Chutti

It had been up in the air for a while as to whether our winter break would begin on December 25th, as we had been told way back at the June orientation in Austin, or on the 31st, as schedule changes aren't technically changes when there never was a schedule in the first place. Tired of waiting for a decision, Hannah and I booked a flight to Goa for Christmas Day and away we went. 

We spent the first night in Anjuna, a touristy, fairly gross beach town, before discovering that the nicer beaches were north of where we were. Our cab pulled up the next morning to Mandrem Beach, where we fell in love with the quiet, clean, white sand and parked ourselves for a week. 

The view that made us stay.

Our home for the week

Beachside restaurant

We literally did nothing all week but lie on the beach on wooden loungers, taking the occasional dip, reading and getting up every once in a while for food. On the 30th, our ETA friend Sarah, who was placed in Madurai, joined us, and we spent New Year's Eve with some people that we met. We stayed up all night, dancing, hanging out on the beach, and enjoying the company. I unfortunately lost my phone in the process, an annoying price to pay. At midnight we were getting out of a cab, running to avoid having sparks rain down on us from the fireworks being set off all around us. It was the perfect way to bring in the new year, a great follow up to last year, when I went to Times Square with some friends visiting from Sweden.

Yours truly

We spent the last few days taking walks, exploring the beaches beside Mandrem, and feeling grateful for our good fortune to have been there. 

Me and Hannah, happy campers

On January 2nd, Hannah departed to Kolkata to visit her boyfriend and I went to Mapusa, the nearest "city," to get a bus to Mumbai, where I was catching my flight to Israel. Mapusa is so far the yuckiest place I've been in India. Granted, I was only at the bus station, and any bus station is bound to be aesthetically disappointing, but waiting there for two hours by myself was a fairly unpleasant experience. I did meet a nice Canadian guy, though, which made the experience a little better. After an overnight bus to Mumbai, I paid 100 rupees to leave my stuff at the Salvation Army hostel, and spent the day wandering the city.

Getting to the airport in the evening was a nightmare. Cab drivers were saying it would take three hours to get there, and were charging crazy amounts. After it took half an hour to go about a kilometer, the driver dropped me off at Victoria Terminal to take a train, where I was promptly told I could not get a train from there to the airport. Exhausted, anxious and not knowing what to do, I started crying in the middle of the train station. No sooner did the tears start to flow did two men who looked to be in their sixties come over to help me out. They were distressed by my distress, taking me to the ticket window where people in line unquestioningly let me cut them when they saw how upset I was, helping the guys to help me. I even had to insist on paying for my own ticket, as they wanted to do everything for me! One of the guys put me on the women's car of the correct train, before hopping on another car and waiting for me at the terminal station and putting me in a cab. I had to go to the domestic terminal to pick up my Israeli passport, which I had forgotten at the check in counter in Delhi and Hannah's boyfriend, Kundun, had facilitated transporting it to Mumbai. Of course, the airline people had no idea what I was talking about, prompting cry #2 and a phone call to Kundun, who set her straight and got them to help me. Passport in hand, I got in a prepaid taxi to go to the international terminal a few kilometers away, only to look at the price list to see a 2,200 rupee tariff (about $40), and force them to stop and let me out. Some fierce bargaining later, I was in an auto and made it to the El Al security counter, where I said my bag had been in a hostel storage room and was told it had to be emptied and checked. At my wit's end, tired beyond beliefand desperate to have this ordeal behind me, I cried a third time, prompting confusion and hesitation from the poor security guy. I assured him that I was fine, to do what he had to do, I was just tired and not feeling great, but I could tell he felt bad for making me cry. And at last, I was on the plane. Sweet relief! 

I slept for a lot of the flight and easily made my way to Haifa from the airport on the train. It was so reassuring to be in a place so familiar and unchanged. I of course spent the first few days totally sick to my stomach, requiring a quick dose of heavy antibiotics before infecting my poor, unsuspecting grandparents, but you can't expect India to stay where it is. I met my cousin Yuval's baby Roee, born in August.

Roee, Yuval and Tami

I went to lunch at the kibbutz, seeing kids who had grown feet since last I saw them, and meeting kids who hadn't been born during my last visit in 2008.

