My last day of teaching was
bittersweet for multiple reasons.
Yes, I will miss some of my
students very much. To some, I definitely will be glad to say good riddance. But there is one to whom I can never say goodbye.
I haven’t been using proper names in this blog, but his name deserves to be mentioned. Abdul Aziz Qureshi. Just a little boy, with a round, happy face, and eyes that smile. One of the well-behaved students. A bright boy who took advanced mathematics classes twice a week. Whose smile was genuine and happy and made one involuntarily return the smile.
Two Saturdays ago, while the world was glued to CNN, hearts dropping and sending panicked facebook messages to friends in Japan, one family was oblivious to this earthquake. No TV at home, but they were still in mourning. They were mourning little Abdul Aziz.
Two Saturdays ago, Abdul Aziz was playing with his friends. The city is a dangerous place. I recently read, in Maximum City, by Suketu Mehta, that breathing Mumbai’s air is the equivalent of smoking 2.5 packs of cigarettes per day. That Mumbai’s air has 10 times the permissible lead levels. But there are so many more dangers than just breathing the air. The ground is uneven, not due to hills (though, on a rare clear day, you can see some large hills/mountains in the background), but uneven due to unkempt roads. Rubble and trash line every street, regardless of whether the rich or poor live there. For adults, walking is a constant battle with uprooted sidewalks. For children, there is no green grass on which to play. If they play sports, they play them on the streets, which are cleaner and less rubble-strewn than most areas. There are very few playgrounds with slides and other things to climb. So they find other things to climb. Not trees, which don’t exist where Abdul Aziz lives. But there are plenty of construction sites, none of which are well secured.
Little Abdul Aziz was playing with his friends on one such site that fateful day. Spotting a crane, they climbed up to play. But something went wrong this time. Something on the crane moved. It moved, and crushed the bright little boy.
I can’t imagine how horrible this must have been. To be Abdul Aziz. Or to be the friends, playing with him, running frantically home to his mother. To be Abdul Aziz’s mother, probably running frantically back to his tiny body. When I close my eyes, I see his face.
Because I was in Bangalore on Monday, I wasn’t notified of the event until Tuesday. Just a text message, stating only that he passed away on Saturday in an accident. My stomach just dropped. Earlier in the day I had heard from one friend that she still had not heard from her Grandma in the earthquake (fortunately, I have since heard she was found okay). It is just too much at once.
I was completely unsure as to what my actions should be. Will there be school counselors available? No answer. So I did what I find calming. I bought 29 packets of crayons, and 18 coloring books. I took them in, and talked a bit with the students. I passed out the crayons and coloring books and told them it helps me to color when I am feeling sad.
When I first arrived at school, some students seemed excited about the death. I don’t think it was in a bad way, or that they are bad people. But I don’t think death means as much to little kids, perhaps. It was exciting news to share. Sad, and they cried, certainly. But they still wanted to be the first to tell me. Some wanted to share feelings, some didn’t. They asked me if I cried. We talked, colored a bit, learned a bit, and went back to coloring. I hope I handled it okay.
The next day was to be my last, so I felt doubly guilty for leaving them in this situation. Fortunately, there is a new volunteer who is quite good, and she will be taking over for a couple of weeks, so it is good to know they are in capable hands.
Of course, in the previous blog, I already described my busy morning of the last school day. But the teaching portion…here goes.
I arrived, as usual, a bit too early. I had taken an auto, since my driver was busy with the funeral plans, and it drove faster than I remember. Being an open vehicle, and a warm day, I also arrived with large sweat marks covering my back, and a huge plastic bag filled with 300+ pieces of paper for the students to work on while I am gone.
I smile at the four security guards stationed at the school entrance, and they grin back and escorted me to the plastic waiting chairs just inside the school grounds. Fortunately, the chairs are in the shade, so I drop the bag of lessons and pull out my blackberry to continue on the quest for higher points in the game of brickbreaker.
Shortly, two other teachers joined me, and we head upstairs to our classrooms. They tell me that today we will release balloons to honor Abdul Aziz. Apparently on Monday each student had written him a message. That afternoon, I had peeked at one kid’s message. “Abdul Aziz, you are my best friend in the world”. The day before, the same kid was the boy that his classmates had been shouting at to say something when I asked if anyone wanted to talk. He had declined. I feel like he, at least, understood that the loss was forever, and felt much more than a temporary sadness.
The day went much like the others. We did a reading comprehension and worked on our math skills. I still hadn’t decided how to tell my students that I was leaving, so as time clicked by, I kept putting it off. Eventually, twenty minutes before school ended, one of the teachers came up and told me it was time to end so we could do the balloon release. Well, it was now or never.
I said something, very briefly. I honestly can’t remember exactly what I said. I didn’t want to cry or do anything sad. But then the other teachers brought me a gift and cards! The school does a lot of art projects, so they gave me a candle and paperweight that had been made by students of the program. Plus signed cards. It was very sweet. All the children crowded around me, shaking my hand and telling me ‘best of luck’. I only pretended to read the cards, because I felt myself tearing up. I read them when I got home a few days later. The messages were so cute. Some just told me they loved me and would miss me, some apologized for doing nasty (what they call being in trouble). It was very nice.
Earlier in the day, the other teacher kept pulling students out of my class, and I even went to ask her what was going on. Of course, now I know that she was pulling them out to sign the cards! But I didn’t figure it out at the time. I’m glad I didn’t. It was a very nice surprise.
When everyone was done shaking my hand, our bags were back, and we said the school prayer together for one last time, we headed down the stairs to release our balloons. Everyone was fairly orderly, for being kids, and the teachers passed out green balloons that the kids started to blow up. I hadn’t been part of the planning for this event, so I hadn’t thought through the logistics, but very quickly, a teacher points out that we don’t have helium. These balloons will just fall to the ground, not take off in the air.
And there you have it. That one day completely summarizes the school program. There are plenty of sweet, hardworking, and well-intentioned teachers in this program. But there are always unexpected bumps in the plans that seem to screw up the organization and follow-through.
We didn’t release the balloons. I guess they decided to buy helium and release them another day. I’m glad I didn’t have to watch. I know that events like the balloons help, for some people, to heal the pain, but it doesn’t for me. I just think about the poor little balloon landing somewhere and getting swallowed by a cow that I will eventually eat. Yeah, I’m not a romantic. Just often too practical.
So, after a very anti-climatic non-release of the balloons, the children slowly walked to their tiny little homes, and I walked with the other teachers back to the rickshaws. As sweet as the candle and notes were, I just felt growing excitement to be done.
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