October 23, 2014

Happy Dewali! Dewali is a major holiday across India, especially popular in north India. Here in eastern India people are very excited about it, but they only have one day off to celebrate. Dewali is referred to as the festival of lights. It celebrates good over evil, hope over despair, and knowledge over ignorance. People celebrate by hanging lights over their homes, lighting candles and setting off fireworks (when they say fireworks, it’s both fireworks and firecrackers — really big loud ones).

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Alekh, our driver, in front of a “Cracker Shop”

Gifts are exchanged and sweets eaten. Our small housing complex has a community celebration of Dewali. Most of the houses were decked out in enough lights to put any suburban American neighborhood’s Christmas lightshow to shame. Once it is dark, families come out and set off fireworks for hours. Eventually everyone gathers for a meal. We missed much of the neighborhood celebration because we were invited to two other celebrations, but as you see below, it was a good time.

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View from our porch

We are now settling into a comfortable routine. We have been in our house now for a little over a week and once we worked out some kinks (e.g., the washing machine draining directly onto the floor) it is comfortable. It’s a two story duplex so we have two kitchens, four bedrooms and four bathrooms – obviously more than we need but it works. We spend a lot of time on the porch; we look out on the neighborhood park. It is on a nice street and we have found a couple of decent restaurants within walking distance.

3

George’s life took a serious turn for the better when we discovered a tennis coach at one of the nice hotels in town. Not only does he give tennis lessons, but he also offers two-hour drop-in tennis six mornings a week. Because of this George is playing tennis about four times a week. 

My work remains productive. I continue to interview people who are able to give me a broad perspective on the school, and my colleague Sasmita and I have engaged a group of her masters students in an interview project with children in grades 6-8 with the focus on comparing their lives and identities with those of tribal children in villages and possibly with middle class children in a local private school.

It seems that the school is in the process of addressing many of the issues that people raise. For example, they have a major grant to provide instruction to children in first grade in their mother tongue. They are developing a lot of materials and are training teachers in best practices. They also have a very ambitious plan to move education of the younger children to 30 satellite centers in the tribal districts so that, although the children will still attend a residential school, they will not have to travel so far and their families can visit more easily. This will also reduce the degree of linguistic and cultural diversity in each school.  

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Field-testing interview questions

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Materials produced in the Mother Tongue Lab

We are settling in, but life still can be frustrating here. The power goes out at random times; the infrastructure is nothing like the US; not speaking the language is a definite limitation. That said, there are so many things to be said for life here. The children at KISS have many opportunities for free play, especially the boys. My office window looks out on a sports field and in the afternoon there are children of all ages, again mostly boys, playing a variety of sports (archery, track and field) and just playing. On the edge of campus there are acres of open fields with some old building foundations that form a maze of walls about three feet high. Thousands of boys roam freely in this area, playing and just hanging out. They don’t seem to be getting in trouble. The children definitely look out for each other. The young ones look up to the older ones and the older children seem to enjoy their role as guide and protector of the young.

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View from my window

Looking ahead, we are still hoping to get out into the tribal districts. Many of the staff at KISS go out and have said that it will be fine for us to go with them. I’ve been asked to serve on a Fulbright committee to review teacher applications to teach/study in the US so we will be going to Delhi in late November for that. We plan to use this trip to take a short excursion into some part of India we haven’t seen yet. George is requesting a cool place. We are also looking forward to meeting Leslie in Kerala over Christmas.

That’s it for now,

Yours,

Christine