The Wait Is Over

I remember the night very clearly. It was a Sunday in September and I was talking on the phone to my friend Reshama. We were both feeling the need to escape at that particular point in time and she threw out the idea that we go to India for a couple of months. While the suggestion seemed too spontaneous for this practical Pam, part of it spoke to me and as oon as we hung up I decided to see if Fulbright had any programs in India (I had looked on their sight in the past for programs in Spanish-speaking countries but my language skills weren’t quite at the level that was required). That’s when I happened upon the English Teaching Assistantship and with each sentence I read, my heart beat a bit faster; my experiences and future goals coincided almost perfectly with their requirements. I spent the next five weeks writing essays, gathering transcripts, and requesting references. On October 18, 2010 I hit the send button and the waiting began. On August 1, 2011 I stepped through the gates of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Salt Lake No.2 as an English Teaching Assistant and the waiting was over.

My eight months at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Salt Lake No. 2 started quiet memorably at the school’s morning assembly. Besides the usual announcements, singing of the national anthem, and a prayer, there was also a special section welcoming me to the school; an adorable four or five year old girl, dressed in yellow and adorned with gold, presented me with a yellow rose before performing a classical Indian dance; a girl who was probably around 12 years old welcomed me to the school with an eloquent (and memorized!) speech; the principal presented me with a copy of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali; and, the most touching part for me was when one of their highly talented music students sang Tagore’s Ami Chini Go Chini, whose first two lines, roughly translated, are I know you, I so know you, O lady of the foreign land. Needless to say, the first 25 minutes of school made quite an impression.

There are so many stories and reflections I could share about my first two weeks at the school but I’ll just give some highlights:

Friendship Day: While Friendship Day is officially the first Sunday of August, it seemed to be a weeklong event at my school. I received my first friendship band on August 2 and my last on August 8. In all, I racked up a grand total of 7 bracelets plus one cup of Fanta. Not too bad! When I asked one of the teachers where Friendship Day came from, she said the U.S. but, having never heard of it, decided to turn to my trusty pal, Wikipedia. And sure enough, it was started in the U.S. by none other than Hallmark! That’s right, folks. It’s a Hallmark holiday. It only lasted about twenty years in the States, from 1919 to the 1940s, but now it’s very popular all throughout Asia and South America.

Tiffin Time: I made quite a stir my second day at school when I brought daal and bhat (lentils and rice) to eat during lunch. All the teachers looked at me with shock and awe, wondering how I could have learned to make such an Indian dish. One of the teachers even pinched my daal-and-bhat-filled cheeks, as she exclaimed, “You’re turning Indian!” Of course, if she had tasted my so-called authentic Indian dish, she might have revoked that statement. It’s so nice to have at least those 30 minutes every day to socialize with the teachers. Sometimes I sit there, listening to their lively Bangla conversations, trying to pick out a word here or there; other times we talk about the best places to shop for food or clothes. They’ve given me recipes, advised me on the best way to get to South City Mall, told me where to take dance classes…basically, any question I have I can put before the teachers and someone will have an answer. They’re my Google!

Kheer: The teaching highlight of my first week was in one of my 8th grade classes during an activity about general and specific. I had divided the class into groups based on their interests and each group was supposed to present to the class four to five detailed descriptions or facts about their topic. The second group that went was made up of three girls and their topic was food, specifically the Indian rice pudding called kheer. I was not prepared for what followed. First, rather than one person giving their sentence of introduction, they alternated, each saying one word of the sentence. Then, each girl gave a description fit for The Joy of Cooking Indian Food of the ingredients needed, cooking instructions, and possible variations for the dish. I can only imagine what they would have presented if I had given them more than the 15 minutes I allotted for the activity!

