Exams

About a month or so ago, a woman arrived at Balika Mandiram, the Girl's Orphanage. Her name was Sumi, and she was going to be the live-in teacher for the 8 girls living at Balika Mandiram. She would be there to help the children with their homework, and help those who are behind to catch up. She seemed gentle to me at first - somewhat timid, but interested in helping the children. She would even quiz me! - on Malayalam words.

Two days after her arrival, she took me aside. "The children are very naughty," she told me. "Very lazy. They do not study. You must help me." I balked. These girls, who I love so dearly? Who care for each other like tiny mothers, who have encountered more than their fair share of tragedy and turmoil already, who try their hardest - Lazy? Naughty? But what could I say to Sumi? Of course I want them to learn. Of course, I've been helping. "OK, I will help," I told her.

The teaching system in India is very different than in the US. Learning is memorization; memorization is learning. And sparing the rod spoils the child. So it shouldn't have been a surprise when Sumi started caring a small bamboo stick around the study room at Balika Mandiram. But it was. And it shouldn't have broken my heart when the girls started crying because they couldn't remember how to count by two's past 22 or didn't remember how to spell elephant. But it did. Sumi seemed to want the girls to learn and to do well in school. But she seemed totally unsympathetic to them.

Today - Tuesday - most of the girls begin their final exams. Sumi had decided to take a quick break at her home this past weekend, and so had left Friday with plans of returning on Sunday. During the weekend, I helped the girls study as much as I could. Past English and math, though, my help is fairly useless. Despite the bamboo stick, Sumi can help the girls in more subjects than I can. She was really going to have to crank it up on Sunday to make up for her absence! But Sunday came and went with no sign of Sumi. During afternoon tea on Monday, Anju came up to me: "Sumi go. Sumi poyi." Yes, yes, she went to her house, I thought. Anju couldn't have just noticed that, after a three-day absence. I must have looked confused. "No, Cammy Auntie," explained another girl, "Sumi left Mandiram."

So, the day before the girls' exams began, their teacher left, never to return. Who would help the girls now with their Malayalam, their Hindi, their history and their science? How are they going to get through exams? I wondered if Sumi ever really had the girls' best interests at heart. I know that she felt the job of teaching the girls was overwhelming, but I felt frustrated and angry that she had just given up. I wondered if the girls felt the same way. "Anju," I asked, "are you happy or sad?" Happy that Sumi and her bamboo stick were gone? Sad that another person had given up on her?

"HAPPY!" she said, in a voice so loud she even shocked herself. She immediately threw her hands over her mouth and looked around to make sure Sumi was nowhere in sight. The other girls laughed. They seemed more relaxed, happier, than they had for the past few weeks.

Exams, shmexams.