first day

It's ten minutes 'til six in the evening here now, and I'm about to head off to tutor some girls before dinner, so I'll make this quick.

Our first day of teaching went remarkably well, considering A.) the novelty of the tasks at hand, B.) the language barrier, and C.) our still-lingering exhaustion. The school is a brief walk down the dirt road from the home; we left with the girls at around 8:45 to get there on time. The school itself is ostensibly nothing remarkable (four rooms, no electricity), but pretty incredible considering what these nuns have to work with. My mom, the two girls from Notre Dame and I were assigned classes to teach for the morning. I taught first and seventh standard ("standard" is the Indian term for "grade," a remnant of the days of British colonization) until lunch... pretty humbling, to say the least. I soon realized that the language barrier would be a tough one to climb over, so I did my best to establish some sort of common ground: i.e. learn the English words they knew, and for those that they didn't, improvise using gestures, etc. The English vocabulary of the students, especially the younger ones in the first and second standards, is essentially limited to basic terms: mother, father, teacher, student, uncle (what they call me), auntie (what they call Mom), book, and, not surprisingly, Jesus. I peppered the stories I read to them - mainly picture books left over from my preschool days - with these terms; it was the easiest way to hold their attention.

After lunch, Mom and I taught the third and fourth standards until the end of the day at 3:30. I've realized that to fill the time, I have to allow them to teach me. They performed for me various songs and games in Kannada, expecting me to do the same for them. I attempted to teach them "I've Just Seen a Face" by the Beatles, which was fun if nothing else.

Tomorrow will be more of the same. I'll devote the rest of the evening to tutoring, eating, and playing with the girls before hopefully crashing early (time is very relative here, and I'm still acclimating to the ten-and-a-half hour leap ahead).

Hopefully, I'll have pictures up soon, but considering the connection here, I might have to wait until I can get wireless on my laptop in Delhi next Thursday.

We're finally in Hassan - or rather, a remote (and perhaps unnamed?) village about an hour north in the hills above the city. I'm typing this on the home's one computer, which still runs on dial-up.

We left the convent in Bangalore yesterday morning at around nine, but waited at the bus station until around noon (transit in India, I've realized, is wholly unpredictable). The bus ride itself was, well, an experience. Fortunately, we had made a reservation, so our seats were guaranteed; others were forced to stand, holding onto the luggage racks overhead for support. We were on the bus for about five and a half hours, arriving in Hassan a bit before six in the evening. Like in Bangalore, a nun from the home picked us up and drove us out of the city.
The home itself seems larger than the one in Bangalore, but perhaps it's just fuller. Unlike the Bangalore convent, this one houses more than seventy girls, ranging in ages from four to sixteen. A good twenty of them were waiting for us in the driveway as we arrived, singing a welcome song in Kannada (the language of the state of Karnataka). After we settled in, we had a chance to meet some of the girls before dinner. There are two American girls volunteering here - they graduated from Notre Dame last month - so we spent the meal talking to them about their time here. They'll definitely be a good frame of reference for the next week and a half.
The home and school are adjacent to one another, both operated by four nuns. It's much cooler here than it was in Bangalore; I used a blanket for the first time last night. We just ate breakfast, and I'm about to go teach my first English class. I'm a bit nervous as to how it'll go... we'll see.

sunday 6.27

(delayed a bit)
Yesterday, we drove an hour into downtown Bangalore to visit three of Home of Hope's inner-city homes and schools. When not distracted by the beautifully entropic mess that is the Indian road network, I couldn't help but notice how Americanized the city is. Amidst markets and bazaars stand Pizza Huts and Sony stores; the city's skyline is dominated by skyscrapers that house calling centers for some of America's leading corporations. Our driver told us that American outsourcing has contributed to the exponential growth of the city in the last few decades, manifested by the ubiquitous presence of brands and labels I've grown up with.
We spent the afternoon driving through the streets of Bangalore from home to home. It was my first chance to interact with the girls, preparing me for the next week and a half. The majority of them speak, at minimum, broken English, translated by the nuns who operate the schools, most of whom are semi-fluent. However, the games we played with them transcended whatever hindrance the language barrier posed.
Around 3, though, my jetlag returned, and I was exhausted. I managed to pull through (thanks to the glasses of lime juice provided by the nuns), but when we left the city at around 8, I crashed. Somehow, I managed to sleep through the symphony of car horns to which the chaos of the streets is orchestrated. Last night was my first night of legitimate, eight-hour, uninterrupted, unfacilitated-by-Tylenol PM sleep thus far. Needless to say, it was great; I'm only hoping I have the same success tonight - we're almost out of Tylenol.

