November 13, 2000
Hello again friends,
Here I am for installment number two. I’m not too sure if I’ll remember who
exactly I sent the first installment to so if you get this and didn’t get the
first one but would like to, let me know! Once again, my apologies for the mass
email approach….
So let’s see, why don’t we talk a bit about the really interesting things
like the weather. In my last email, I wrote that the term “monsoon” was a bit
misleading and that really there were just odd thunderstorms now and then. Well,
approxiamately 36 hours after I sent that email off, it started raining and
didn’t stop for about two weeks. You may have read about the flooding here.
Calcutta experienced its worst floods since the 70s. Lots of people in rural
communities near the Ganges drowned, were killed by snake bites (humans aren’t
the only ones that seek high ground during floods), or died from hunger and lack
of drinking water. Thousands of slum-dwellers in the city lost their homes. Of
course it’s always the ones that already have so little who are affected the
worst. Udayan wasn’t affected much at all. Our two soccer/cricket fields flooded
and provided a couple of fun ponds for a few days, everything got damp and musty
and nothing would dry properly, but that’s about it. Luckily, none of the
children’s homes and families were directly affected either. Now, the weather is
just perfect. It’s still in the high twenties during the day but gets nice and
cool at night. By December we’ll even have frost on the ground in the morning.
Fans are no longer running 24 hours a day which means that there’s much less
power being consumed which means that there are fewer power cuts. So that’s
nice!
Anyway, last I wrote was at the end of August after one month here. Things
have definitely developed and all in a good way. I feel even more happy and
settled and content than before. Unfortunately, I’ve had to drop all designs on
learning Hindi. There simply isn’t time. And I’ve found that my own motivation
has not been too high either because no one around me speaks the language. For
some reason though, I don’t feel interested in learning Bengali and then never
using it again in my life. I guess I feel like my time could be better spent on
other endeavours. I still do enjoy reading Hindi though, even though I don’t
understand any of it. Maybe once Eelko and I start travelling in Hindi-speaking
areas of India, I’ll dive into it again with all my original enthusiasm.
Eelko! For those that don’t know, Eelko is my boyfriend and my partner in
adventure. He’ll be here on January 14 to stay for six months. He’ll be working
in Calcutta (possibly even here!) for the first three months and after that
we’ll be travelling around India and Nepal and, if we can get in, Tibet. I’m so
excited to share this experience with my best friend!
Things with the children are going wonderfully. My relationship with them
continues to develop every day. It’s such a beautiful feeling to be surrounded
by people who love me so much. I have little kids asking me for bedtime kisses,
some of the girls have taken to calling me “mother”, and I’m getting more daily
hugs than I’ve ever got in my life! After the holidays here one of my students
brought me some sweets that his mom had made. I guess it sounds pretty normal
but these people have so very little and yet they still share it. I really
believe I have the best, highest paying job in the world.
My English classes are going really well. I’m becoming more and more
confident with what I’m doing. My learning curve is still VERY high and
hopefully that won’t change for a long time! I’ve been introducing lots of stock
phrases and then giving them ways to use these patterns in a creative fashion.
The results have been great. Kids come up to me all the time and practise their
English. I just love it. I really enjoy hearing the different communication
strategies they come up with. For example a couple months ago, one of my little
violin students (about 7 years old) was trying to ask me if we would have violin
practise that evening. She asked me in Bengali several times, started getting
flustered, and then brightened up and said “Good evening, violin?!” Another
student was trying to tell me that his violin had gone out of tune. He made some
gestures and then said “Singing, no”. That says it perfectly!
My violin students are doing exceptionally well. It is absolutely amazing how
quickly they’re learning. There is a French cellist (Dominique de Williencourt)
who’s coming here at the beginning of December to do a benefit concert for
Udayan. I think he’s going to be a neat fellow, he turned down a room in a
five-star hotel to stay here with us for the three nights he’s here. My 16
students and I will perform all our repertoire with him…I can’t wait to show
them off to all the big-wig philanthropists in the city! Father Stevens is very
serious about music education and all the money we raise from that concert will
go into a music fund. He would like to have a permanent in-residence
violin/music teacher here once I leave. (Anyone looking for a great job…?)
I’m up to 18 recorder students now. Sigh. I have to say, I’m really not too
keen on that instrument. If anyone knows of a website where I can get some free
music for beginner recorder, please let me know. I have two classes of nine
girls who just love it and I guess their enthusiasm is rubbing off a bit on me.
A wee bit.
