Street Kids School - A Typical Day

We leave for the street school around 9.30am in the morning and make the short twenty minute journey across town to the outskirts of Jaipur by rickshaw van. There are seven of us volunteers all crammed into the tiny van and on our way we also pick up the Indian teacher Asha who supervises the lessons. This is late morning by Indian standards as many Indians get up around 5am to get ready for school or work, so I've been quite grateful for this later start. As we drive through the busy streets, I usually occupy myself by looking out the window. There is never a dull moment, we pass men peeing by the side of the road, shaking themselves off unashamedly and grinning up at me (shudder!), rows of brightly coloured shops & fruit stalls already open for business & busy with activity. School children in crisp uniforms who meander along the road, sari clad women out shopping with toddlers in tow or carrying big loads on their heads, men crouched down on their hunkers in circles drinking small cups of chai (Indian tea) or simply watching the world go by.

Traffic is building, even by Indian standards and as we drive along the busy road, to the symphony of honks and beeps, small children from adjacent cars peer in at us, smiling and waving at the funny white people. Young Indians drive up alongside our van smirking & grinning at us while revving up their engines to keep pace with our van. I look across at Asha who is sitting opposite me; she seems to find this all very amusing indeed and returns my smile with a bemused grin. She is always immaculately dressed & today is no exception. I admire her plum coloured sari and the gold bangles and rings that adorn her henna decorated hands. She tells me that today is Karva Chauth a special holy day, where wives must fast from sunrise to moonrise for the safety and longevity of their husbands and offer up prayers (Puja) for them. I inquire cheekily if there is a day when the husbands will fast for their wives? She just smiles demurely at me, which I take as a resounding, no. From my short time in India, I can already see that it is most definitely a man's world here.

Asha looking lovely in her Sari for Karva Chauth

I know we are nearing the school when we pass by the slum camps at the side of the road where the children live. Today there is very little happening as most people have already long left for work. All I can see is an old granny in a lumpy sari bending down to wash a naked toddler in a bucket, while a big truck rumbles past, covering them both in a thick cloud of black smoke. Now that I've been working with the kids for a good few weeks, I still find it hard to get my mind around the fact that they actually live here. They just seem like such happy, well adjusted, regular kids but obviously by Western standards, their lives are very difficult indeed. Many of them will have to work after school and because they are not enrolled in a regular school and are desperately behind where they should be, the education that they will receive will be basic at best. Our van pulls up outside the school, which is basically like a large cement garage, protected by a metal covering. The project I am working with was set up by an Indian husband & wife team, who originally ran the pop-up school in local parks. They have since secured enough funds to rent this basic building which will accommodate up to thirty children. The kids that come to this school are not enrolled in a regular school and therefore this project offers them the chance of getting a basic education and the opportunity to develop their full potential and hopefully give them a better chance in life. Sadly for every child that comes to our school, there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of others who don't have this opportunity. Many are friends and even siblings of our kids from the same village who are kept home to mind babies or sent out to help bring in an income for the family. These kids have a huge amount of responsibility on their young shoulders and will most likely never learn to read and write and as a result the cycle of poverty is likely to continue again into the next generation.

A Jaipur city slum

The children are usually waiting outside the school for us and when our van pulls up they all cheer and rush over to greet us. This routine never gets old and it's great to get such a warm welcome every single day. The kids will put out their little hands to shake ours (a Western gesture not usual for Indians at all) and say 'good morning diddy'. Over the last few weeks, I've become known as 'diddy', which roughly translated means 'older sister', and every day is peppered with the constant ringing of 'diddy, diddy'........requests for swings in the air,  'diddy, diddy'....toilet????........"Noooo wait until break"........"diddy, diddy......A, B, C, D"........."diddy, diddy urrrgh" when I put too difficult of a sum on the board. I even hear "diddy, diddy".....when I'm dropping off to sleep and I'm wondering about the kids and where they are sleeping tonight and if they're cold, because it's now November & we're in the North of India and even indoors I'm finding I need an extra blanket myself at night.