Learning about teaching: The biggest realization I had this week was how much this experience is going to prepare me for being a teacher. When I enter graduate school next summer, I’ll have had nine months of learning ways to manage a classroom of 40 energetic students, of altering lessons on the spot to fit the needs of a class, of experimenting with activities to see what does and doesn’t work in a large classroom setting. While I knew I would learn a lot from being an ETA, after the first week I realized just how much “a lot” will be.

Last Day of Bangla Class

Here are all the girls who were taking Bangla lessons this summer at the American Institute for Indian Studies along with four of our teachers.

Victoria Memorial and Hooghly River

Our first two weekends in Kolkata were filled with orientation activities and settling into our new places so the four other ETAs and I decided we had better see at least some of the city before we began teaching. So, two weekends ago, we decided to go to south Kolkata to visit the impressive Victoria Memorial which was dedicated to Queen Victoria, the Empress of India, by the British in 1921, 20 years after her death.>Walking onto the well-manicured grounds, we were transported into another time and it was easy to forget we were in a large, bustling city. The memorial hall itself is now a museum, with every wall filled with photographs, engravings, and artwork that tells the story of Kolkata and some of her best known inhabitants. We tried to get a photograph of all of us in front of the memorial but the three people we asked turned us down, either because they didn't understand or they didn't want to get up from their bench. Oh well. On the way to the memorial, we also came across the Maidan (see third photo on left) which, at five square kilometers, is the largest open field in Kolkata. We had to be careful where we stepped, though, because in the area we were walking through, horses outnumbered people.

Last weekend, we visited the Hooghly (or Hugli) River, an arm of the Ganges. It's located quite a ways away from Salt Lake so to get there we had to take a bus, an auto, and the metro, followed by a 30-45 minute walk. It being a particularly hot and humid day, the shaded stairs that went down to the river were a welcome sight. They were also, however, a welcome sight to all the kids in the area who were playing in the river but who quickly jumped out upon seeing the arrival of five sweaty, American women. They all started talking to us at once in a mixture of Hindi, English, and Bangla, commenting on our red cheeks and immediately wanting their pictures taken. As we were taking pictures of them, their parents were taking pictures of us. Then, when we asked about taking a boat to the other side, the children eagerly took us by the hands and pulled us to the dock just a short distance down the road. It was an experience unlike any I have had before. In the center of the city, we are stared at but this level of outward curiosity is just not shown. When it was time to leave (this time in a cab) the children put their hands out to ours in the ASL sign for "I Love You", which I copied and then touched my fingers to theirs. I don't know what possessed me to do so except that I assumed it was a greeting of some sort. In any case, they were thrilled when I did it so I must have done it right...whatever it was!

Magic Words

When we first started our Bangla lessons two weeks ago, I assumed communication would be the primary benefit. However, at least up to this point, most everyone I’ve interacted with knows enough English to facilitate communication and if they don’t, there’s always someone nearby eager to help translate my words or my accent. While I’m very much looking forward to being able to communicate in Bangla, so far I think the primary benefit of learning to speak the language is not the exchange of information but the connections that are formed with people. When I was going shopping for a kurta (long tunic) on Wednesday and described one of the pieces the saleswoman showed me as shundor (pretty), her eyes lit up and she started giggling. We started speaking to each other in broken English and broken Bangla as she asked about what brought me to Kolkata and as I asked her for fashion advice. Earlier that night, a similar exchange happened at an amazing Bengali restaurant, Bhojohori Manna. There, the staff were eager to recommend dishes, happy to de-shell the chingri (jumbo prawns), and all hoped we would abar achen (come again). As with the saleswoman, once we started using Bangla, their faces lit up and they started asking us questions and teaching us words. They were such amazing interactions and they’ve made me even more determined to become conversant in Bangla before I leave. If just a few words could have such a huge effect, imagine what a complete sentence could do!

Settling In

My home for the year!