Shlomo, Odelia, Avishag

Avishag, Orya, Daniela and Me

Cousins! The cutest.

The week I spent in Israel was the rainiest and snowiest in ten years. Train tracks were flooded and everyone was receiving picture messages from friends and relatives in the mountains and in Jerusalem, making snow angels and snowmen in feet of white powder. It was a great excuse to stay inside and just spend time with people. I spent the night at the kibbutz, hanging out with Shirit and her boys, Yinon, six, and Roee, twelve. Before I knew Roee, I never liked working with children. It was really my relationship with him, more than anything else, that made me see the fun and reward of spending time with kids. We always had a special connection, and it was such a delight to see him, his voice changing, tall and mature and yet still the sensitive, unique child I remembered. There was a part of me that was sad, as if I had never had the opportunity to say goodbye to who he was as a small child. In any case, seeing him was a total joy. 

I caught up with my mom's friends and the other Yaeli, with whom every time we meet it's like we never parted. I ate lots of cheese and olives and pickles and salad, not to mention the schnitzels and ktzitzot my grandmother had waiting for me in the fridge. And I got to spend lots of quality time with my grandparents, who are positive and curious as ever.

Grandpa Everett and his harmonica

We also ogled at the picture of the newest addition to the family, their first great-grandchild. My cousin Carla gave birth on December 26th to Leo, the cutest baby boy on this side of the Equator.

Carla and Leo

It was great to go to Israel and see everyone; I hope it won't take me four years to get back again!

Have Yourself A Hindustani Christmas

I spent my last few weeks of school before the break educating my students about the US holiday season. This of course began with a lesson about Hanukkah, and became, in effect, an introduction to Judaism. I began by explaining that I am not a Christian, that for the same reason Muslim students celebrate Diwali as a cultural, rather than religious holiday, I don’t celebrate Christmas in the way they’ve seen in movies and on TV. For many of the kids, this fact was a tough pill to swallow, so, being a visual learner myself, I drew a timeline that looked something like this:

I attempted, with limited success, to help them see that Judaism was a religion way before Jesus was born, and therefore Jesus has nothing to do with the Jewish religion. Then I asked why Christians celebrate Christmas, what the holiday commemorates. Answers to this question ranged from “Jesus birthday” to “Santa Claus” to “Ma’am, Christmas!” I did my best to clarify that the fact that Jesus is not part of the Jewish religion means that Jews are not going to celebrate his birthday as a religious occasion. I then told an abridged version of the Hanukkah story in which I had the kids do different hand motions when they heard certain words such as “Maccabees” and “oil,” and explained the miracle that is believed to have occurred. The good thing about teaching Hanukkah in India is that the holiday has many similarities with Diwali, from the lighting of oil lamps in the entrance and windows of the home, to the general celebration of light triumphing over darkness. I brought in my menorah, which the kids of all ages were fascinated by, explained the purpose of the shamash, and led them in a few rounds of the Dreidel Song and I’m A Little Latke. To hear Indian schoolchildren singing about dreidels and latkes was enough to endear me even more to them, despite the frustrating experience of explaining something so outside their frame of reference.

The next two weeks were all about Christmas in the classroom. Last year’s ETA had taught the kids some songs, and they were eager to practice their Christmas repertoires. What I found was that they knew some different words to songs like Jingle Bells, making the classroom sound like a confused cacophony when some sang the words they knew and others read from the lyrics I had written on posters. Teaching songs to my students is generally a fairly hilarious experience, as they generally have an intense amount of enthusiasm and no ability to regulate the volume of their voices. The melody is seldom distinguishable over the majority of students who just scream the lyrics at the top of their lungs, with or without a rhythm. This was especially true when I tried to teach some of the more advanced classes the Jingle Bell Rock. For kids who are such great dancers and singers, it’s hard to understand why they have such a difficult time following the tunes and rhythms I teach, no matter how much repeating or rhythm clapping I do.

For the second week of Christmas celebration, I cut out large Christmas trees out of poster paper, put a star on top and had the kids write Christmas wishes on smaller stars and circles I cut out of paper. Most students wished for “happiness in all world” or “family happy healthy,” while others opted for BMWs and bicycles. My favorite wishes were the ones claiming a desire to “become a cricket,” missing the crucial “er” that would make this statement less Kafka-esque. 

