Found In Ceylon

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Hunger

Shortly after school on Thursday, Jenny walked onto the school campus. Lying under the stairs that go to nowhere, she reported, there was a dog eating a rat. “I saw entrails pouring out of the rat’s stomach,” she said.

Having never heard of a dog eating a rat, I was skeptical. Later, I approached the dog. It was cowering under the bottom steps with as pitiful a look as it could muster. It didn’t look like an animal that had just feasted on rodent.

So I came a little closer. I saw the rat lying underneath the dog’s front paws. I couldn’t see any spilled guts, and the rat was still kicking its legs.

What a survivor, I thought. Then I realized it was a newborn puppy.

I told Jenny to come over, and together, we agreed that it was indeed a puppy. On cue, the mother dog then gave birth to a shiny, wet black ball. She dragged the ball from her hindquarters to closer to her head, bit into it and revealed the puppy within. We watched her simultaneously eat the black sac and lick the squeaking minutes-old newborn.

“That was SO weird,” Jenny said when it was all over. “I guess you’re not too hungry for lunch anymore, are you?”

She was right; I wasn’t. But I got my appetite back ten minutes later when four carfuls of sponsors arrived, carrying several dozen styrofoam lunch boxes.

While the school is able to provide several meals a week to their residential students, sponsors from Matara and the surrounding villages will often provide a lunch meal. Sometimes it’s for the occasion of a child’s birthday or a death anniversary, and other times it’s purely tzedakah (the Hebrew word for charity). Whatever the reason, the sponsors ensure that all residential students stay well-fed.

And is so often the case no matter where I go, the sponsors cannot take their eyes off me. A deaf foreigner signing with deaf Sri Lankan children! But most of the time, they stay out of the mess hall.

Not these sponsors, though. They were about fifteen men from the telephone company, all in ties and slacks. A few of them stood mere feet away from me, observing me and the boys nearby eating their donated food.

Pretty quickly, I got peeved and signed to the kids, “You know who we are to them? Monkeys in a zoo. They’re just watching us munch, astonished that deaf people could eat at all.”

Sameera admitted, “Sometimes I get tired of being grateful every time someone gives us food.”

“Right. We should, of course, thank them immensely, because we need it. But it’d be nice to eat without being observed like lab rats.”

“You know, Sophie was embarrassed too when the sponsors were staring at her eat and sign with us. A foreigner!” Pasindu said. “So you’re not the only one.”

“Yeah, well, nothing we can do but say thank you every time and eat.”

Even after we were done eating, a few sponsors couldn’t take their eyes off me. I made the most of the instant-audience situation by creating an impromptu English lesson, testing whether any of the boys remembered how to spell cricket, rugby, volleyball, and football (I reviewed that with them the day before while watching the Sri Lanka-Pakistan game). The sponsors liked the show and left soon afterwards.

Later the day, after dinner, I recounted my lunch experience to Nerissa.

She responded that it was perfectly normal and the custom here. She said that sometimes the three of them would go to a house for dinner, and the entire host family would stand there, watching them eat.

“It makes them feel good to watch us eat,” Nerissa explained.

Oops. Had I misinterpreted the lunch sponsors’ fascination with our eating behavior as patronizing superiority when, in fact, it was just what they do in Sri Lanka? And did the boys take my mistaken message of silent rebellion to heart?

“It’s so important that they get food,” she continued. “You need to see if some of the children are getting breakfast. Some day students probably show up at school hungry.”

“You really think so?”

“Yep. You can tell when they nod off in class.”

I immediately thought of Lakmal, the tallest and best-looking senior in the school. If he was in 90210 attending West Beverly High, he’d be Dylan McKay; you know the type.

Many times, I’d walk by his 11-A classroom and he’d be taking a nap on his desk. Surely, I thought, he’s just a teenager and probably just stays up too late. What’s more, his home was destroyed in the tsunami and his family lives in a shack, awaiting for two years their new home promised by phalanxes of NGOs.

So if he’s falling asleep in class, he’s got his valid reasons.

