Jaipur: Theatre & English projects

My last day of the projects here in Jaipur are now here - 3 weeks seemed like it may go forever initially but somehow suprised me this last week and I find myself trying to back track as there is so much that I didn't get to do in my time here. There are still so many tourist sights that I haven't gotten around to seeing, but with my last few days now I am not feeling too bad for not doing them as I was using my time in a more helpful way I hope.

I was lucky enough that I was able to experience two projects on this trip - 1. the theatre workshops at a public school and 2. teach English at a local slum school. Like India, both were on total opposite ends of the spectrum to compare. Without a doubt my favourite project was at the slum school - approx 40 children split into 3 groups across two rooms. They have no school desks, they sit on concrete flooring with dirty vinyl tiles and only a thin blue rug between their bottoms and the cold hard winter floor. Everyday their 3 teachers work with them to cover a detailed syllabus in order to prepare them for their upcoming district exams in the 2nd week of March, which determines if they will move up a level. Two classes are in the same room - 4 & 5 year olds then 5-7 year olds. It appears at this school it is more according to their ability rather than their age requiring them to be in a particular grade.

One thing that really I found hard (and they certainly don't complain) is that they sit there on the floor cross-legged from 8am until 1pm everyday - no desk, so when they are copying from the blackboard into their notepad they have only their bumpy school bags to lean on or some have this one A4 blackboard that I think they do math, to lean on. The older children in the 2nd room at least get to lean on these mini collapsable metal tables.

A few days into teaching at the slum school and I noticed the children had the tiniest lead pencils that they were writing with. At first I thought it was just that they couldn't afford new pencils and later I was told they start the day with a new pencil then keep sharpening it all day! I didnt beleive it until I saw it with my own eyes - I would be teaching then have a crowd of kids from the other class next to the blackboard sharpening their pencils at the "sharpener bay" as I called it. I started being the pencil nazi and checking the sharpness of their pencils before allowing them to sharpen, in a bid to save their parents pencils!

Alot of the children didn't even know their own birthdays - not that it's not celebrated in India - but I was suprised when most of the children didn't know their birthdays when I was teaching them months of the year. My older class was beautiful - so enthusiastic and excited about their Western teachers. One day we did a class on "greetings, manners and ordering" (ha ha me teaching manners!) so rather than death by black board, I decided to get them all up and pretend walking on the spot - it went something crazy like this.... OK so what do you say when you wake up in the morning? Good morning mummy, good morning daddy - then we grab our school bag and we start walking to school... we see our auntie and we say good morning auntie.... we are thirsty so let's go to the lassi wahla "good morning, I would like a banana lassi please - thank you" so we are walking again and oh we are hungry... "Good morning I would like one Kachori please (like a samosa but have like spicy risotto looking rice inside and you have mango or mint chutney with it - its popular for breakfast). So this little scenario continued for around 10-15min with the kids and I marching in class, them repeating everything I say like parrots and all of us giggling our heads off.

After we teach theatre at the public school from 9-11am each day we have our autorickshaw guy drive over to the slum which is in the city. Its surrounded by a huge concrete wall and a few main gates, Puran walks us in through the slum to the school which is a simple brick room divided into two, with a tin roof that heats up the place to a hot box even in winter by lunchtime. You can actually smell the rubbish from the slum as it obviously heats up but I got used to it and noticed the amount of flies and mosquitoes in our classrooms more than anything. I taught a few children's lymrics that I could remember from my day's in childcare and the kids loved them - especially the one about a frog and the catchy game called duck, duck, goose. One day we joined two of the groups together - the toddlers and class above them - we played duck, duck, goose and the kids loved it - the giggles were beautiful as we know that education in India is very strict and fun just does not come into it. So one tiny little girl gets up to chase her friend and her skirt is just too big for her, so she is holding it as she runs bare foot (they all take their shoes off outside the room) around the circle. So we were all having a giggle as she looked hilarious trying to run and hold onto her skirt - next thing she accidentally drops the skirt infront of everyone and is standing their starkers! The children and teaches broke into fits of laughter and we quickly ran to cover her and tried to get order back in the room, but they were too cute as one boy is lying down pounding the floor with his fist giggling and gasping for air!

The slum itself really is a maze of concrete boxes that are just one room on a dirt floor with corrugated iron sheet for a roof held down by old tyres and rocks. Some people have their doors open as you walk past so you can see that there is a family of 3/4 living - eating, sleeping in this room. Showers are by bucket either up on the side of the street or infront of their door - boys in their undies, women in their saari's etc. Toilets.... well when we arrived yesterday there was a little boy squating on the side of the road outside the slum fence finishing his number 2 right there - that was a little too confronting but their bathroom is anywhere outside the house.

There is one area that we walk past each day in the slum that has several men, women and children sorting through huge heshin sacks filled with rubbish - they are being paid jack all to sort through these piles - newspapers get uncrumpled and tied with string in piles, plastic bottles together (yes I always crush mine in every country so that they can refill them) I feel bad for them as I walk past, but I always make a point to say Namaste and their faces ligt up that someone from a different "caste" is recognising them and addressing them as human beings that they deserve.

I find it really hard to decide what to do to help - I know there are people in the world saying what can I do and as per my post in Bali, I truly beleive that every drop makes a huge impact. This project in the slum is breaking down a wall between slum children and the outside world. These children at a young impressionable age are able to see that they are worthy of an education or someone's time - that they can talk to Westener's - our classes are giving them the confidence and the language knowledge to be able to hopefully create job opportunities for them when they are older - not to mention the fact that we are giving them to right to dream about a job out of the slum - more of a chance than their elders perhaps had.

I was talking with our project co-ordinator about the sheer amount of homeless people I saw sleeping on the streets coming back from Agra at 1.30am on Monday morning. I have never seen anything like it - a main road in Jaipur just lined with hundreds of people sleeping on the pavement with a lone blanket pulled up other their heads - on a freezing cold morning! I asked if the government or any charity organisations run anything like a soup kitchen or St Vincent's offereing a bed and meal etc she said that the worst thing they could do in India is to give hand outs as it will just be expected - instead one group has started offering them food at approx 9 rupees a dish to encourage them to work and earn their feed. I understand this concept and why it's important, but I just really struggle to see them sleeping in the street or children not in school begging for money at the lights instead - it's just wrong that humanity got to this point and I can't see out for them. I know that education means future and in India that is one thing that they are really placing a huge emphasis on with the children and uni students at the moment - education. I guess this is their only chance and it will be really interesting to see where India is as an economy 20 - 30 years from now with this next generation that are growing in a Westernised world. I really hope things get better for India, it has such history, culture, tradition and family values that the rest of the world could really learn from.

Sorry for making this a heavy one - the kids have really touched me and I hope to see them at the end of the year if I come back again. Namaste!