The icing on the Christmas cake, however, came when Sean, my fellow ETA who works down the street from me, showed up during 8^th period one day dressed as Santa Claus, complete with a giant sack brimming with candy. Though he had told me he would come at some point dressed as Santa, a suit which he had requested his parents in Seattle to send him for exactly this purpose. Sean planned his entrance for weeks, buying speakers and creating a special Christmas playlist to blast music from his stuffed stomach as he walked around spreading Christmas cheer (read: candy). I was sitting on the playground with my 7B class when a whole group of kids came running up, shouting, “Ma’am! Sean Sir! Santa Claus is here! Sean Sir has lots of toffees!” I walked around to the front of the building to see Sean in full Santa getup, swarmed by my students, his beard in shambles around his face and his sack weighing him down like an anchor. He walked around the playground with me, children hanging from his every limb, chanting, “Santa Claus! Santa Claus! Santa Claus!” and a few of them even having the presence of mind to sing the song we had practiced, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” After circling the building, we went inside moments before the final bell rang, teachers and students alike poking their heads around corners to see what the commotion was about, Sean going out of his way to make sure each teacher got some candy. We walked up to the staff room so I could get my stuff, thinking that the kids would still respect the sacred rule of not entering the staff room, but alas, the allure of Santa was irresistible and the kids flooded in. I was nervous that the other teachers would be annoyed, but the way that Sean made sure to get them candy made them smile and laugh at the absurdity of the scene. We made our way out of the school as the bell rang and kids streamed out of their classrooms to join the swarm of Santa sycophants. 

By the time we exited through the main entrance, the entire school, students and teachers alike were abuzz with excitement, gathering round and reveling in the madness. I couldn’t believe how even the sternest of teachers, the men who smack students left and right and have perma-frowns, the shrill women with their sharp noses and annoyed sighs seemed delighted by the presence of this candy-bearing character. We set them up for a photo before Sean was swept away by the principal’s assistant, a man of medium height with a thick black moustache and hair dyed bright red with henna. He had Sean stand in between himself and the principal so I could take a photo, and then proceeded to hound me every day afterwards for a copy of the picture. I don’t think he could have been more excited if the Prime Minister was visiting. As Sean and I tried to make our escape, the kids continued to swarm around us, to the point that some of the teachers had to physically hold them back. Crossing the street to get an auto, the kids surrounded the vehicle, reminiscent of those images of the Beatles or Elvis leaving concert venues, unable to move forward in their cars because of all the screaming fans. We finally moved forward, the auto wallah laughing as the music continued to chime from Sean’s stomach and the happy cries faded into the background.

But the adventure wasn’t over. Up the elevator we went to the metro station, the people sharing the elevator cracking up. When we emerged, the few children in the station came up to Santa with stars in their eyes, amazed and awed by what they were seeing, even more so when toffees were handed to them by Santa himself. We boarded the metro, and Sean gave out candy to all our fellow passengers, kids and adults alike, who were so thrilled to receive it…I couldn’t believe how happy it made these grown adults to receive pieces of candy from a man in a red fat suit. Sean kept the music playing, and we danced when a particularly upbeat song played, to the extreme amusement of the other metro riders. Everywhere we went, people stopped and stared and pointed, but in such a happy and excited way, I felt like I was in the movie Elf.

I love Christmas lights, but other than that, the holiday has never really appealed to me. The music is nice for a while but I always get so sick of it and there’s something about Christmas that always felt exclusive to me. But Indians love themselves a celebration, no matter the religion or tradition. It felt nice to be able to embrace the holiday through the novelty and joy experienced by those around me.

