Alone at Zakhira

So my Indian friend and translator Anurag is in Bangkok for the week with his family. My fellow American students have not yet arrived. So today I rode alone the hour drive to Zakhira. It was raining all morning so we didn't go out into the slums for the TB survey. Instead I sat in the office at Asha surrounded by women gossiping in Hindi. No one there really speaks very much English but I rather enjoyed just being immersed. The women there who work for ASHA are quite young and very pretty. I noticed however that they all have the part in their hair tinted with red to indicate that they are married. They were busy preparing for the Bank representatives to arrive. One brought in an adorable baby with huge light eyes of a greenish-hazel color. It was nice to have something in common in the room full of women, we all were interested in and eager to play with the baby.

They decided to have me teach in the morning since we weren't going out so I began getting ready for class by cutting up pieces of paper to fit the student's new notebooks. The boys were first today but many of them were missing so it was a class of only about 10. I wrote the names of different colors and drew some basic shapes on the board. I added "be creative!" and tried to teach them the words "decorate, design" but I'm not sure they understood. The children speak far less english than those at my roomate's slum. Without a translator it was difficult to explain to them what to do. A few caught on enough to
write their names and "English Notbook" (they kept forgetting the E). It took some elaborate gestures and drawing an example on the board until they began to get the idea that I wanted them to use a lot of colors and draw shapes as well. Once they got the hang of it they were quite creative.

They copied down the words off the board but I'm not sure that they understood them all. I noticed that they also were at a loss where to start copying because I had kept adding terms wherever I had space on the board. Not having a clear pattern and order to copy into their notebooks was confusing for them. They kept asking me where to start. After a few had written the information, they just copied out of each others notebooks. I made a mental note to plan out my diagrams clearly. At the same time I now am wondering if the extensive material covered in the notebooks which had earlier impressed me, in fact was just words and diagrams they had neatly copied down off the board without having any idea what it meant. The schools in India teach like this in schools-using rote memorization to drill vocabulary into student's heads. I asked them to describe what they'd drawn in order to make them speak, which is what they seem to need the most practice at. They had to keep looking at the board to remember the words for Star, Triangle, etc. One thing which is nice is that the boys have no qualms over coloring and drawing flowers, there is no gendering of such mundane objects. They seemed to enjoy the class so I repeated it in the afternoon with the girls. The girls were very concerned with how neat their journals were, and kept re-gluing and complaining if I'd cut the paper too small for the notebook. They also insisted on starting in pencil and then coloring it in. Some of them were very talented and copied the cartoon clowns off the cover of the notebooks. Their work was very detailed and their coloring exactly within the lines.
In between the classes I had gotton out my cup of noodles for lunch. I planned to eat in the office where everyone was, but an asha woman quickly lead me to the other room. She seemed to think I would prefer this setting, gave me a chair and cleared off the table, closing the door on her way out. I ate by myself, glad that I had brought my book, pondering why she had escorted me in here. I'd seen the women eat in the office before. People began arriving at the center to turn in their forms to several women in western dress who had arrived from the bank. I went out after I had eaten and was quickly brought a chair and some chai. I again wished I could understand the language.
After work I went out with my friend on the motorbike and saw some old ruins. We also passed through a fancy part of town where women's sari's were even more elegant and people walked labradors and terriers on a leash. We saw some universitys and fancy buildings housing certain foundations.





I added two animals to my list of the menagerie on the streets; pigs and donkeys. The cows are still my favorite sight though, lazily eating from trash cans, or wandering on the roads. Apparently they enjoy the middle of the street because there are no flies. My friend explained that they wander into Delhi from the country, and no one will stop them because they are sacred. It was great to be out and seeing the city instead of cooped up in the apartment.



Another student arrives tomorrow and I look forward to having someone my own age and from my culture to explore this city with.