For reasons that will hopefully become obvious as you read this, I did not and could not actually take a picture of the Conversational English team this morning. They left the hotel to head toward their Village #2 experience at about 9:30 am, knowing that unlike the first 2 days, they were going to be working in a Government School for the remaining two days. Government Schools are the “lower echelon” of India’s educational system. They are where rural, poor or low-caste children go to school. Tuition is free, discipline is lax, and the teachers can do little more than barely “manage” impossible student to teacher ratios in their classrooms. Raj and I drove separately from the team (I was making copies of the team’s hand-outs, and it took me a little longer than I anticipated), and when we arrived, I was amazed to see several hundred little swarming bodies in powder blue uniforms piling around a small concrete room, peering in with hungry little faces at whatever was inside. As I approached, the swarm temporarily diverted to me, and I was immediately surrounded on all sides by hundreds (literally… I’m not joking...) of little munchkins smiling, laughing, shouting and tugging at me. It was like piranha attacking a cow trying to cross the Amazon, except that I had the sense to quickly duck for cover into the little room where the mob had previously been staring. Inside, I found the Conversational English team, laughing and looking elated, but rather nervously at me. “Um… they said that they have 600 kids, will divide them into 2 batches of 300, and that we can ‘take it from there’”, Dan said with a gritty chuckle. I looked around at the teeming mass of “HELLO!!!”-shouting smiles, reaching through the windows to grab hold of clothes or anything else that came within reach and said, “Yeah…uh… this place sort of seems to lack the discipline of the private school from the last couple of days, doesn’t it?”
Dan cocked an eyebrow and the rest of the team nodded solemnly. “So you guys are going to take these kids in batches of 300?” Again, grim nods mixed with a sort of daringly joyful anticipation. Mental impressions of The Alamo, Custer’s Last Stand, and The Battle of Armageddon flashed through my mind. “How exactly are you going to do that?” I mused incredulously. Then Dan shrugged his shoulders like the battle-hardened veteran that he is, “It’ll be just like After School at MC3… plus or minus a couple of hundred.” I laughed, then remembered the legendary Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi’s words in his classic treatise on swordsmanship (The Book of 5 Rings). It goes something like this, “When you have achieved true mastery, then whether you are engaging one opponent, or ten, or a hundred or a thousand matters little.” Then one of the wild-eyed teachers frantically muttered something that was translated as “they’re ready for you”, and the 4 team members stood up and strided Zen-like into the gaping maw of the waiting mob. I smiled with pride as I quite literally watched them sink beneath the surging swell of tiny humanity and took the opportunity to make a quick exit under cover of their temporary distraction. A couple of the swarmers saw me and peeled off a hundred or so others in a mad dash to try to beat me to the vehicle. I’m not kidding, it was like trying to evade predators. I would have stopped to take a pictur
e except that a camera to small Indian kids is the equivalent of a bleeding elephant seal to a Great White, and so decided to focus on speed and evasion rather than shutterbugging. I made it to the vehicle with a laughing Raj getting into the other side. As we pulled away, there were literally kids hanging off the siderails, shouting “HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!!!!” as we went and finally picked up enough speed for them not to be able to hold on. I cast one final look over my shoulder and the team was nowhere to be found. I shook my head and laughed. “Like bees on a honeycomb!” Raj chuckled. “More like sharks at a frenzy!” I retorted.
Dan cocked an eyebrow and the rest of the team nodded solemnly. “So you guys are going to take these kids in batches of 300?” Again, grim nods mixed with a sort of daringly joyful anticipation. Mental impressions of The Alamo, Custer’s Last Stand, and The Battle of Armageddon flashed through my mind. “How exactly are you going to do that?” I mused incredulously. Then Dan shrugged his shoulders like the battle-hardened veteran that he is, “It’ll be just like After School at MC3… plus or minus a couple of hundred.” I laughed, then remembered the legendary Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi’s words in his classic treatise on swordsmanship (The Book of 5 Rings). It goes something like this, “When you have achieved true mastery, then whether you are engaging one opponent, or ten, or a hundred or a thousand matters little.” Then one of the wild-eyed teachers frantically muttered something that was translated as “they’re ready for you”, and the 4 team members stood up and strided Zen-like into the gaping maw of the waiting mob. I smiled with pride as I quite literally watched them sink beneath the surging swell of tiny humanity and took the opportunity to make a quick exit under cover of their temporary distraction. A couple of the swarmers saw me and peeled off a hundred or so others in a mad dash to try to beat me to the vehicle. I’m not kidding, it was like trying to evade predators. I would have stopped to take a pictur
e except that a camera to small Indian kids is the equivalent of a bleeding elephant seal to a Great White, and so decided to focus on speed and evasion rather than shutterbugging. I made it to the vehicle with a laughing Raj getting into the other side. As we pulled away, there were literally kids hanging off the siderails, shouting “HELLO! HELLO! HELLO!!!!” as we went and finally picked up enough speed for them not to be able to hold on. I cast one final look over my shoulder and the team was nowhere to be found. I shook my head and laughed. “Like bees on a honeycomb!” Raj chuckled. “More like sharks at a frenzy!” I retorted.
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