Picnic to Akshardam

A few weeks ago I accompanied my students on a field trip to Akshardam Temple, a well-known complex playfully known to some as “Hindu Disneyland.” Why, one might ask, is Akshardam deserving of such an odd nickname? The temple is located east of Delhi, on the other side of the Yamuna River, and was completed several years ago. Over 7,000 artisans were commissioned to create this beautiful but extremely ostentatious display of pious devotion, dedicated to a guru who lived in the 18^th century. In addition to the temple, the site has several attractions that clearly illustrate the association with Disneyland. Field trips here are called “picnics” and the only reason I knew there was one is that my kids started asking me whether or not I was going several days before the scheduled trip. The whole of the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grades were going, so it’s a good thing my students like me and asked me to come, because otherwise no one would have mentioned it to me and I would have arrived at school to teach empty rooms. When I asked the principal the day before whether or not I could go, he stared at me blankly and nodded his head, though it’s highly possible he had no idea what I was talking about. In any case, I showed up Friday morning to many excited children. Please note that with 90-120 students per grade, this picnic was no small undertaking. Shortly after the children arrived, four large buses pulled in front of the school. They were coach buses, much nicer than the regular school buses that take kids to and from school, because I’m pretty sure there were doubts about whether or not those decrepit vehicles could make it as far as the temple. But I digress. The kids started lining up according to their class, with monitors walking down and counting them, seeing how many were present and absent. At first the scene was orderly, with designated teachers calling the students one by one to board the bus, making sure they knew which kids were there. I boarded the bus with Shruti, one of the teachers I’m close with who sits in the same staff room as me. She is the class teacher for 7C, a class that has a ton of personality, which I love, but can be difficult to manage sometimes. I sat beside Shruti in the front, classes 7C and 7B energetically bouncing and squawking around us. Our bus was full, with many students sitting three to a seat clearly meant for two, but they shuffled and made it work. Looking outside, I saw that the other buses were equally full, and also that 8C, being the last numerically and alphabetically, had yet to make it onto a bus. Before I knew it, the girls of that class were boarding our bus, crowding it so much that every seat had three children and some had four. Not exactly the stringent seatbelt requirement of the US. It didn’t really matter, though, because as soon as the doors were closed, half the kids started walking around, sharing the ample snacks they had brought for the trip and insisting that Shruti and I have some. In seeing the way both kids and adults eat in such a communal way, freely taking from others’ plates and expecting others to do the same, that this is not necessarily seen as ‘sharing’ but rather as belonging to everyone in the first place. Believe me when I say that these kids do not share easily. When I place markers on the table for an art project, you’d think I was giving rations to famine survivors by the way they elbow each other out and hoard the colors. And yet, when it comes to food, there is no such reservation in offering and receiving.  In any case, it seems that, for my students, the eating experience is not complete if I have not partaken with them. A steady stream of children approached me at the front of the bus bearing chips, bhujia, spiced nuts, and other snack food, pleading, “Ma’am, you try, just one, please.” On the occasions when they offered something I really did not want to eat, they would just keep pleading until I eventually took and ate the proffered item. The other noteworthy thing that happened on the bus was the singing. I know those of us from the US will remember a few rounds of 99 bottles or even some camp songs sung on the occasional bus journey. This was nothing of that sort. This was 70+ children all singing Hindi pop music at the top of their lungs, each child knowing every word and inflection, the boys getting especially into the choral aspect. It was a sight (and sound!) to behold.

We arrived at the temple at around 9:00, at which point all the kids got into their lines again, monitors straightening the rows and teachers counting. There was an attempted bombing at Akshardam a few years ago, so security there is RIDICULOUS. No one is allowed to bring phones, cameras or electronics of any kind, and if you think you can hide these items in a secret pocket—guess again. The security guards open every pocket of every purse, pants and jacket before frisking you so thoroughly it makes you feel uncomfortable. After all the kids and teachers were through, the lines were made again and we waited for a while because that’s what you do in India. We walked into the big reception hall where several other school groups of comparable sizes were also sitting, and had morning prayer. We led our group afterwards to a small auditorium, and proceeded to watch a video introducing the guru to whom the temple is dedicated. I thought we would then leave the building and see the temple, but in fact the building was a complex, which I later found out was called the Hall of Values, in which you go from room to room, hearing about the guru’s life and work. 

