Delhi Belly; You Found Me! ~ Thursday, September 19, 2013

Well the Delhi-belly has finally reared its ugly head; though Boracay-belly was a far worse infliction. I tried to be environmentally conscious and tougher than I am by cutting the plastic bottles of water out of my life and switching to the well-water that everyone else uses. I’m pretty sure they just keep a two-week supply of bottled water in storage at the shops for the odd foreigner who visits. I was ready to pass out from the heat and the thirst on Wednesday at school and didn’t have any more water, so I bit the bullet and went down to the well where one of the polite young men from Class 6 pumped some water into my bottle.

“Ok that’s good!” I said after he’d only filled it about a third of the way.

Some of the girls from class 6 with the container they fill each morning from the well for water in the classroom.

I inspected the bottle for floaties, wormies, and any other strange microorganisms that may be wriggling around but it looked clear…as if microorganisms are visible. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but the water tasted fine, and I was satiated, so I continued to drink it throughout the day, and then that night at Sita’s house. By this morning at school, the rumbly tummy was in full force and I realized with horror that I had no toilet paper. I thought I could hold out until noon, but no chance, especially after the bumpy ride to school on the back of Sita’s motorbike. Tara Nepal was leading me off to join her in Class 8 and on the way past the bathrooms, I realized I wasn’t going to make it through the next 45 minutes, let alone until lunchtime.

“I’ll meet you there, Tara Nepal.”

I scurried into the toilets (squatters, like China) strategically placed my flip-flopped feet in areas that appeared to be less questionably wet and rolled up my pants. T.P. or not, this was happening. As I tried to figure out how the hell these people deal with cleaning themselves after a poo/how I was going to configure myself to accommodate a proper wash with the bucket and the little plastic measuring cup inside that is used to ‘flush’ the squatter, I decided maybe I’d solved the mystery of the barn smell.

For the next four classes, I joined Tara Nepal and helped out when I could. She would do bizarre things like circulate through an entire class either showing some pages from a book to the 8s who were studying Australia, or physically making charts in the books of every single student in Grade 3 for them to copy new vocabulary terms underneath, while leaving the rest of the class (30-40 students) unoccupied and growing more and more restless and noisy as they sat for 20+ minutes with nothing to do.

I tried not to be condescending with her when I asked what her game plan was and offered to write some questions on the board/give an activity for the waiting students to complete. If that were my class and some new person was coming in and trying to run the show, I would not be pleased, but this woman needed help and I had to do something to keep all hell from breaking loose, which it did a few times.

A couple of little boys from Class 3 were completely off their rockers half way through and were throwing things out the windows and standing on the tables and clawing at each other like a couple of rabid hyenas. I sent one boy outside and told him to stay there after the third offense and when Tara Nepal eventually caught on, she went out, yelled at him, grabbed him by the ear and paraded him back and forth in front of the class and then threw him into his seat (by the ear) where he sat with his head down for the next 10 minutes. Policy 701 alarms rang out in my ears, but something told me that neither the police nor the district office would be coming after Tara Nepal. She asked me on a separate occasion what we do in Canada to discipline the children.

“You slap them across the face?” She inquired.

“We imagine that we slap them across the face, but if we actually did, we’d probably lose our jobs and go to jail.” I replied.

“Lose your job? Jail!?” She was perplexed.

Life must be horrible for a teacher in Canada.

I have seen the teachers do this very thing to students who do not have their homework complete, or are misbehaving. A light smack across the face, a bitch-slap to the head, a yank to the ear; the kids seem to accept this form of punishment and offer no retribution. They usually lower their heads in shame and sit down, but it does not seem to encourage the completion of the next nights’ assignments. Over half the class failed to complete the crossword puzzle I’d given to the Grade 8s the day before, so Tara had them all line up in front of the class to do their pushups (word has spread throughout the school, and now the classes are requesting to do pushups during homework rounds...what have I done?).

The adolescents were far less enthusiastic about dropping for 12 when it came time to actually do it. A few of the boys cockily pounded out the required reps, but the girls were mortified and after several attempts to goad them, we resigned and let them sit down.

“The students who did not do their work or the pushups, will be punished.” Tara Nepal announced, giving me a knowing glance that seemed to elude to a secret tactic that I was supposed to know about. I deferred to my signature nod and smile and pretended I knew what this punishment would be.

By fourth period, I was really starting to feel uncomfortable and the little voice that told me that I wasn’t going to be missed if I went home and took a rest for the remainder of the day was starting to have a hand up over the voice that told me to suck it up and power through. A final trip to the restroom sealed the deal. Again, without tissue, I spent a good part of the 45 minutes eliminating what seemed to be the contents of every meal I’d eaten in the past week. To my horror, I discovered that the rinsing bucket was empty.

That was when I decided that I was going home for the rest of the day.

I spent the afternoon drifting in and out of naps and old episodes of Breaking Bad as Ama and her husband peeked their heads into the window above my bed every so often to see if I was alright, and to bring me tea.

Gorima arrived with Ama at my window after school to translate and find out what was wrong with me. To be honest, aside from being tired, I didn't feel terrible, but I was so stinking hot and sweaty that I felt feverish (perhaps I was) and the tummy rumbles would still come every so often so I just wanted to be in bed. They offered biscuits, which sounded like a good idea, along with more tea. I changed into more appropriate clothes (God forbid someone saw my knees) and spotted Ama on her way back to the house with two packages of purchased biscuits in her hands. She’d walked to a shop, or a neighbor’s house to get them for me. God love that sweet little old lady.

I sat at the kitchen table as the sun was setting and talked to Gorima as she made tea with some dried black balls that looked like coffee beans, a squeeze of lemon and some sugar, the same tea Ama had made for me, that was delicious (I wish the cups here were bigger!) and alternately dipped and chewed the biscuits along with the tea along with Gorima who poured herself a cup also.

She is such a sweet girl and her English is quite good. When she doesn’t understand a question, her voice raises several octaves as she looks me square in the eye and says “WHAT?!” like I’ve accused her of drinking or something equally as scandalous. I watched and helped chop as she prepared some squash-like, cucumber-looking vegetable, potato, and soybean (large puffballs that I’m not sure were actually soybeans), tomato chili mixture, spinach (sag) and dhal as well as rice. I asked Gorima about boy friends and she giggled when I asked if she had one. I told her that my nieces who are around her age have/had boyfriends, which she found equally funny. She said she knows one girl who has a boyfriend at her school, a different one from the one I am at.

Very excited about tomorrow; ELEPHANT DAY! Ranjan informed me this evening that we will be leaving at 6:30 am to go help with feeding and cleaning the elees!