Kids making their way to school in the morning

Rather than being split out by age, the classes are split out by level of the child. We sit on dusty rugs on the ground and all the classes take place together in the same room, just in separate corners. I am working in a back area that resembles a garden shed, stocked with planks of wood, bags of cement, old buckets and coils of tubing. On my first day when we open up the class, there are two big rats in there at the back, hiding out in the shadows. I try not to show my horror as everyone else settles into class, immune to our two rodent friends. In the end, one rat dashes out in the middle of class, over my bare foot and out the door. The second makes his escape through the roof with a clatter. The last thing I see is his ropy pink tail disappearing up through a hole in the ceiling as I look on in disbelief (Serious Shudder!). The simple fact is that rats and mice are so common place here in India that no one gives them a second thought, despite the diseases they obviously carry (not to mention their horrible little tails) they are probably on the same pest level here as spiders are at home.

Our basic teaching schedule commences with English in the morning, followed by a half hour break when the kids can play and then Maths in the afternoon. I usually work with about two to five children. When I first heard this I privately thought to myself......"easy, this is going to be a breeze", as I had initially assumed I'd have a large class of children to look after. However I soon realised just how demanding and often draining the teaching can be as each of the children I'm working with is at a very different stage & requires constant stimulation and attention. Progress is very slow and sometimes the children don't appear for a few days because they are sick or are needed at home, they have to work or simply because they would rather go off and play with their friends than come to boring old school. Some of the kids have been coming to the school longer than others and so are more advanced. However in general it is really sad to see just how far behind all of the kids are in comparison to other children their own age who go to school regularly. The vast majority of the kids are still only learning very basic preschool stuff like the alphabet and basic addition and subtraction.

While all the kids know the alphabet & can rhyme it off on cue, most can't read or write properly & progress is frustratingly slow. Unfortunately there is very little in the way of supplies which makes the teaching job even harder, so we usually just pick up books and charts ourselves on the local markets. The kids have all been supplied with small school bags, which usually contain just their copy book and a small pencil case. They have also been supplied with uniforms which some of them wear, but many are new kids and so the majority of the children just wear their own clothes which are often dusty and ripped with holes. It is a full time job just trying to keep them focused on their work, as they are so easily distracted with many of the younger kids running between classes or plonking down on my knee and then dashing off with my chalk. An additional distraction is the open air classroom with men hammering outside, trucks rumbling past & kids from other villages stopping by to peer in at us.

Granny & Toddler who sit on the steps & watch class

There is a toddler who lives next door and sits on the steps of our school every day with his granny and solemnly watches proceedings. He can't be much more than one and a half years old. He is often left on his own and will toddle up behind me while I'm teaching, swipe my book and toddle off again with it. When I turn around a few seconds later, he is back sitting in his corner with my book in his mouth dribbling all over it. One day I walk over to him and he has an enormous chicken bone in his mouth, which he is sucking on with great delight. Again, he is on his own with no one in sight minding him. I'm worried he'll choke on the bone, so I try in vain to prise it from his clenched little fist. He just looks at me unflinching with steely determination & keeps a firm grip on his chicken bone. Someone looks over and laughs at me and says, "Don't worry about that kid, that kid is as tough as nails, he'll be alright". It's strange but somehow I know that he will be OK and it strikes me how these children are just left on their own from such an early age and somehow seem a little tougher than kids of a similar age back home. Many of the kids have a great deal of responsibility on their young shoulders, with some of the older children in particular looking after their whole families and helping to bring in an income. Imagine a nine year old working to help pay the mortgage back home, simply mind boggling isn't it?

I'll finish off writing about school in my next post & will post some videos of my favorite school moments. I'll also write a bit about the orphanage where some of the other volunteers I am living with are working.

Till next time happy reading & Namaste from India!