Three Children Who Could Save the World

I did it! At long,  long last I have uploaded a round of photos! But the next round might take equally long, so if you'd like more you'll just have to keep up with Ninotchka's blog. While she's decided that writing weekly is too unfortunately closer to work than play, she's nonetheless much more committed than I to keeping a steady stream of photography netward bound (the primary work Nosh has been up to here concerns writing—proposals, a new curriculum for an extremely impoverished school and a teaching-training program for slum-dwelling would-be educators; so, writing for leisure currently amounts to a sick joke, from her perspective). You can see my meager supply of visuals here (or, if you've missed the other photos I've put up, you can see them all here).

In December I had become dreadfully bored; there had been a shortage of students with both the prerequisite basic computer knowledge and basic English to whom I could teach Photoshop (or indeed, any of the computer skills I am 'qualified' to teach). English classes at Lha run in three-month semesters, and December, being the third month in the series, held no opportunities to scoop up some extra teaching time. I busied myself rather a lot with web design, but frequently I'd been feeling stagnant and underwhelmed. So, any time anyone asked me if I could do anything at all I unwaveringly responded with an enthusiastic "yes". Yet, what I failed to do was keep track of how many things I had assented to, the consequence of which is that, as 2010 spun into existence, I shifted abruptly from under to overwhelmed. Currently, I teach guitar lessons Mon-Wed-Fri from 11:00am-~1:00pm, and Mon-Fri I teach English from 2-3, and then Photoshop from 3-5. Then I go to my tutoring sessions, three amazing kids who live nearby, which takes place in their shared bedroom and tends to run until about seven at night. Coupled with my current allotment of four websites to build, I am more than a little exhausted lately. But, it's gratifying work—all of it—and I tend to prefer complaining about being busy to lamenting being bored.

The private tutoring, though, is in its own way the most gratifying. This has nothing to do with the work itself, which is in fact altogether gruelling and something that quite frankly I wish I had never agreed to do. I have come to realize (and grudgingly accept) that I am the sort of teacher who does very well if given a couple of geniuses to direct and mold. But the gentle, patient and repetitive prodding along a path walked by the tiniest of steps is the sort of thing I neither do well myself nor have the slightest idea how to get others to do. In short, I do believe I have a talent for explaining things well—in English. Actually teaching English, on the other hand, is frustrating in the extreme; it could be likened to teaching sign language whilst wearing handcuffs. If I had hair, I would tear it out.

So, why do I enjoy this part of my day so much? Because of the kids. They're just... these three are the absolute epitome of everything that's right and good and beautiful in the world, and if it were possible to distill their nature into a tonic that could subsequently be sold in all the wealthy bits of the Earth, Utopia would shortly follow.

There is Tsering, an eleven year-old boy, Sonam, a girl of ten and Tsering's cousin, and finally Phurbu (pronounced as an aspirated poor-boo, not fur-bu), who is Sonam's sister. They couldn't be more different, but collectively they are just heart-wrenchingly, ego-shatteringly beautiful. Tsering loves hip-hop and Buddhism,  and is a walking stereotype of an eleven year-old boy in at least a dozen ways; energetic, roguish, attention-hungry and very concerned with playing at being a man. This isn't helped by the complete absence of his father. Rather, he's grown up at a monastery with his uncle (who is also a friend of mine, for whom I did some meager design work, and it was by his request that I agreed to teach these kids). He's extremely committed to helping his family, and prides himself on his independence. When his Uncle is away (which is most of the time; he lives in Bir, a town several hours away by bus), Tsering tends to be the one who does the major errands for their home and it's usually his job to get things fixed (just yesterday I taught him how to safely use and understand their propane regulator, which is leaky if not used with great care). His aunt (who is also the girls' mother), suffers from very serious rhumatoid arthritis and generally can't bend significantly at the waist or traverse stairs more than once in a while. So, Tsering also cooks, and occasionally makes trips into lower Dharamsala and other towns to pick up medicines—by himself! The juxtaposition of responsible adult and playful boy is sometimes amazing; yesterday he paused in the middle of reconnecting their stove and the afore-mentioned propane tank (a heavy canister easily two-thirds his own body size) in order to go make-out with himself in a mirror—an unfortunately successful attempt to distract his cousins from their lessons (...sadly, I didn't fair any better than did the girls at resisting his joke).  One of my closest friends, Sam, kept a blog of his teaching experiences in Korea, those who read it came to know a character named Paul. This kid is simply never going to appreciate the celebrity he momentarily enjoyed, but his antics were a constant source of amusement to those of us reading about him back home; and I am finally learning to appreciate how hard it is not to encourage these children by enjoying their disruptive behaviour. Or, as Sam artfully put it when his student had decided to deploy a common Korean means of being a nuisance at the rump of a statue of Christ: 

