Rainbow Primary School

Today was the day! Construction began on the new school building. The Naandi team and the teaching team held a pooja for Ganesh, the good-natured elephant-headed god who is said to remove obstacles. The part of the ceremony where coconuts are broken in front of Ganesh is particularly important. Both coconuts broke on the first try. The teams went wild. This was very auspicious! Look at Happy Mr. Bhartee, our engineer from Naandi! And here is the construction crew with the first piece of real action. They are leveling the lot for the foundation and structural pillars.

These two were caught outside their huts, doing HOMEWORK! Love that!

Here is a great picture. I caught Sunitha in the act of conducting an extremely child-friendly Hindi lesson. She picked up the local cat (a white and ginger boy cat I call "Lal," which means red). She used Lal during a 1st standard A section lesson using a BIG book, constructed and donated by Sangeeta Gupta, our strongest and longest-serving volunteer. (The big books are part of the literacy methods we use, borrowed from the Columbia Teacher's College literacy program.) This Hindi "big book was" about a cat that escaped from her owner, a little girl. The kids LOVED this lesson, they sat spell-bound in their seats - eyes sparkling. I was so happy that Sunitha and the rest of the teachers are using their training that we had a party - cool drinks party - that day during the meeting. CHEERS!

Our doctor, Arati, had to return to her practice in the U.S. last month. Before she left, she gave her youngest son's old "cadillac" stroller to Eliya, our special needs student. This stroller is BIG. It has all kinds of levers, a sun shade, cushions all around, and nice, solid wheels. That is why Americans call these kinds of strollers "cadillac" strollers. This stroller has turned Eliya into the favorite, favorite playmate in Mastan Nagar. Boys and girls gather around his house after school, beg to take Eliya on a stroller ride, then fight for their turn to push him. Up and down the main lane in Mastan Nagar he thunders about like Mad Max, his cadillac stroller scattering the chickens, dogs, and smaller children! He loves it. He constantly grins and swivels his head around to catch the changing shadows (Eliya is partially blind). Eliya is playing. Eliya is playing.

There have been some outstanding in-kind donations at the school. Here are pictures from the latest in the long, long line of in-kind donations. This is Linda and Christine, two wonderful members of the Twin-Cities Ex-patriots Association (the "twin cities" are Secunderabad and Hyderabad). Linda and Christine are putting new dresses and pants/shirts onto our little preschoolers. HOW PRECIOUS! So many donations have come in that Usha Madam, the teachers and I met yesterday to (along with our usual to-do items) put down some guidelines for giving. Here is the back-story on what I call the "Goodies Phenomenon." The phenomenon shows how counterintuitive the minds are in the slum -- compared to what one would think -- when donations are handed out: Our slum community is quite hilarious about donations. Most of the parents are illiterate. That explains why they do not complain or ask for more books or school supplies, which are regularly handed out without inciden...

In a previous post, "Almost a Cinderella Story," there was a story of a little boy named Vada Prasad. He and his mother have returned to the slum after a few months in her native village. I visited them today. Vada Prasad looks FANTASTIC!! I'm so happy!! She is now showing much more interest in taking care of him. She is even going to physiotherapy with him at our local government hospital. All signs point to his survival, even that he will thrive, but all the RPS staff will keep a close eye on him. This is a big win for the school! He looks like a real BOY now, not a shrimpy, floppy half-boy. He is holding up his head, really responds to stimuli, and is constantly trying to turn over and grab at things. And here are those fun pictures.

We had a great group of visitors come through. This is in addition to our wonderful volunteers - we now have a volunteer teaching one hour of Telegu, Hindi, or English EVERYDAY! Here are some pictures of our recent visitors. They handed out goodies, had fun with the children, and really showed some community spirit! It has been a joy hosting these fun visitors.

This little one is a new student in our pre-school class. She is our "Cinderella Story." I first met her the first month school opened, one year ago. I was going around the slum one night recruiting students and talking to parents with my teachers. Early at night is the absolute best time to see the slum and the parents. That time of night there is a very happy time. So I was not surprised to see Premalata and her family, enjoying the night air, sitting out by the goat pens in the middle of one of the alleys. Premalata (her name means love) is the younger sister of one of my outstanding 4th standard students, Bhandisha (her names means the sun). When I saw Premalata, who was clearly school-aged – seven years old or so - I was concerned that she wasn't coming to school with Bhandisha. Then her family told me that she was special. She did appear glassy-eyed, but blissful and happy. She did look like she had mild mental retardation. Fantastic, I thought, she can be a...

Here is a recent picture of our happy teachers and staff. Last week, we signed up a new partner organization! The MV Foundation is sending us a teacher (haaa haaa! wheee!!) and a steady supply of student notebooks. Both are permanent. Notebooks are the most important "teaching tool" we have. The students writing down, then reflecting and revisiting their work in their very own notebooks is a luxury almost all the government schools do not have. We are SO grateful to the MV Foundation. Finally, the low level government officials we work with are suddenly (and suspiciously) very cooperative. We think it is the good press that one of our angel advisors keeps lining up for us. Suddenly, we have a TON of rice. Literally, in our storehouse is a ton of government rice for the mid-day meal. And they are supplying us with water on a more regular basis. Last, the Lion's Club of Jubilee Hills has decided to make us a permanent recepient of their fine, professional servic...

