No, not Hitler Youth! They're my students....
This is Thirteenth Mile, not the Third Reich.

I've been trying to post about our students and the teaching gig for awhile, but I've been sidelined by faulty internet connections and most recently, dysentery. The latter can best be described as having a 24 hour enema, but probably not as pleasant. I'm fine now. I think.
Anywoo, the real reason that we came to this crazy place was to teach, not just to look at the pretty mountains, which are very pretty I might add.
Our school is a primary school of 54 students ranging from nursery to Class 4. All of them live fairly close to the school (although some are actually from Nepal and Sikkim but stay with relatives in Kalimpong), and we've even gone to visit several of them at their homes to meet their families.
I was assigned to teach Grammar, which was interesting considering their textbooks were written using very suspect grammar. Also suspect was my spelling on the day of their exam, which found me misspelling the name of the subject I was entrusted to teach wrong on the blackboard. I am nothing if not careless from time to time...
The school itself is cute, albeit very rudimentary. It lacked electricity, walls that ran from the floor to the ceiling, and had a tin roof which was overwhelmingly noisy when it rained. As a teacher I had to compete in a daily screaming contest with Jenna just to be heard in the next room. My baritone typically beat her tenor, but ultimately that's up to the kids to decide.
As for the actual teaching, it is the concrete opposite of my memories of elementary school. The entire learning process revolves solely around memorization, and not comprehension. I would teach a lesson only to write the answers on the board, so they could copy them down. No matter how baffled their little Nepali faces looked, I had to keep it moving. I had done my part if I wrote the correct answers on the board. I often found myself shooting myself in the foot for trying to actually "teach" certain lessons to make sure the kids understood what they were writing down. In the end this was just time wasted, as I was short several lessons come exam time. When exams rolled around, there was absolutely no pressure on me or Jenna because they had every answer to every exam written in their notebooks. This method of teaching was not something that I ever got used to, but you can't fight the machine, man. Especially if that machine is a foreign machine and you're only there for 2 months.
Probably the most unnerving disparity in the Indian educational mechanism was the propensity of teachers to wail on students with bamboo sticks. It was like all of those stories that older Catholics tell you about there schools days. Like the one about "Sister Mary Nancy and her cane" or whatever the crazy nun's name is. Very tough to stomach indeed. If students get answers wrong, they are reprimanded with a bamboo lash. Sometimes I almost bawled as hard as the poor kid that was getting beat. I had to leave once. You should see how they treat their dogs....a nightmare on the collective unconsciousness of PETA.
With all of the alien differences that came with teaching in an alien place, I can confidently say that it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. There was never a day when I was not impressed with their capacity and willingness to learn a new language, and given the resources, they do an excellent job. Jenna and I almost broke down when we went to the house of two of our students. A family of four living in a room big enough for 1. Despite the poverty that many of them come from, they are all happy, intelligent, and wonderful. It's funny, but the people seem happier as a whole compared to Americans whose quality of life is exponentially better. This too, I will miss.
I'll miss these kids so much, and saying goodbye to them will be sad for us. Prior to coming to India for 3 months, I heard so many people say that traveling will "change my life". I've had a hard time with this statement, which I've been grappling with since I've been here. Has it been an eye opening and amazing experience? Damn right it has. Have I seen things and met people that I've only read about in books or seen on public TV or Discovery Channel? Of course. Have I seen how the other half of the world lives? Yup. All in all, it has been an amazing time and certainly something I will cherish forever and never forget. It's been both the most wonderful and most terrifying experience I'll likely have. But has it changed my life? Hard to say. Poverty is poverty, no matter where it happens to fall on the map. Last I remember, right before we left the states, there were almost a million of impoverished Americans who lost their homes in a hurricane, who were not being helped by the country that they pay their taxes in. I doubt that my life has changed during this trip any more than it would have had I went down to New Orleans to help out the poor people who were being given the ultimate "F.U." by their own country.

Working with these kids on a daily basis on the other hand, will leave an indelible, life changing impression on me. Seeing these little people go through life the way they do is a beautiful thing. I have no doubt that some of them will go on to do wonderful things. Even the least intelligent of them were the most charming and appreciative people one could imagine. I think everyone I know could take a lesson from them. Each one was so happy to be there every day, and I think that that's the best attitude anyone could have, from the 1st world, to the 3rd world and all points in between. That's the lesson I learned from these little rascals. I'll think of them always.
See you soon.