My choir/music appreciation class is having lots of fun too. We sing
some songs and beat a bit on some percussion instruments but what they love most
is listening to music. Whether it’s me on the violin or recordings of
“Carnival of the Animals” and “Peter and the Wolf”, they love it all. There is a
Bengali choir teacher who comes twice a week and also a Hindi dance teacher so
we concentrate mostly on western music because they already have lots of
exposure to their own. We’ve decided to stage a full-length musical play of
“Peter and the Wolf”. There’ll be a narrator to translate the English to Bengali
and actors for each character. Then we’ll recreate the story to the music. It’ll
be really fun to put together.
I’ve created a database for Udayan. I still have some improvements and
modifications to make, but now I’ve learned the program so it’s quite easy. Wow,
was it ever fun to just sit in front of the computer and learn that stuff. My
next computer project is a web-site and I’ll be starting work on that soon. We
now have our own computer here. I’m spending time every day with Manik, the
director of the place, training him in Word and on email. If you can imagine
trying to explain the concepts of a computer to someone who has never even
touched one before, you may be able to imagine the challenge it presents! At
first I found it really frustrating but he’s starting to figure things out and
now I’m feeling really excited about it. Seeing his excitement over the neat
things a computer can do reminds me of how neat I thought it was too (I was a
late bloomer in the world of computers…) The computers for the kids should
arrive within the next month and then I’ll be able to fill up all my hours and
hours of free time with them!
Four more boxes from Canada have arrived since I last wrote. There were two
boxes of children’s clothes that were perfect in every way. The kids need some
warm clothes now and these two boxes happened to be filled with sweaters and
long-sleeved shirts. The other two boxes were filled with books. And there are
still 6 to 8 more boxes to come! The girls now have easy access to a little
library of English children’s books. I’ll be setting up a small library in the
boys’ part of Udayan this week and starting a book club or something for the
older ones where they’ll get points for every book they read. Once they reach a
certain number of points, they get a prize. I’d also like to set something up
where the older kids read a bedtime story to the younger ones each night. I
wonder if it’ll work.
The biggest Hindu festival of the year was celebrated in October. Udayan was
closed and the kids had two weeks at home (it’s actually a month long holiday
from school, but if they stay away any longer, they often return with some
serious malnutrition problems) and I took an extra week on top of that. I really
needed it too. There were a few things that happened at the end of September
that were a bit hard to take. Nothing to do with Udayan, everything to do with
India.
At one point, I got caught in an unfortunate situation at a train station. It
was one of the three days since I’ve been here that I’ve worn western clothes (a
loose pair of pants and a loose t-shirt) instead of Indian clothes. I was coming
home at about 8:30pm from Calcutta. I was waiting for the train at the
northern-most station in the city with about 500 of my closest friends who had
nothing else to do but stare at me. And let me tell you, Indians don’t stare in
a subtle way. They come right up to you, stand in front of you, and stare.
Anyway, when the train finally arrived, I simply could not get on. It was
physically impossible for me to enter the train. I’m not small and I know how to
use my muscles when I need to but I COULD NOT get on that damn train. Partly it
was because I had a bag and two violins with me so I didn’t have full use of my
elbows. As I was waiting to try my luck on the next one, I buried my nose in a
magazine and tried to make myself as small as possible (hard to do when you’re a
foot taller than everyone). I’m used to the stares but it was different this
time and I know it was because of my skin colour, my western clothes, and the
fact that I was a woman alone at that time of night. I never felt any physical
danger at all, that wasn’t the problem. Certain assumptions are made about
western women when all people have to go on are television and the movies. At
one point a young guy came up right in front of me, ogled me up and down and
when I motioned for him to leave me alone, he raised an eyebrow and cocked his
head to the side in an obvious proposition. Being made to feel like a prostitute
by simply existing is an awful feeling. I showed him my disgust and I moved, he
followed, I moved again, he followed again. Then I just shoved him with all my
might and told him to leave me alone. He still had a cocky lear on his face so I
did it again and raised my voice. He got the hint. Of course making a spectacle
out of it all just invites more stare. Finally, the next train came but I
couldn’t fight my way onto that one either. And don’t think I was just being a
polite Canadian, it was impossible! The platform was still full, everyone and
their dog was still staring at me, and I had just enough time to get to a phone
and dial Eelko’s number before I burst into tears. Then I cried all the way home
in the taxi (that of course took the long way and of course charged me
double…skin tax…) and didn’t leave Udayan’s walls for a week and a half. I have
taken that train once since then. I now commute by bus and enjoy the extra time
it takes by reading.
