Rainbow Primary School

Here are the boys acting like...boys. They were dancing and tickling all at the same time. We whacked-a-mole. The landlady is now an avid supporter of the school...until April. Then we get kicked out. But we whacked-a-mole again! The land transfer paper is now signed by all the necessary government people (see the post on "Indian Bureaucracy"). It turns out we had the plot behind our very nice neighbor's plot so there was no conflict over the land. Now the only step left is filing with the proper revenue government guy. Since we took five weeks running these government yahoos down just to secure the land, we have launched project "Kick Down the Door." Seems there is some supreme being to all the bureaucracy called the District Collector. This all-powerful person is highly recommended to me by my nonprofit friends. They consider him to be a reasonable, unassuming man. So I asked a friend to ask a friend who has connections to get us an appointment. ...

Isn't he darling? We do a lot of drawing here to cement in their minds different concepts and words. For example, today for English class, 4th standard drew Spiderman standing and sitting to learn those two words. Whack-a-Mole. We just found out the government did not own the land "sanctioned" to us for the new school. Who owns it? Our very reasonable neighbor who lives in a big house next to the slum. His son is studying at MIT, so our neighbor "gets" Americans and we talked for a long time (in English). He offered to help us buy another piece of land in the area for the school. We'll see where that goes. That same day (yesterday, Sunday) we found out we had royally ticked off our landlady. She was furious with us for cleaning out the room she is renting to us to serve as the office (top right). She is kicking us out entirely on Wednesday, out of the office and, it appears, out of the school. She has already hired a contractor to build a one-room apartm...

This blog entry was written by our darling teachers, Sunitha (Preschool), Neha (2nd Standard) and Divya (1st Standard). They picked this picture to post. Please keep in mind that there is no capitalization in Hindi or Telegu: "my childran is very good. inrainbow school i love pree school and all students and i love leighanne and kalpana. teachers names neha khan adi laxmi sunitha divya vijaya medam school antys names sabera bee nagamma." This means: "My students are very good. I love teaching preschool, and all the students. (this was written by Sunitha) I love Leigh Anne and Kalpana. Teachers' names: Neha Khan, Adi Laxmi, Sunitha, Divya, Vijaya. (this was written by Neha) School Aunties (teacher aides) names: Sabera Bee, Nagamma. "(this was by Divya) GOOD JOB, TEACHERS! Not bad at all. Then they sent an e-mail to their exhange teacher in the United States, my life-long friend Mary Helen. She teaches high school in Atlanta, Georgia. It was their firs...

Yesterday, the children, parents, and teachers picked the name for the school. RAINBOW PRIMARY SCHOOL I immediately ordered "Rainbow Head" wigs. Just kidding. We all stayed after the meeting to remove a thick layer of sand from the floor of our hut. It was making a mess during school time, dust was always in the air. There were one hundred little hands scurrying to fill buckets with sand, then tussling over who got to use the shovel to put the sand in the buckets. Other kids were fighting over who got to take the buckets of sand to the sandpile. The teachers formed a bucket line to pass the buckets down to the place to dump the sand. I helped them. As buckets came by, we would say "This is ice cream!" or "This is veg biriyani!" There were also a few three- and four-year-olds who forced their way onto the worksite. They had tiny little buckets they would fill with sand, the put on their heads (like their mommies) and walk, very straight and tall, t...

Today we faced the Indian bureaucracy, again. This is a picture of where paperwork goes to die. I also took a picture of the file clerk; he was not pleased. Kalpana was rightfully embarrased by all this picture taking. I said they would remember the crazy American lady and you should pose by the sign to the DEO's office. We were visiting Ms. Mallamma (the DEO, District Education Officer, for those of you keeping track). We needed her signature on the paper saying we have permission to start construction on the new school. She was in a meeting, all day. In typical Kalpana style, we busted into her office, left her an "Urgent!" note with the paper on the middle of her desk, then snuck off while the cleaning lady yelled at us. We told her we cleared it with Sirinivas. [Everyone is named Laxmi (for girls) or Sirinivas (for boys), so we thought we'd get away with it.] We did eventually run into a Sirinivas who worked as the assistant to the assistant to Ms. Mallamma, but ...