The view from the balcony

I’m slowly but surely settling in to my new life in Kolkata.Julie, Sarah, and I moved into our apartment on Wednesday morning, registered at the FRRO that afternoon, and managed to navigate the city in the midst of a transportation strike to arrive on time to our Bangla class on Thursday morning. While taking public transportation is always an adventure, one which I plan to blog about later, I would say getting to the FRRO was the adventure of the week. What is FRRO, you ask? Well, to put it simply, foreigners who will be in India for more than 6 months are required to register at the Foreign Regional Registration Office within 14 days of arriving in the country. You can’t leave the country without this registration so unless you want to register late and pay a heavy fine, it’s best to get it done as soon as possible. Although there was an FRRO right next to the hotel we stayed in last week, the office for Salt Lake (the area of Kolkata in which we live) was pretty far out of the city so we were driven by Sumanta (our program coordinator), a colleague of his, and our facilitator, Oisharjya. 

A different view from the balcony

What should have been an inconvenient 45 minute drive turned into an unbearable 90 minute
drive because our driver made a wrong turn. 
Then, when we finally arrived at the FRRO, we
were greeted with boarded up windows and a locked door. The office had moved. Sumanta’s colleague was able to ask around to find out the new location of the FRRO and about 20 minutes later, we arrived. The process itself was painless. We filled out one form, gave them all sorts of paperwork and some passport photos, waited awhile, were asked a few questions to verify the information they were given, and that was it. We left at around 2:00 and thankfully the driver didn’t get lost on the way back.  We’ll have to return next week to pick up the booklet that confirms our registration which means we’ll probably miss another day of Bangla.  Ah well. I’ll have plenty of time to study on the way there!

ami bangla sikhchi (I am learning Bangla)!

We were thrown into the deep end on Monday with our first Bangla class...four hours of Bangla class, but already it's becoming easier. Having knowledge of Hindi, however minute it is, has definitely helped me with the sounds, letters, and some grammar concepts (e.g. both have a subject-object-verb structure rather than English's subject-verb-object structure) but there aren't as many similarities in vocabulary as I thought there would be. We're taking classes at the American Institute for Indian Studies and have separate but equally amazing teachers for each subject: writing, grammar, speaking, vocabulary, and listening. In the vocabulary class alone I think we've been given over 200 words to learn this week so when they say intensive, they mean intensive. It's a language-lover's dream!

To give you a sample of what we've learned, here's my Bangla introduction:

amar nam pamela ar ami iowa theke esechi. My name is Pamela and I'm from Iowa.

Ekhon, ami salt lake-e thaki ar ami bangla sikhchi. Right now, I'm living in Salt Lake and am learning Bangla.

kendriya vidalayate ami pOre ekhane english pOrabo. Later, I will be teaching English at Kendriya Vidyalaya.

bEs! That's all!

July 5-9: Orientation

The view from our Kolkata hotel room

Our orientation session in Delhi was a short day and a half, after which we five Kolkata ETAs left to continue the orientation in our new city. During those several days, we met with security officials from the US Embassy about staying safe, a doctor about staying healthy, and current Fulbrighters about living in the city. During the Kolkata portion especially, many pieces started coming together regarding what we’ll be doing these next nine months; we met our English teacher trainer who will meet with us twice a month starting in August to help us become more effective ETAs and to offer advice for any problems we might be experiencing; we had a getting-to-know-you session with our host school principals and teachers and later, were able to visit the schools and work out a teaching schedule (I’ll be teaching four, 35-minute classes a day for grades 6-8); we visited the American Institute for Indian Studies where we’ll be taking intensive Bangla classes for the next three weeks; and, most importantly, we met with our facilitator, Oisharjya, a local college student with the arduous task of teaching three bumbling Americans how to survive in the city. She has taught us how to take all forms of transportation (bus, taxi, auto rickshaw, and metro), shown us where to buy the latest fashions (Fab India) and basic necessities (Big Bazaar), helped with the apartment search, and will be spending several hours with us tomorrow as we register with the foreign registration office. Without her holding our hands along the way, I don’t know how we would have survived this first week!