“They don’t fall asleep because they haven’t had enough sleep. It’s because they don’t have breakfast,” Nerissa said. She knows, because she spearheads a community program to provide 24,000 schoolchildren in the Matara area with breakfast buns every day.

I felt stupid. How could I have missed these signals? Lakmal wasn’t the only one dozing off; I had taught a few other classes where a student would just spaz out. Often, I let him or her take a quick power nap and catch up a few minutes later. Of course. They were hungry.

“I”ll ask Lakmal tomorrow morning if he’s had breakfast,” I promised. He’s a day student, so he doesn’t get to eat any of the meals the residential students receive.

“He probably will say yes; it’s embarrassing to admit that you haven’t eaten.”

The next morning, I asked Lakmal if he had eaten.

He said no.

Instantly, my heart broke. I felt like I was watching an epic disaster unfold before my eyes.

While he led the children to the volleyball court for calisthenics, I pocketed two bananas from the custodial staff’s mess hall, intending to give it to him just before classes began. As Lakmal came back towards the academic building, I pulled him aside.

I told him that he needs to tell me every time when he doesn’t eat breakfast, and then showed him the two bananas.

He jumped back and yelled, “No! They’re Siamese bananas!”

I looked at the yellow fruit. Sure enough, he was right. The two bananas were conjoined along their length. I pulled them apart. As far as I could tell, they were still edible.

“If I eat them, I’ll have Siamese children!” he said. To illustrate this, he grabbed nearby Ishara and touched his head to his own, mimicking a pair of conjoined twins.

“That’s a total lie,” I shot back. “Eat the damn banana,” I threw one banana to him and gave the other one to Ishara. Lakmal swaggered for a few seconds, but ate the banana and walked into the building.

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. Hungry children, right before my eyes. Sure, it’s nothing new–I’m sure even Del Mar schools have hungry children here and there, but still, to see it… And how was it that I didn’t see it before? I’ve been working at the school for more than three weeks now.

After school, Lakmal and I were chatting about his weekend plans. As we talked, I looked at his face. What was once an handsome, model-quality face had slowly morphed into a slightly emaciated face. His cheekbones no longer looked high and pronounced, but instead outlined sunken, possibly starving cheeks.

When you recognize hunger, you start seeing it everywhere.

Most of the children at the school are thin; provided with a steady stream of high-carb food, the Rohana Special School could churn out Olympic marathon runners of both sexes by the dozen. Also, from years of undernourishment, they look much younger than their ages. I’m constantly surprised when children who appear fourteen tell me they’re nineteen.

Then you have the day students and the residential students. Maybe the day students have just one meal a day. When you’re eating mass quantities of food with the residential students, it’s easy to forget the few day students who are going home to empty kitchens. And being a residential student is no guarantee, either; Chintha told me Friday that often she skipped breakfast because she was so sick of eating dhal.

After school on Friday, I peeked at the new canine family under the steps. Boards had been placed around them by one of the matrons, creating a makeshift litter-box. The mother dog looked stupefyingly thin. Nothing but bones and fur. I remember someone telling me that after you’ve given birth, you’ve never felt so hungry before in your life.

I told Pasindu to grab a dish of discarded food (kids who don’t finish off their plates throw the food away into a medium-sized plastic trash can) and carefully pour it into the litter-box. He did that, and the food was consumed within seconds.

Hunger is all around us in Sri Lanka, but its stories aren’t always told–or seen. The people here have a limitless capacity for giving to their fellow countrymen despite their own food-supply issues, and for not accepting extra food from others. The children howl if I decline a vanilla cracker they have offered.

But they also refuse to accept an apple that I’m too full to eat and instead try to sneak it into my backpack for me to eat later. So, in this hungry land, I’m left looking around in vain for a child to accept an apple.

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A Day In The Life…

By popular demand, here’s a full accounting of an ordinary day for me:

6:00 AM. The alarm wakes me up.

6:32 AM. After exactly eight presses of the snooze button (each push is worth four precious minutes), I get out of bed.

7:00 AM. Following a shower and miscellaneous bathroom tasks, I head to the kitchen to make myself breakfast. It usually consists of two of the following items: corn flakes, Froot Loops, a banana (picked just ten meters away!), an orange, two pieces of toast, and a cup of tea. As breakfast is my only self-served meal, I relish this moment of self-sufficiency.