The little one is our mascot. His name is Naag. He comes to school with his big brother, on the left. Then he makes visits to my office. He sits right by my feet, rustling papers and finding spare toys to plunk around. He is a fearless and smart; Naag will be a big star in the preschool class next year. The last three weeks were outrageous, success upon success. Today we had 107 total students. The neighborhood vendors, temple priests, and grandmothers have all started to shoo stragglers to school. I am excited to start reaching out to parents who have children in the workforce at tea stalls, as errand boys, or even laborers. Here is a picture of our little hut, completely overrun with the kids. There are thirty more in groups of ten sitting in circles on the perimeter of the hut, out of the picture. I have no idea what we will do if it rains! But there was more news today. The Education department posted a formal opening for a professional teacher for our little school. This means a u...

This is Sunitha with her little one. The big spot on the baby is to ward off the evil spirits. There is another by her ear. All the babies here are running around with spots on various places. Sunitha is about 80 lbs of dynamite. She wrangles all the preschoolers and may be the only preschool educator in the state to sing nursery rhymes in Hindi, Telegu, and English to her class. After the preschoolers go home, she teaches drawing and referees games of "Red Rover" and "Red Light/Green Light" for the 1st and 2nd Standard children. Today, I walked into the neighborhood towards the school at the usual time after dropping Campbell off at her preschool. It was quiet. Too quiet. Where were all the little kids who flap around me every time I turn onto the street, screaming "HI AUNTIE?" I walked and walked. I saw the littlest ones stuck to their mommies like baby opossums, but no other children. This is WIERD. I reached the gate to the courtyard where we have our ...

This is the site of the new school. We have 300 square yards, all ours! And with a view! The current residents in the pile of sticks are two dogs and two cats, with two puppies and two kittens. The big house in the background belongs to people who make movies here in Hyderabad, along with their extended family of cousins, aunts, grandparents, and servants. They call this town "Tollywood" because of all the Telegu-language movies. It is common in India to have big houses smack next to shacks and huts. There is another doozy of a house across the street from the main area of the slum. The road to get to this piece of heaven was bumpy. We drove far out of the city to a dusty office building that didn't seem to have phones. First, we had to push paper to the MEO, Mandal Education Officer. After him, we went to see the MRO, the Mandal Revenue Officer. He made us wait at least a hour before letting us in; we shuffled around in the hallway next to loud, lower-rung politico...

Here are three kids who couldn't get enough of school today. They stayed late and took some "catch up" lessons from Sunitha, who usually teaches preschool. These kids need no motivation...they only need a little calming down! Most all of the kids bounch around like little grasshoppers, they are so excited to be at school. Today, we reached 101 students. We're likely to get to 250 as parents start to feel they can rely on the "government" school. Some of the others are starting to send their girls to school. Most have never been!

On the right is my partner, Kalpana O., of the Prardhana Chartiable Trusts. The other ladies are volunteers from the Lion's Club of Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. Kalpana is an unstoppable force of nature. Government bureaurats shake when they hear her name. In three weeks, she pummeled them into submission and they have agreed to give the school a lot nearby to build a permanent school. This picture is from Children's Day, a festival for all schoolchildren in honor of India's first president, Nehru.

Welcome to the Mastan Nagar Neighborhood Primary School! This blog chronicles the establishment of a primary school in a slum neighborhood in Hyderabad, India. This neighborhood is near Hy-Tech City, where many of the American and European software companies have large offices with thousands of Indian employees. The children and their families welcomed the new school on November 2, 2005. The "school" is a thatched hut with blackboards painted on the walls, but a new building will be up in 2006! We got the news today we have the go-ahead to build very soon. The first temporary school, well, it fell down. After three days of heavy rains, the plastic-sheeting roof caved in and the whole thing skewed to the right and crashed into the brick wall of the little one-room apartments next door. All our teachers happen to live right there. Their husbands went out in the rain to try to push the thing right side up again, but we had to start all over in the morning. I asked Kalpana if thi...