Hall of Values

All of the explanations were in Hindi, so I understood very little, which made the spectacle that much more interesting. Each room was comprised of a diorama-like scene in front of rows of seats. The scenes each depicted a part of this guru’s life journey, and were made of life-sized robotic people, á la the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at, you guessed it, Disneyland. Each robot had a small range of motion and they acted out various life events that were important in this person’s life, including conversations between robots. One of the scenes took place in a thunderstorm, and the effects included flashing lights, realistic thunder sounds, and actual water that rained down on the scene. The last room of the tour was about the importance and techniques of incorporating Hindi practices into your every day life. One such area had a barnyard scene with larger-than-life cutouts of animals. The animals had speech bubbles, such as a hen with chicks saying, “We don't eat their babies so why do they eat ours?” a cow declaring, “I give you my milk but it’s not enough; you must take my meat too?” and a lion stating, “I have fangs and claws for eating meat. You don't, yet you eat my food.” Guess what that diorama was advocating! I found the whole thing pretty tacky, but the kids loved it! They kept asking me if I liked it, and when I said , “of course! Do you?” They would reply, “Ma’am, it’s so beautiful! Isn’t it beautiful??” Their enthusiasm made the whole experience so enjoyable for me…at one point one of my sixth grade girls came up and held my hand, walking with me from room to room for a while.

The next stop on our temple tour was an IMAX film about the life of the guru as a child, and how he came to be a spiritual leader. Having stayed up fairly late the night before, and not understanding almost any of the film’s Hindi narration, I tried my best to keep my eyes open but eventually fell asleep. I was sitting next to Geetanjali, an 8^th grade girl that I LOVE (even though she told me last week in all seriousness that I looked fat). For the first few minutes after I fell asleep she kept nudging me awake, saying “Ma’am, the movie!” and I would open my eyes for a minute, responding, “yes, I’m listening I’m just closing my eyes,” before succumbing to the fatigue. I have no idea how long I slept but remember waking up about two minutes before the end of the film and looking frantically for the ticket to the next attraction that I had been holding in my hand, before the girl on my other side graciously handed it to me. When the film ended, we filed outside into the sunshine, at which point every child seemed to need to ask individually how I enjoyed the movie. When I started to say how lovely I thought it was, Geetanjali would appear out of nowhere to rectify my lie, saying, “Ma’am fell asleep.” At first I tried to deny it but then I just told her to stop blowing up my spot by telling on me.

The last, and indeed most spectacular(ly over-the-top) activity before seeing the temple itself was a mystical boat ride through Vedic India. The introductory plaque in English and Hindi said something along the lines of, and I’m paraphrasing here, “India is the greatest country and culture in the world and we were accurately measuring the distance between planets when Europeans were eating sand and each other during the Middle Ages and prehistory.” The wooden boats, shaped like peacocks, complete with peacock-head helms, had several rows of four seats each, and ran on a track through a “river” surrounded by more robot scenes. Picture the “It’s a Small World” ride but with the aim of teaching Hindu-Indian superiority rather than about the loveliness of geographic diversity. Mechanical people were arranged in scenes portraying the ins and outs of Vedic life in India, from medicine to blacksmithing to education. The second part of the ride showed all the great Indian scholars, sages and otherwise high achievers, such as the “Inventor of Astronomy” and the “Greatest Epic Writer in History.” There was Hindi narration that I would have loved to understand, but alas, my language skills continue to fail me. Once again, the kids were entranced while I was left wondering why no anthropological studies have been done on this overt display of Hindu chauvinism.

Boat Ride/It's A Small (Indian) World

Our last and most hurried stop was the temple itself, a massive display of the extraordinary talents and dedication of India’s many fine craftsmen still in practice. The white marble temple sits on an enormous platform of red sandstone, bordered by detailed bas relief frescoes of elephant herds. The inside of the temple is completely white, and every inch of the ceiling and walls are covered with the most intricately carved patterns I’ve ever seen. 

Crazy carvings inside...

I wasn't kidding about the glitz.