 I"Paul?" I asked dumbfoundedly "Are you dung-chipping Jesus?"

He was indeed.

It was something no one else would have conceivable done or even thought, and as such (even if it's something I'm unimpressed with) it's something which instantly makes him stand out in the class. I think at his age, it doesn't register if the attention is earned or exasperating, as long as it delivers.

It's something I'm working to ignore, but it's pretty hard when a kid is pantomiming jamming his fingers into the Son of God's arse— so to speak.

Though, the rare occasion does present itself wherein I come out on top despite Tsering pulling these stunts. He'd been away for a few weeks, and he recently returned, so at the end of our lesson I told him that I'd missed him. He grinned devlishly and said he'd missed me too, whereupon he started to babble at me in Tibetan. Phurbu started laughing and appeared embarassed, so I suspected I was becoming the brunt of some joke I couldn't fathom. Phurbu insisted he was simply explaining that he'd missed me too; but when he got down on one knee and started looking me lovingly in the eye, the joke became obvious. My response was approximately: "Tsering, this surreptitious attempt to impune my admission of sentiment before you is quite unbecoming of even an adolescent rapscallion such as yourself, and I hereby insist you reform your conduct posthaste." A moment passed, during which his mischievous grin waned and confusion broke out over his face (as his English was absolutely unfit to the task of comprehending me). I had been on my way out the door, and now it was my turn to grin: "What, don't you understand my joke?" I went, and winked. His amused defeat was the last thing I saw before I left.

Sonam, who I've just started to teach, is the shiest, sweetest, angelic little figure you could possibly dream up. We shook hands on the first day, after I'd made everyone leave the room so she and I could become acquainted without anyone trying to speak for or over her. Since then, I cannot enter or leave her company without shaking hands, though the ritual has become a sort of metacarpal hug more than a handshake. While Tsering will concoct any manner of attention-grabbing distraction he can (a favorite being to sneak under the bed and grab at our ankles when we're not looking), Sonam will only speak in a hushed whisper if I am teaching someone else, and moves through the room like a shadow.  Yesterday I told her she didn't need to whisper, and she nodded that she understood. In fact, what she had understood was that she was clearly whispering loudly enough for me to detect her, whereupon her voice dropped to the decibel equivalent of absolute zero. But she has a quiet confidence that I can't help but admire, and if she makes me a promise she'll keep it no matter how it challenges her. Tibetans have such reverence for teachers that they generally won't admit to having failed to understand a lesson (they consider this to be their fault and are ashamed if they cannot learn everything  perfectly and immediately). Hence, I make all of my students promise me that they'll ask me questions if they don't understand, because the alternative tends to be me speaking into the air a lot and them failing to learn anything from it. Sonam is one of the precious few who's kept this promise, and the dignity and duty with which she undertakes any of her work exceeds what I would have  been willing to believe a ten-year old could muster. Finally, I refuse to believe that there exists an emotional barricade in any human being that wouldn't succumb like gossamer threads before a charging bull to her trust,  openness and affection. Yesterday, whilst I was teaching Phurbu, Sonam, with her gentle stealth, crept up onto the bed and put her head in my lap, whereupon she quietly sank into a deep concentration, trying to learn what she could from her sister's more advanced lessons. The feeling of having a child you barely know but deeply admire do this to you is something like having the entire universe alight onto your shoulder to whisper in your ear, "oh, by the way, no matter how you may have mistakenly perceived yourself as unsavory and inadequate, you are in fact the safest, kindest and gentlest thing in existence, to which beauty, grace and innocence are attracted like flies to honey. If any of this doesn't sit well with your conception of yourself, please don't hesitate to get over it because there other forces at play more qualified than  you to make this assessment and they simply don't agree." It's very necessary, at times like these, that I concentrate on my lesson because otherwise there's a very good chance I'll just start crying.

