!”, and then lift their arms up so that I could throw them into the air…or “Didi!” and point to themselves to signify it was their turn now to choose what game we would play. Working with the children was easier, and more instantly rewarding, so I ignored my duty to teach English for the main part of the first and second weeks, and drew pictures for the children, and read short stories with them. For a while, I was indifferent, and then angry with myself, and at the women for not caring about what sacrifices I had made. I felt foolish and naïve for having traveled to the other side of the world to do something that I thought they needed me to do when it felt like I was the only one trying to accomplish anything.

Pooja, Soniya, Pooja, and Krishna: the youngest, and most quiet and shy girls when it comes to learning English, but really so sweet. 

Over the weekend, however, I realized that I had come to India to improve the current situation for someone, even if just for a little bit. I decided that my experience would set the tone for how many more English teachers Vidya would receive over the next few years…Maybe if I did not try hard enough, the women would not have this opportunity again for a long time, if ever in their lifetime. On the other hand, should I build a strong foundation, the interns that followed me might improve the system a little more until, finally, a single structure became solid. As I began to work to formulate a syllabus, or curriculum, I had help from Mrs. Bela, Jaggi and Lalit, the staff, who helped me to bridge the language gap by asking the women about their interests and explaining my purpose there. I worked on Tuesday to come up with an English proficiency exam to give to the class today, which proved significantly successful, in spite of some challenges, so for now, my glass is starting to look a little more full than usual…

For tomorrow, I am preparing a lesson on nouns and vocabs associated with sewing, an activity all the women confessed as their favorite pastime.  I hope that by aligning the subject matter to their lives, they will feel a little more interested in the class, but I will post the result later.

Cheers.

A Universal Civilization

Namaste! Today was the first day of orientation with CCS, and I've begun to get a bit more settled into Delhi and my lifestyle here for the next two months. The time difference is still throwing me off (India is about 9 and a half hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the USA), and my body clock is going insane feeling tired at the middle of the day, and wired late night, but that should soon adjust. I think another day will do the trick.

We spent the day sight seeing in Delhi, and I wore Indian clothes for the first time, which was awesome because you could wear baggy and comfortable clothes and still look totally stylish here! Haha. We visited the Lotus Temple, Humayun's Tomb, and drove past the India gate and Prime Minister's house, which was naturally phenomenal.

Lotus Temple, New Delhi - September 9, 2012

My visit to the Lotus temple, which is a Baha'i temple, was the highlight of my day, especially since Sunday is the Mormon Sabbath, or day of rest and worship, and I was not able to make it to a church. It was a beautiful structure, inside and out, and it was insightful to have to remove our shoes before entering their sacred ground and not being able to speak inside the temple in show of reverence. It was especially interesting to learn about how the Baha'i main goal is to unite the human race in one "universal civilization", which, of course, is a belief shared by most religions, but it was a unique experience to visit this temple and worship with that specific goal in mind. After all, a deeper understanding of a shared humanity is one that I'm seeking to achieve while on this trip...For those who wonder: why go to India? this is one answer I can give.

Danielle, Joyce, Me, Max and Juliana at Humayun's Tomb

I'm realizing how really great of an opportunity it is to work with volunteers who have such distinctly different backgrounds and life experiences. No matter what life we have when we are back in our "comfort zones," we've all united under a common cause of service and cultural exchange and personal growth. It's really some thing amazing, and I feel like that's what the Baha'i faith seems to advocate, a union of people in spite of race, social class, age, religious affiliation, etc. In the end, no matter what belief one holds dear, or what things may differentiate us, we all belong to the same human race, and in spite of our differences, we share this great one unifying fact.

Our very diverse group posing for a picture outside the Lotus Temple

Tomorrow we continue orientation and cultural adjustment. And, learn some more Hindi. Until then, namaste.

Chilling at Logan International Airport...

So...is this really happening? I'm not really sure yet...Neither am I sure what I'm going to do with my 7+ layover time in London since I have recently developed an unnatural fear of missing my flight to Delhi....but I'll cross that bridge when I get there I guess. For now, I'll worry about less important things, like my newly developed stuffy nose and scratchy throat...Is it too early to say that this must be Karma for not letting my mom pack that cold medicine in my suitcase? Can't wait to hear that "I told you so."

In spite of challenges leaving my family behind, I must say that this has been going surprisingly smoothly. Today I can happily report that this is the third day I have been taking malaria pills, and the first time that I have not subsequently felt sick to my stomach....I can thankfully check throwing up on this flight off my list; or, at least for now...

On another happy note, I am very excited for my on-board entertainment, which includes the Avengers...a movie I have been very excited to see, and now I get to watch for "free." This joy over entertainment options is a pleasant surprise, since I was starting to have a mild meltdown over the fact that I will not have access to Luiggi's Netflix account in India, and will therefore not be able to watch the last two seasons of Lost...a recent obsession of mine. I guess I will have to wait to see how the "Oceanic Six" make it back to the Island upon my return, which I can live with since I'm about to travel halfway across the world and dive headfirst into a world that is foreign and amazing to me.

 India...I can't wait to formerly meet you...We've had many encounters throughout my life. I remember watching Bollywood films over my mother's friend's house while they chatted and worked in the living room...and wondering how in the world Padma has managed to turn spaghetti into a spicy dish. I remember Indian best friends, my first introduction to its romance movies, colorful and vibrant wardrobes, Hindi/Buddhist philosophy classes....I'm so excited.

When most people find out I'm heading for India, they wish me luck, convinced that I must have been dragged there by the hair, kicking and screaming...but I am so grateful for the chance to have my own experience there...instead of listening to the experiences of others. So, bring on the culture shock....I can't wait to taste a little part of this amazing culture.

But for now, onto London...