 Each ceiling, pillar and room is different, and flanked by enormous wooden doors covered with similarly complex handwork. The center of each room was occupied by different idols of gods, in displays as glittery, shiny and tacky as the artisanal craftsmanship was impressive. As I was walking from the ride to the temple, Ghozia, an 8^th grade girl with a good head on her shoulders and a very genuine demeanor, started chatting with me. In class, I try to speak only English, to get them used to speaking even if they don’t know all the words. But at Akshardam I felt I could be a bit more casual, and tried out my Hindi with them more than I usually do. Most of the kids were shocked that I knew any Hindi at all, let alone enough to get by. Ghozia saw how hard I was trying and was so supportive of my learning, speaking slowly, repeating herself, and chastising the other kids who said that I couldn’t understand anything she was saying. “Ma’am speaks Hindi!” she would say. At some point she took my hand, and we enjoyed the walk to the temple together. After we had paused to take off our shoes before entering, she stood waiting for me and then stuck out her hand again, as if to say, “Aren’t you forgetting something?” It was so nice to be able to have so much one-on-one time not just with her, but with several students throughout the day.

My students were so lovely that day. Not once did I hear a single kid complain about anything.   For anyone that has ever been on a field trip as a child or an adult, I would venture to say that a day on a field trip without complaining is as rare and precious as Indian traffic without honking, as a tropical vacation without sunburn. The children were so genuinely excited to be there, to be having fun and treated to this trip. Their expressions of happiness at my presence made me feel so joyful and privileged to know them.  It was for this reason that the attitude of the gym teacher toward me was so jarring.  [**Quick background which has no immediate relevance to the Akshardam expedition: For those of you who may not know me well, I never was the sporty type. Quite the contrary, nothing at school filled me with more dread and loathing than physical education. When we would go to the weight room, I would sneak in my crocheting and hide in the corner, knotting away. I was always in the last three to finish the mile run, and I remember thinking after the two-mile run in ninth grade that I would die from exploding lungs. And what always added insult to injury was the attitude of the gym teachers that “anyone can do it,” and “there are no winners and losers,” when there are clear victories and failures, and we were being asked to perform tasks that required a very specific skill set that some people are naturally gifted in while others are not. I personally am fairly good at learning languages. But I’m not going to teach someone for whom language acquisition is especially difficult and say, “you’re just not trying hard enough,” which is EXACTLY what gym teachers say. Anywho, in conclusion, I am not a fan of PE in general and have a real aversion to many of the gym teachers I have met in my life, Ms. Marsella of Clear View excluded. That being said, I have a particular vendetta against the gym teacher at my school here, who is the general disciplinarian of the place, meaning that he is the one called in (or barging in, as in my case) to smack the children. In my opinion, he seems to take a perverse pleasure in slapping and making kids afraid of him, and has never been particularly respectful of me. On several occasions when I have chosen to take a class outside, he has sent kids to tell me that he says I’m not allowed to be on the playground at that time for no apparent reason, to which I reply, “Well, if he feels strongly enough about it, he can come tell me himself.”**]

Before we boarded the buses to go home, the kids of course had to line up by class again so they could be counted.  Though this sounds like a simple and logical task, it was complicated by the fact that no one person was doing the counting. Each class had the monitors count, and then some of the classes the teachers would count as well. Everyone was moving around so every number was different and it took forever. The teacher of 8C was nowhere to be found and the kids had already counted themselves, but the gym teacher, stupid clipboard in hand, kept repeating that he was missing numbers for 7A and 8C. Several times I told him the count until finally I yelled to be heard, “8C pura hai!” which means all of 8C was there. Even then I had to say it several times before he paid attention to me, at which point he made fun of my accent by repeating the phrase in a stereotypical American accent, and continued talking that way, cracking up all the kids and making me look like an idiot. And that’s when I dropkicked him. Just kidding.

The bus ride home was fairly uneventful, other than the tons of food being forced into my face by my eager students and more singing. When we pulled up to the school, the kids let out a massive cheer at least as big as the one they yelled when we left. I had a great day and was so happy to have been able to accompany them. Some questions that were raised for me by this trip include the following:

• What is communicated to students by the fact that the one field trip of the semester was to an overtly religious site whose mission is to educate and reinforce notions about the Hindu faith?
• How did the non-Hindu students feel about this trip? How did their parents feel? How would I feel as a child if I had gone on a field trip that was so overtly Christian?
• Do my kids enjoy me in class as much as they did at Akshardam?
• Could it have touched my lil’ heart more that a thirteen year old wanting to walk around holding my hand? (Answer: no).

**All photos stolen (because cameras aren't allowed inside) from the incredible Akshardam website, which I highly recommend you visit because it's cray! Maybe as crazy as the place itself.