HOW MUCH FUN can we have? Today was Teacher's Day, a day when students in schools all across India celebrate teachers. Students dress up as their teachers and take charge of the classes, all the while suffering from some particularly naughty new students. These new students (the teachers in disguise) sit in the first row, pulling pranks and cracking jokes. The new "teachers" scold them with wild theatrics and earnest faces. Then all have cake! The "teachers" cut the cake and feed the "students" with lots of messy, messy results. At the Rainbow School, we had fantastic, beautiful sarees on our little student/teachers. In the middle, sitting, in a coral saree is Swapna who was in a past blog post "Politics." Her hair is finally growing out, and she moved up to 2nd standard. Smart girl! The boys dressed up as the government officials rather than teachers. We have had unusually frequent contact with the government officials so the stu...

Here are two spunky little 5th standard boys who are great student leaders. They organize their other classmates to get to school on time, they help the teachers and are on hand to decorate for holidays, they study outside their huts until the sun is no more in the sky. I wish all students in the world could see these two, they are wonderful!

Vara Prasad was almost a Cinderella Story. Here are some of his baby pictures. To recap, the grand strategy of the Rainbow School is "Education for All." Even special needs children are asked to come and the staff will work to find the proper doctors, proper physiotherapy, or even a special school for them. I first saw little Vara Prasad in April. He was severely afflicted by cerebral palsy, but sharp-eyed. He lived about half a mile from the school. He would look around and fix right on whoever was talking to him. The teachers and I asked him to come with his mother once a week to school, and definitely come see the government hospital doctors for assessment and physiotherapy. Vara Prasad comes from an unusual family. All of his siblings have slight mental retardation, his oldest sister is particularly slow. It turns out his parents had their own problems, as well. While they had seen doctors for Vara Prasad again and again, they were looking for a “cure.” In Apri...

Today was Independence Day! We were doing the usual flag raising ceremony, minding our own business. The teachers and students decorated the temporary school with mango leaves and crepe paper streamers (pasted on with hand-made glue). We had treats for all and prizes for the winners of the latest art competition. We were entertaining a great set of visitors: A local private school, the Chirec Public School (how cute are these girls), handed out goodies and the ever-wonderful Lion's Club members came with more goodies. Then two large thugs appeared. They were quite sweet, and they wore smart polyester safari suits. But they insisted I go with them, along with a group of the students. Ismail translated...the big man of this Mastan Nagar area, a state minister (for mining and natural resources) named RAO, wanted the students to come and raise the flag at his place. They gave us five minutes to show up...so we packed the kids and went conga-line style down the road. Rao's...

Hari is our government engineer who approves plans for new government buildings, including our school. Here is he, really working hard, with the government team and our Naandi Foundation project manager, Mr. Bhartee (white shirt, seated). Mr. Bhartee will oversee the construction of the Rainbow School's new, permanent school building. Hari is a fan of the Naandi Foundation's school construction because Naandi is everywhere in Hyderabad! They are building 300 schools around the city of Hyderabad with funding from the Dell Foundation. Since Hari is so impressed with the Naandi team, he told us about a Central Government pot of money that may be available to help make ends meet for the construction budget. Woo hoo! He's going to apply for the funds (only government people can apply) this week. And with a huge grin, I report that the engineers were FUN, yet very professional. They made sure Mr. Bhartee were looked after while waiting for Hari, the tea was just fantasti...

The Maharaja of Baroda, Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III, was an unusual man. In 1908, he gave a young "untouchable" from Maharastra a full scholarship to Columbia University (NYC). The young man obtained his MA from Columbia, then grew to become one of India's leading lights and the author of the Indian constitution. The Rainbow Primary School teachers have adopted this great Indian, Dr. Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, as the guardian "spir it" for the school. His picture will go on the school sign and on the outside walls of the new school building. Mahesh is our greatest student; we think he will be our Dr. Ambedkar. He is a born gentleman, a genuinely gifted student, and mature for his age -- even for a slum child. His mother, a widow, sent him for to work during the summer holiday. When school started, there was no Mahesh. His mother had decided 800 rupees a month was more important than school. After weeks of knocking on his mothers door and begging to send...

Usha Madam, our headmistress, had a great idea. She led the children in a rally around the neighborhood to "advertise" the school and the strength of the student body. Today, we did it a second time. Here they are! What a huge line of kids, it is just crazy! Thanks, Usha Madam! (We call her that, all senior people are called by the first name, then Madam. They try to call me that, but I can't stand it so they call me Auntie.) Here she is, in her office, perfecting the admissions register. After the rally, everyone got bananas. It was lovely to see all the kids settling in, muching down bananas, pulling out books and notebooks to get ready for one set of lessons before the lunch. It is just so good to see them eating. So many of the students are just too thin. Venkatesh (see earlier posts) and his sibilings, Manjula and Swami, are great examples of this. They are tiny creatures. Swami, the youngest, is six but Campbell is nearly ten pounds bigger than he i...