HH Rolls Into Town

I'm sitting in a cafe drinking Tibetan herbal tea, waiting for 4pm so I can check out another of the local yoga classes. It's raining outside; I suppose it is still monsoon season, so I shouldn't be too surprised that the sunshine this morning was short-lived.

My Pre-Intermediate class took their first test of the semester yesterday morning. Class begins at 9am and typically ends between 10:30 and 10:45 so I can get ready for my other class at 11, but for tests I think they ought to get to use the entire 2 hours if they need it.

We went over the homework from the previous night and I asked if they had any questions before we started the test. After having a minute to think about it and telling me they didn't, I explained to them that there were two parts to the test, and that when they had finished both they were free to go. “Don't be scared!” I told the room full of deer-in-headlights faces. Some of them laughed sheepishly and I handed out the tests.

At about 9:45 I heard sirens outside. This went on for maybe 30 seconds and the students started looking at each other and whispering. I must have gotten a teacher-y look on my face, because one of them smiled shyly, put her hands in prayer position, and said to me “Dalai Lama is here.”

They quieted down pretty quickly and worked on their tests. I've only graded the first of three pages (one is double-sided), but so far the grades seem to be decent. I wound up marking three questions as extra credit and another one I just threw out altogether, because even I wasn't sure what answer they were looking for. I changed the reading part of the test to a text they'd worked on the other day because they struggled with it so much more than I expected; again, the cultural barrier is just so dense, so tall, so deep sometimes that I didn't want to stress them out any more than necessary. I did change the questions from the ones they'd seen the first time they read the passage; I figured that would test both their ability to comprehend a short article and whether they paid attention in class when we broke it down together.

Occasionally a student would catch my eye and whisper “Teacher...” and ask me what a word meant or for a better explanation of the instructions. One of my students nodded and let out the Tibetan equivalent of “oh, ok” – “acha cha” – that I have come to recognize, first in Palsang and then in others. It's fun to see how cultural norms differ in even the most mundane, automatic of ways. For them it's just something they do; for me it's still a little funny.

When I first started teaching here I tried to get through a lesson (as they were planned out in the textbook) every day. By the end of the first week I'd talked to a couple of more experienced teachers and observed in my classes that this wasn't likely to last very long. Lately I've slowed way down, covering about half to three-quarters of a lesson each day, depending on the subject matter and how the students seem to be responding to it. Some days we get off on tangents, with them asking about some aspect of the material, often a new vocabulary word or concept, and then the discussion spirals from there. I figure they're still learning and using English, and I'm not particularly in the habit of following rules just because they're there (I consider myself sort of a chaotic good, or maybe neutral, alignment), so I don't mind getting off the book's topic as long as I feel like we're on to a suitable new one. This is especially true considering the fact that I think much of the book's content is not appropriate for students like mine; not only do they have to learn the words for cappuccino, online dating, or “neighbors from hell,” they have to learn the entire concepts. My students had no idea what sushi was. Most of them have never been on a plane. The roads here don't have intersections or crosswalks, and these are the things that the book assumes are familiar to everyone.

It just doesn't work here.

Regardless, their tests have been turned in and I told them there's no homework for the weekend, so they can just relax and go to the teachings and do whatever without worrying about school. They seemed to appreciate that.

After classes Julie and I did a little apartment (hotel room) shopping, and eventually wound up meeting a bunch of her students who have also become friends. Most of them are Bhutanese, with at least one Nepali in the mix. So tonight I met Tashi, Sonam, Sertso, Rigsel, Tashi, and Rangdol. By the end of the night Rangdol, Rigsel, and Sertso were asking me all about the States. Sonam was amazed that it would take a few days to cross the country by car. They were incredibly intrigued to learn that there isn't just one “American accent,” and my stories of the ridiculous amounts of snow that Chicago received a few years ago had them absolutely fascinated.

I thought it was really funny. Here I am, in India, this exotic country, and the people here are so thrilled to learn about the distant, strange land of the USA. They were really sweet. You know how a lot of times it takes a person a while to warm up to someone new? They didn't seem to have much trouble with it; by the end of the night they had each seemed to effortlessly find a way to talk to me and, as far as I could tell, they really wanted to. I got a really good vibe from the whole evening.... which was probably facilitated by the fact that we got dinner at a Japanese restaurant that made damn good miso soup and veggie sushi. I wasn't quite to the point where I was craving sushi just yet, but it's nice to know I can get a fix if I need it. I wouldn't trust raw seafood here, in the north of India, but I think cucumbers and cabbage and that sort of thing is probably ok.

New friends and sushi! <3

I've also been befriending the stray dogs around town a few at a time. We already have some that follow us when we are near; I figure it can't be a bad thing to have a guard dog wherever you are. They just sort of pass us off to each other as we move through the different areas, especially at night when we're on our way home. It's like they can sense that I want to show them attention. I don't approach them, I let them come to me. For the most part you walk through town and the dogs (there are dozens) just sort of hang out and do their own thing, but so many times I can see in their eyes that they just want a little bit of attention. Most people ignore them; the dogs get fed, I guess, and it's rare that I see anyone behave negatively toward them. If I may be so nerdy, I find myself thinking “I see you,” like in Avatar, because that's just what seems to be appropriate. I see that they're there, and that they're living beings just the same as any of the people, and that just like everyone else here they're just trying to survive. Everyone needs a little love now and then. 

Some mornings we wake up to find Tashi guarding our room.

Paula hangs out at Tibet Charity and looooooooooves attention.

Black & brown doggles, just chillin', as they tend to do here.