7:15 AM. Nerissa and David’s son, Sammi, his nanny, Shiromi, and I pile into the car. Ajit takes us over to Rohana by 7:30 AM if he drops me off first; otherwise I’m treated to an exciting rush-hour ride through downtown Matara to Sammi’s school.

7:30 AM. All the boys and girls are lined up, three columns each, in front of the Buddha shrine. They say their morning prayers and sing the national anthem. I do not yet know the English words to either. All the teachers are dressed in saris–how nice

7:35 AM. The children walk in single file to the volleyball court for 15 mins’ calisthetics (in their white uniforms!). After this, as they head back from the volleyball court to the Buddha shrine, also in single file, the head boys and girls look over each student to make sure their appearance is acceptable (Today, I saw one head girl slap another girl’s back–hard–because she had dirty fingernails. They sure don’t mess around.). I take this opportunity to say “good morning” to every student as they walk past.

7:50 AM. School officially begins. The teachers really aren’t too concerned about starting exactly on time, so classroom instruction usually starts around 8:00. I go to the principal’s office to pick up my timetable for the day. Then I go upstairs and find my first class. Usually I have to gather together the students, get them settled down, and then with an ayubowan, instruction begins!

10:30 AM. The bell rings. It’s literally a brass bell in the middle of the second floor; it rings loudly enough to be heard by a few students and, of course, by the teachers. It’s Pasan’s job to ring the bell because it’s nearest his classroom (Grade 9) and he’s the only one in that classroom with a watch. If he forgets, one of the boys from Grade 11, usually Udaya, marches up to him, furiously expresses his displeasure, and rings the bell himself.

It’s tea-time! The school calls this 20-minute break “the interval.” It’s signed “tea.” By then, I’ve taught four English classes at 50 minutes each (although it’s really 40 minutes of effective teaching time). The children head to the mess halls for cups of red tea. While they drink theirs out of metal mugs (I need to ask if those mugs don’t get hot and burn their hands!?), I get mine in a dainty white plaster cup with flower decorations, sometimes with an accompanying saucerpan.

10:50 AM. Back to class. I usually have to shoo some wayward boys back to their classrooms, and collect a few more who might have sneaked away to their dormitory (it’s adjacent to the boys’ mess hall). Attendance may have already been taken, but the boys know they’re playing with fire, because Principal Abeygunawardana sees everything.

1:25 PM. The final bell rings, but by then most of the students have already packed their backpacks, awaiting midday prayers. Soon, music flows through the walls, and everyone stands, hands clasped together, at the windows facing the Buddha shrine. The only exception is Shah Ahmed, who is a Muslim and thus simply stands idly, hands behind his back. While the prayer music plays for about two minutes, there is no interpretation, so I’m not sure if the students even know what they’re listening to.

1:27 PM. School ends. I have taught eight English classes (or seven English classes and one in a different subject if I am assigned to the same class for two periods). I’m usually wiped by then.

1:50 PM. All the day students have left, some in vans, others by bicycle or on foot, and most of the boys have changed out of their uniforms. Interestingly, all the girls wait until after lunch to change.

2:00 PM. Lunch is served. I sit in the boys’ mess hall, although at least once a week I eat with the girls; I’d do it more often except that lunch turns into a staring contest with 30 giggling girls. I eat off my blue “staff” plate while everyone else eats off metal pans, but the food is the same, and oh so delicious. The boys have been wonderful teachers and I now eat effortlessly with my right hand.

2:20 PM. Lunch is done (they eat very fast; there’s no utensils to get in the way). Between then and when I leave the campus, I’ll do a variety of stuff. I play cricket or carrom with the boys, coax the girls out of their dormitory and chat under the covered stage, teach an extra English class, or just sit in the older boys’ floor talking about their three favorite subjects: cricket, America and sex.

