Helping Jerry Shave

Wednesday, Nov. 24, Kumbalam (Part II)

Rajesh showed up here in Kumbalam tonight. When he first arrived, I was afraid he had come to see me about the fact that I left Sunday morning after waiting for him 1 ½ hours. He did say he went to the hotel and got my message. He mumbled some excuse about trouble getting a bus. But then he said he came on a bike he had borrowed for the day. I imagine he slept late and then borrowed the bike. Anyway, it doesn’t make a difference. Fortunately, he was here to see Joseph to ask about a pay raise.

When I was with Rajesh on Saturday, he told me he had trouble living on his salary. I got the impression that he told me that and took me to his home so that I would know the situation and maybe try to persuade Joseph to give him a raise. Of course, I said nothing to Joseph. While waiting on Joseph tonight, he again told me about his financial situation. It does sound bad on the surface. He makes 1750 rupees per month. That’s only $30.26 per month. His mother also works as an aid at a hospital. IF she makes as much as he does (which she may not but probably does), that’s only $2 per day of income for their family of 3. (There’s also a brother who was introduced to me as a student Saturday.) That family is living on 67 cents per person per day or less!! But here’s the other side of the coin that I now know from talking to Joseph after Rajesh was gone. Rajesh does not have a teaching degree and could probably not get a job in another school. He promised Joseph he would use some language tapes to improve his English if Joseph would hire him, and he never took the second tape. The brother graduated from technical school and had a job paying 3000 rupees per month in Bangalore and quit it to return home because he was having to spend most of it to eat out, since he doesn’t know how to cook and wouldn’t learn. Rajesh also does not know how to cook and spends 15 rupees per day to eat lunch at a boarding house. Some of Joseph’s teachers with teaching degrees only make 2000 rupees, so a raise for Rajesh could not be too much without upsetting them (and people ask about salaries here).

I had a bit of a feeling on Saturday that Rajesh also saw me as a money cow. He wanted to take trishaws when walking would have done. He ordered prawns even though I really wasn’t enthusiastic about them. Actually, in the back of my mind when I decided to leave after he was late, I was relieved to know I wouldn’t be spending a bundle of money on the day trip with him that day. Indians tend to think that Americans are rich, don’t worry about how much money they spend, and should share it with their Indian friends. My guess is that he knows the former English teacher from this campus and has observed how a former volunteer living with him is paying all the expenses and thought I might be a possible source of money for Rajesh. Anyway, I have decided to steer clear of Rajesh. When he proposed trying to go to Kovalam again this weekend using a rental bike, I told him I didn’t want the responsibility of a rental vehicle and that I wasn’t sure if Joseph had any plans for me for the weekend. Both were true, but they were also excuses to stop the planning there.

Thursday, Nov. 24, Kumbalam (Thanksgiving in the U.S.)

I had forgotten it was Thanksgiving until Joseph mentioned it. His children had called him from Boston. At breakfast, we explained the meaning of Thanksgiving.

I did laundry this morning. It’s a tedious, hot task here with mosquitoes swarming around throughout it. I’ll only have to do it one more time just before I leave, thank goodness.

I also finished the last scope and sequence chart for the school. There are charts for 13 subjects, and at least 5 of them are double charts because they had to be broken into two due to the subject being taught at all grade levels. What a relief it is to be finished! I hope they will be helpful to the school. Joseph is proud of them because they are impressive to show people. But I have also seen him actually using them to try to analyze the program.

I went to Tangasseri with Joseph this afternoon. Since Rosalind is there full time now, it was the first time I’ve seen her since last Wednesday. On the way back to Kumbalam, we stopped at a small roadside stand for parota (pulled, twisted flat bread) with beef curry. It was great. Joseph treated, since it cost a grand total of 35 rupees (81 cents) for the two of us together.

I finished reading Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett. It is a collection of short stories with each related to science in some way. I really liked it. The writing was wonderful. 4 stars out of 4!

Friday, Nov. 25, Kumbalam

We had my favorite breakfast today—rice flour dosa (pancakes) spread with a thick syrupy sugar-grated coconut mixture. Ummm! It’s one of the few ways they use coconut here as a sweet.

Joseph must be paying attention to my list of observations and suggestions, because there was a big uproar this morning during which he did not raise his voice. I set it off accidentally by asking Shivani why she was keeping her eyes almost closed. Anashree, the daughter of Prameela the cook, spoke up to say she had put eyeliner on Shivani’s eyes. Joseph told her she shouldn’t do that because it is easy to damage the eyes. Joseph told her not to do it again. Prameela went into one of her yelling rages. I couldn’t tell why, since it was in Malayalam, but there could only be about 3 possibilities:

1. Fussing at Anashree for having done it (either because she shouldn’t have or because she shouldn’t be wasting the cosmetics).
2. Fussing at Joseph for getting onto Anashree.
3. Fussing in general out of embarrassment that her daughter got into trouble.
Anyway, she yelled and yelled and just wouldn’t let it go. Anashree began crying, and the yelling continued. All the time, Joseph was trying to stop it by saying, “That’s enough,” 2 or 3 times. Then he spoke back to Prameela in Malayalam and she began yelling directly at him for sure. All the while, he kept calm with a controlled voice. A week ago, they would have both been yelling. I guess the item on my list of observations
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After n ordinary day when I helped the vice principal begin learning to do word processing and interviewed a job candidate, I had a special experience tonight. Jerry came to me to say that he wanted me to tech him to shave. He's had a thin mustache of dark hair on his upper lip for several months and is proud of it. But he ha recently had skraggly hairs growing on his lower lip and his chin. A friend of his told him it looked bad. So I gave him a new disposable razor from my pack and helped him shave for the first time in his life. Then I warned him about never using someone else's razor and never loaning his out. (HIV-AIDS and hepatitis are problems here.) He's been rubbing his fingers over the smoothly shaved area all night since then.

I've begun reading Snow Falling on Cedars. Many friends read it and loved it when it first came out, but I was still teaching then and not reading as many books for pleasure as I do now. Everybody raves about it, so I'm looking forward to reding it.