“I can teach tennis,” I told my the FSD program coordinator, who was trying to get interns to teach anything they were skilled at to a local school. “Yes, anything is possible” she responded. While I highly doubted this local Jodhpur school had tennis courts, this is the common response to any question or inquiry in India: anything is possible. Sure I thought, from my experience it’s anything that is illegal, crazy, or preposterous, but I decided to go along with the idea that I was actually going to teach tennis to some Indian school kids. I was told to wait at 7:00 am on the corner of a street near my house and a man would pick me up. As I waited for thirty minutes on this random curb, I kept thinking how ridiculous this is, I don’t even know the name of the school or have any contact information. Before my mind could wander any longer, a small red auto (more like a motor bike with a wagon connected) pulled up next to me and the driver started speaking to me in Hindi. Since neither of us had any idea what the other person was trying to ask, I figured not many autos with a bundle of school children in the back would be stopping to pick up a white girl, so I hopped in the front seat.
We drove into the more posh neighborhoods, all comprised of peach stone houses, down ally ways and roads that are behind crowded store fronts, tea stalls, and hotels, houses you otherwise would never noticed if you didn’t know the small road to turn down. For most of the ride I sat in silence, glancing back a few times to the girls and boys behind me, too young to be embarrassed by the pink uniforms required by their school. After about thirty minutes of picking up kids (it might be faster if the driver didn’t drive to the front of each house and instead had two or three universal stops, we definitely could have cut the time in half). Eventually, the one kid who spoke English was shuffled to the front seat next to me as we drove outside the city limits and finally towards the school. No sooner had I started my conversation with this nine-year boy when the bus got a flat tire. “Don’t worry ma’am, this happens every week,” my seat buddy assured me. I peered out the widow as the slim bus driver efficiently switched out the flat tire, I tried to picture school bus driver’s in America fixing a flat tire as quickly as this man did. Recalling my own elementary school bus driver I’m sure she never changed a flat tire in her life. She was probably over fifty, over-weights permed and died brown hair, wearing velcro shoes and a flowery designed blouse, and smoke still lingered in her breath from the last cigarette she had before starting her shift.
We arrived at the school and of course there were no tennis facilities, just a huge dirt field. So I was directed by the principle to just play with the children since apparently next week was sports testing week and they didn’t want to teach the kids anything new or purchase any new equipment. Actually this school’s resources and class-rooms impressed me, the kids were very well behaved, and most of the teachers could speak English.
I joined a group of young boys kicking around a soccer ball, there were no teams or goals, the game seemed to just be keep the ball yourself as long as possible (I was suddenly thankful for my summer soccer leagues and also lucky these boys weren’t too impressive themselves). After exhausting my interest in soccer I joined a younger group of girls and boys practicing yoga. This could be India’s advantage in the future, that their eight year olds already have the patience to meditate and chant ‘om’. While the rest of the world cannot sit still and stresses themselves out with our high-paced society, maybe Indian workers in the future will use their meditation skills to calmly conduct meetings and persevere. I hope this will happen in the NGO field particularly because so far I have been unimpressed with the NGO workers here. Many are corrupt and simply start an NGO to get tax breaks, money, or social recognition.
No city buses directly came to the school, so after a cup of chai, I was taken on a motorbike to the nearest bus stand about three miles away. There is nothing like an early morning ride on a motorbike in Rajasthan, the dessert cliffs with the sun emanating behind them and a gentle breeze to quell the rising temperatures. My mind was totally at peace as we whizzed down the gravel road, dodging tundra and pot-holes, there were no other vehicles in site and no one to stare at my white skin. I couldn’t help but smile and hope that I would be back, if nothing more than for this short, early morning motorbike ride.
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