education, most exalted

SURYA runs a series of creches in Chandigarh, or daycare centers that are free for the families that use them. the NGO funds them, along with government aid, which gives them some money to provide one small tupperware of free food (porridge, rice, chickpeas, dal, etc.) to each family when they come to pick up their children. some creches actually serve the food to the kids before they go home, because there has been an issue with families taking food home and not giving any to the kids (as awful and unimaginable as that is...it happens).
a few weeks ago we conducted interviews of the mothers as they came to pick up their kids.
as we waited for the moms arrived, i plopped down on the ground with them and instigated some bilingual peek-a-boo and so on...and it was probably the highlight of my week. scratch that--it was for sure the highlight of my week. i miss being around kids so much--that summer working at the childrens' library was a dream when i think back on it. they're just so funny, so sweet, so representative of how simple life should be. simple, easy, happy. when one grape or cookie magically solves everything that is seemingly wrong and unjust in life....

indeed some of them started crying when my supervisors and i entered the creche (the living room of a woman in ramdarbar)...but you win them over eventually. Such big eyes, and they're incredibly curious about everything. we went back 3 days in a row, and by the end of it, i did make some new friends. you know it when they start sharing their slobbery food with you--it's a beautiful moment.

It's hard if you pay attention to the surroundings--the fact that it's literally 15-20 kids sitting on a blanket together, with only 1 pink ball, 1 stuffed animal, and 1 toy car between them. one child actually started playing with a plastic bag and sticking it over his head and i nearly had a heart attack--the woman who runs it told me that initially there were funds for more books, toys, etc. and since time has passed, the funds have fallen away. i think about how much money parents in the us spend to make sure their children have every necessary tool possible to learn and grow from the moment they're born--or even before (baby einstein, anyone?)...books, crayons, blocks, music. but i like this picture because it shows such patience in her little face--not necessarily boredom (though that might be it)--but they just play together in a way that you would never expect of ones so young. without tv, and electronic toys and lights and noises, they turn to each other for amusement and entertainment.

sikh baby--they learn the ways of the turban from a young, young age...

i just love her face in this shot, so honest and open. the mothers we interviewed were all quite young, and already fulfilling lives of motherhood and wifely devotion, so far removed from what woman of the same age are doing in the US and other countries. i am equally in awe of them, the fact that someone 2 years older than me is already raising 2 children, and sad for them, the fact that she most likely never had any other realistic choice in life but this one.

in another creche, there was an 8 year old girl there with 3 other children, her siblings and cousins, all under the age of 3. she was obviously taking care of all of them, making sure they ate their chapati and shared and wiped away their baby tears. gita, who runs the creche, told us that her parents are keeping her from going to school and she's never been at all, because they want to continue using her as a caretaker for the other children. gita confronted the parents about letting this girl go to school and have a chance at an education, but they refuse. an hour after hearing this, i watched as this little girl played mother to three, carrying one in her arms (nearly half her size) and leading the other two out the door by hand. everywhere you see this, children missing the chance to be children, playing out roles that they are too young for, working when they should be learning. without an education, she'll just become another mother and wife herself at a young age, excluding any other chances at a career or a life of her own. and there's so, so little to be done when the parents themselves don't recognize the value of an education, but only of accomplishing chores and housework, preparing their daughter for the life she'll smoothly fall into.

we interviewed a few teachers the other day, and when i asked one what was the single most beneficial tool for these girls to secure a better future, she said "parent involvement and interest." the problem isn't the availability of education, the government has made huge leaps in providing opportunities--but the fact of the matter is that parents in these regions don't follow their child's progress and track their attendance. which means the children, as one teacher put it, see school as a place for a free meal and recess, and that's it.

both the government and individual families have much room to improve--i wrote a paper last may on a nationwide literacy program in india called sarva shiksha abhiyan (ssa), and last week i noticed a poster for it outside the school (someday ill post the photo up) where we were conducting interviews. i asked one teacher about it, and got great reviews, huge compliments for the aid its providing for girl children especially. the next teacher, though, completely bashed it, said it was doing nothing but wasting government money. then i thought about my own opinion of ssa, turned in to my professor on 8.5 by 11 white printer paper, typed in my dorm room at cornell, in a building that most likely spends more money in 1 day than one family does in an entire year in ramdarbar.

how vastly different are my two educations, the one back in ithaca and the one here, this summer, in chandigarh. and even more so, how polar the education is for a creche child compared to a child with the resources of a wealthy country and a stable and educated family. they do nothing to select which group they will belong to, and somehow some of us got the luck of the draw.