About a week after that incident, I was working on Udayan’s database in the
office with Vishal, my closest friend here in Calcutta. One of the staff members
came up and told us that a village woman who lives a few doors down from us had
just killed herself by dousing herself in kerosene and lighting the match. I was
stunned. And then I cried some more (I drank lots of water that week to
rehydrate myself from all my tears). She was my age, with two small kids. She
had fought with her husband that morning and then done this in the early
afternoon. No one really knows whether she did it herself or whether he did it.
And no one ever will know. There are “kitchen accidents” like this all the time
in India. A woman doesn’t bring enough dowry into her marriage so she’s killed
so that her husband can marry again. They’re called “bride burnings”. Can you
imagine anything more horrific? And the saddest part of all, the part that is
the hardest to deal with, is that the people here are so used to it, that they
no longer recognize it as a tragedy. I’ve been keeping a scrapbook of news
clippings and the number of dowry deaths is absolutely astounding. Of course
only a fraction of them are ever written about in the paper too. If you ever
want to read a fascinating book about women in India get “May You be the Mother
of A Hundred Sons” by Elisabeth Bumiller.
Shortly after these incidents, we had our vacation. I did some travelling
down south. I spent about a week in Bangalore (the Silicon Valley of India) and
5 days in Kerala (the southern state with a 90% literacy rate). It was like
being in a different country. Language, food, dress…it was all different from
Calcutta. A good friend of mine is working in the Maldives now and I managed to
get a cheap flight from the capital of Kerala so I went there for ten days. For
those that don’t know (like me two months ago), the Republic of the Maldives is
a tropical archipelago off the southern tip of India. It consists of 1192 little
islands. The capital city is only 2 sq km big! I went wind-surfing, snorkelling,
body-boarding, SCUBA diving, and had a great visit with this friend, Rayn. He’s
a pilot with Maldivian Air Taxi and so I got some free flights in too (there are
certain friends I always want to stay on the good side of, ya know?) I even wore
a bathing suit (instead of the full-length pants and dress that I wear when I
swim in India) so I had a nice sunburn to bring home as a souvenir. When I left
Calcutta I really needed to leave and when I came back, it felt great, so it was
a perfect vacation.
I’m staying very healthy here. I did have some “Delhi-belly” while
travelling, but here at Udayan, I’m very healthy. And I love the food! With
Rayn, I ate western food for ten days and I was dying to get home to some good
old Bengali rice and dal. (Don’t think that means I don’t get the odd craving
for cheese and a baguette. Eelko’s going to take care of that when he gets here
in January). I have a membership at the Calcutta Swimming Club and I got some
good workouts off the internet so I’m swimming two or three times a week now. It
feels great to be physically active again.
On a side note, I’m sure you will all be happy to know that I have fought the
battle of the ants and emerged victorious! Yes, I now have a little tray of
fruit and raisins and biscuits in my room that are 100% ant-free thanks to a
little tray filled with water (and ant corpses…) However, since that time, a
different sort of ant, the kind that are about as big as my thumb nail, have
discovered the violins in the music room. One day, we opened a violin that had
been unopened for about two weeks and it was covered in ants. There were
thousands of them crawling all over and inside the violin. It was also covered
in ant eggs. We had to shake the violin upside down for 15 minutes to empty all
the ant eggs from inside. Ugh. Well, this has happened twice since.
Luckily there has been no damage to the violins at all. I guess we should get
some sort of anti-ant thing in the cases to prevent it again. Yeah, I should
definitely get on that. I would have been on it long ago if I hadn’t been so
busy killing bees. One evening a couple weeks ago, I walked into my room and
found about 40 BIG bees flying around. I enlisted some help and we started a
fire in my room to smoke them out. That worked wonderfully until the next
evening when I discovered that it wasn’t a one-time thing. My room has basically
been bee-hangout central ever since. They’re so big but their sting barely even
hurts and they don’t sting unless you touch them anyway. So I’ve been pretty
relaxed about them. We found a few nests outside my window and burned them too
but this evening I found a bunch more nestled into the folds of my curtains.
I’ll be sure to let you know who wins this battle in my next update!
Anyway, thank you all again for your support. I think I wrote more about
India and less about Udayan in this update. Part of the way I deal with things
that bother me is by sharing them others. I hope you don't mind! Next time I’ll
tell you more about things within these walls that I happily call home.
Jill Wiwcharuk
To contact the school:
Udayan
PO Box 10264
Calcutta 700 019
India
www.udayan.org