After twenty-four hours in three different airplanes, we've finally arrived.
Our flight from Paris landed in Bangalore a little before midnight last night (so, around 2 in the afternoon back home). Two nuns from the Home of Hope headquarters were waiting to pick us up. The forty-five minute drive from Bangalore International to the headquarters was, as exhausted as I was, exhilarating. From what I could tell, road laws are essentially nonexistent here. Wanna switch between the left and right lanes as you choose? Sure, why not. Cutting off an eighteen wheeler - an act that would most likely warrant the finger back home - is justified by a brief honk on the horn.
When we weren't on the edge of careening off the road, I made a point to pay attention to my surroundings. After all, this area will be my home for the next two weeks until we head north to Delhi. Granted, it was the middle of the night, so I was a bit limited as far as people-watching was concerned. However, from the dilapidated homes that seemed to sag to the point of near-collapse along the dirt road, I think I got a solid idea of the poverty that plagues the region, the poverty I'll be experiencing firsthand when I work with the girls in the school for the next thirteen days. Seeing this made me all the more excited to get to Hassan and begin my work.
I'm currently still at the Home of Hope headquarters in Bangalore. Sleeping will be something to get used to... after all, I'm ten hours ahead of the schedule I'm accustomed to. I'm still pretty exhausted, but my mom and I a point this morning to wake up at a reasonable time, explore the headquarters and meet the nuns. Breakfast consisted of curry, spiced chicken, and milk tea. Since we woke up and ate late, I passed on lunch, but did grab a mango, grown on the grounds of the headquarters. It was delicious, but I'm concerned about what to eat and what not to eat. The mantra "don't drink the water" is resonant (we're brushing our teeth with Dasani for now).
We're still unsure as to when we're heading up to Hassan - hopefully tomorrow or Monday. The drive is about four hours, and I anticipate further near-death experiences. As for now, we're just relaxing and recovering from the unavoidable jetlag. I'm still getting my bearings on things - it's all still very, very foreign.

a few first thoughts

Tomorrow, I leave for India, where I will spend three weeks teaching English and exploring the culture of the nation described by Mark Twain as "the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great-grandmother of tradition." For the next three weeks, I'll be keeping this blog to document my experiences, a stipulation of the grant proposal I submitted to enable me to go on this trip.

But I suppose I should start from the beginning. It began in December, when Lawrenceville released information regarding the William Welles Award. The award, given by the family of a late alumnus, is a grant for summer travel, particularly "a project or research or writing, which meets a high standard of excellence and promise." (at least, according to the school website). Long story short, I figured I'd go for it.

One small dilemma though: as much as I liked to convince myself that most things I did met a "high standard of excellence or promise," I had absolutely no tangible options on which I could write my grant proposal. So, I toyed with a few ideas, and even wrote the award's prerequisite proposal for some, but none of them hit home. Gradually, I came to realize that at that point, I was applying for the grant not to enrich myself or others, but to bask in the glory of yet another accolade.

And then I met Paul Wilkes. Mr. Wilkes is a family friend and fellow Wilmingtonian, but more importantly, he is the coordinator of Home of Hope India, an organization that operates schools and orphanages for girls in India. My father had told me about the organization in passing, and it piqued my interest. So, on a cloudy evening in the week before Christmas, I arrived at his home to listen to him tell of his orphanages, of the extreme poverty that plagues India, of the countless girls who, through the Home of Hope, have been saved. I was hooked. That night, I wrote my grant proposal; upon returning to school after the holidays, I delivered it to the office of the Dean of Academics with my fingers crossed.And then, nothing, for three months. Come spring break, I started to assume that I hadn't won the award and, disappointed, I began to make alternate plans for my summer. But one night in early April, I returned to Cleve House to find a letter addressed to me. "Dear Nash," it read, "I am delighted to be able to tell you that as one of the winners of the Welles Award for this coming summer, you have been awarded a grant of..."

And now, two and a half months later, I find myself on the brink of traveling halfway around the world to spend three weeks in India. Tomorrow afternoon, my mom and I will fly from Wilmington to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Paris, and then Paris to Bangalore. From there, I will go on to the town of Hassan, in the Indian state of Karnataka. I'll be in Hassan for two weeks, working and teaching in a Home of Hope-operated school for girls. After I leave the orphanage, my mom and I will move onto Delhi, which will be our home base for a week as we explore the sights of northern India.

I plan to post regularly, and will be available via Skype (username: nashjenkins).

My thanks to: my mom for sacrificing the time to accompany me on this adventure. Paul Wilkes for both working with us to plan the trip and committing himself to the cause. Lawrenceville for making this possible. Mrs. James B. Welles, Jr. for funding the award. Everyone else for taking the time to read this.

Namaste,

Nash