Finally there's Phurbu. I've spent more time with her than the others, and at fourteen she's reached that pivotal moment in life at which one begins to understand, with both dread and anticipation, that adulthood is coming for them whether they're ready for it or not. When we first met, I was tutoring her alone because her sister and cousin were away. At the time, she was living completely alone for about a month. She would get her own groceries, and cook her own food (and I mean meals, folks, not a box of Kraft Dinner). She would clean the house, daily, with no one to check to see if she had, and study with equal diligence. She gets up at 5:00am, now, which is sleeping in her for; January and February are the longest holiday from school Indian children get. At boarding school, though, Phrubu gets up voluntarily at 4:30am, half an hour before her schoolmates, to get in some extra studying before the day begins. After this, prayer, cleaning and class consume her day until about six in the evening, whereupon she gets to study a little more before going to bed. 

Phrubu is brilliant, especially in mathematics. When we do math together, it's like dancing; the numbers fly around the page, and she becomes visibly excited by the logic playing out in her head. She is emotionally moved by math, which is something I share with her and few others. Meanwhile (and ironically) she detests 'science' and refuses to let me teach it to her because adding English to the already unbearable task of learning the fundamentals of atomic structure and covalent bonding lies just beyond the threshold of her formidable patience. When I teach her science, I am fully reminded that she is indeed a fourteen year-old girl, and she is quick to whine and sulk and be altogether infuriating. She's found a Tibetan science tutor, however, so the enemy has moved on. Nonetheless, I sorely wish I could be there when she finally realizes how intimately connected are math and physical sciences; I can't yet decide if she'll experience chagrin, woe or a very sudden sense of reconciliation.

Phurbu and I have set up a schedule so that I can teach her privately; when I try to teach them altogether, her maternal (or...um... siblingal?...) instinct is too overwhelming to penetrate. She tries to learn from me, but her eye is constantly roving to her younger sister and cousin, and when I am trying to test Sonam, I can always see Phurbu waiting in agony for the answer to come. Her face contorts with worry and it's clear that she has to use every ounce of restraint to keep from shouting out the answer. While Tsering has the same problem, his primary interest is in demonstrating his own brilliance (which, I confess, I have trouble admonishing him for because I still have to take conscious control of this urge...). Phrubu, meanwhile, is simply desperately afraid of Sonam feeling inadequate, or else of Sonam failing to learn. It's amazing, it truly is; she is deeply concerned with and affected by how well and how much Sonam and Tsering learn. The way these three interact... they love each other so freely, and their concern for each other takes precedence over everything. Even when I am exhausted, famished and completely finished with my day I cant help but be charmed by them, and without ever trying to they always get me to stay far longer than I intend simply because I can't bear to fail them. If I could, I wouldn't teach them anymore; I don't really like it very much. But the very notion that they might think I rejected them, or worse, that they could believe they'd done something to make me go away, is completely unbearable.

So, this is what I'm up to these days; coding in the morning, teaching in the afternoon and evening, and finally a little TV before bed. Of course, it's not TV exactly... the vast  majority of anyone reading this will fail to appreciate at all the significance of what I'm about to confess, but... it turns out a friend of mine named Orion has brought, on her hard drive, ten seasons and two movies of a popular anime called Bleach.  And I, like so many of my friends before me, have become hopelessly, helplessly, absoringly addicted to it. All of the forthcoming "I told you so's" are warranted and accepted—worry not, my spirit-force is strong enough to withstand the reprimand. /wink