My Job v2

I’ve been continuing my work in the slums with the kids, and it’s getting to be more and more entertaining each time. As I get to know the kids better, they become much more receptive and inquisitive, asking all sorts of questions that allows me to easily fill my 2 hour slot. What I’ve done with them this last week is teach them some spoken English that they can hopefully use in their everyday lives. I went through the room that we were in and had them learn the basic words around them, such as floor, water, door etc. After this we did body parts, and the basics of introducing. Concepts such as “Hi, how are you, what are you doing?” were a favorite, especially when I had the kids introduce other members of the room to me. They had some serious trouble with the “sh” part of words like shoes or shorts. Picture a room full of 15 indian boys all trying to say shoes like ‘thoose’ at the same time. After 5 minutes I gave up and moved on to something different. They almost had a fit when they heard that two of the fingers were called the thumb and the pinky, I’m not sure why but they found it hilarious. Soon things dissolved into the kids poking each other with their pinkies and yelling “Pinky! Pinky!”

I then took out my computer after about an hour of this, and played them some American music (they liked White Panda, they have good taste at least). I had downloaded the Waka Waka music video by Shakira earlier in the week for them and they really liked that. As I was packing up to leave, they started yelling because I hadn’t taken a picture of them yet, so of course I had to do that before I left.

Interestingly, one of the boys living in the slum Jalaramnagar (which is about 20 minutes away on the other side of the city from where I live) asked me, “You live on Hirni road, yes?”. I did a double take and was like.. yes, but how did this boy from the slums know that I lived 20 minutes by rickshaw away? Turns out his parents had been talking about a white person who lives over there, and there are so few of us here that he knew it was me. Strange, but it gets weirder. Someone else then said, “Yes, and he likes going to the gardens on the weekend”. This, oddly, was also true. There is a Garden of Baroda nearby the AIESEC office that I’ll go to with friends on the weekends, and apparently he knew that as well. In a 1.7 million person city, people somehow know what I do on the weekends and where I live. Just today, on my way to work, someone stopped me and gave me their phone number, telling me that they want to hang out soon (he asked me when I wake up so we can go on a morning walk). I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get used to this aspect of India.

On a different note, I can check another thing of my India bucket list: pet a cow. In front of the AIESEC office there was a white cow just standing there, and so me, Rachel, Karan and an Indian (Dinesh) all pet it, exciting I know. I’ll miss not seeing cows everywhere when I get back to the states, they’re starting to grow on me.