4:00 to 5:00 PM. The three-wheeler comes to pick me up around this time. My two regular drivers, Siri and Thusarra, usually take me back home to Pointe Sud, but sometimes I head to Amila’s workplace (Fine Bit Computers) downtown for conversation and informal computer training. The shop is also next to several other shops and banks, so it’s a good time for me to visit the ATM, grab some supplies, or make photocopies (which I haven’t yet, but it’s there!).

4:30 to 6:30 PM. However time I get home, either Gamage or Asanka finds me and hands me a cold lime water drink, and I usually sit in the porch with David and Nerissa, reviewing the day and watching the mindblowing sunset. Thanks to David, whenever I look out at the Indian Ocean, I always tell myself, “there’s nothing between us and Antarctica but salt water.” During this time, I’ll also see what Sammi’s up to, visit Siri and others in the kitchen, or read a few pages.

7:00 PM. Dinner is served. Sammi starts off the meal with a demonstration of his magic talents as he makes the candles blow out just by waving his fingers from afar. In nearly four weeks at Pointe Sud, I’ve only had one dinner I didn’t love, and that was because it had olives in it (gag!). Siri, the cook, is a man of wonderful culinary talents (or I am led to believe) and the food is always delightful. Between the enormous carb-loaded lunch at Rohana and the finger-lickin’ dinner (an oxymoron, because we always, always use utensils at Pointe Sud), I have indeed gained some weight.

9:30 PM. After dinner, I will either return to my book, work on projects, or just do general thinking, and by nine o’clock, the house is closed up and almost dark. If I’m not already asleep by then, I climb into bed, close the mosquito net drapes, and read a few more pages.

Today was, however, not an ordinary day; I left school at 2:00 with fellow volunteers/travelers Matthew, Maurice, Dave, and Monika, plus Dave and Monika’s three visiting friends from England. We took a cruise up the Nilwala River in a fishing boat piloted by two fishermen. We visited a village where a man climbed up a coconut tree, hacked off several coconuts, and handed them to us to drink the thambili. We didn’t see any crocodiles, which was somewhat unfortunate because that was one of the main objectives of this excursion. Nevertheless, it was a welcome change of pace, and the water was remarkably still, creating a perfect reflection of the enormous sunset-stained sky above.

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Talkback 01

I hate to blog as if I’m ignoring what people are asking and remarking in the comments, so here’s my Talkback. When I get enough questions, I’ll write one of these where I’ll tackle as many as I can without going into too much detail. Here goes:

Sophie: Your reports are so articulate about how the Rohana School is… Well done Adam for recognizing and understanding the situation SO quickly… it took me much longer!

I really can’t take the credit…it goes to you, Sophie. Your report explained it all, and your hard work over three months made all the difference. I really do not do well in situations where I am presented with a blank slate and asked to make something of it; you, obviously, excel in this area. I’m only building up on what you’ve done here, and the kids remind me of it daily when they say something about you! I’ll write you an e-mail soon; I gave tests to about half the kids I’m teaching, and many of them did so well (80% and above)!

Bobby: I think it would be a great teaching moment to explain to the deaf students at Rohana what’s happening at Gallaudet and to show them that deaf people around the world are fighting for their rights as human beings.

I think that I would like to do that. My skill in the local sign language isn’t up to par yet for me to start talking about human rights. Many of them were shocked when I explained that there was indeed a deaf university in America named Gallaudet. Their consciousness-raising will continue!

Amanda: Are you planning to be a matron there?

No. I arrived with the full intention of staying in the dormitory, but everyone, and I mean, everyone, told me it was a bad idea. No privacy and I’d be exhausted all the time from talking/trying to sign/trying to understand. I’m not going to be stubborn and think I can handle it, but I hate leaving the campus at 4-5 PM every day; the light does go out of their eyes a little. But usually by that time, my brain’s shut down (I begin work there at 7:30 AM) and I really can’t understand a thing the kids say to me; it’s all Martian to me. Anyway, for now I’m still at Nerissa and David’s house, although I do expect to move to a guesthouse in the next couple of weeks. But I said that two weeks ago.

Gloria: are they fluent in their language?

As far as I can tell, the students are fluent in Sinhala. I say, “as far as I can tell,” because I can’t understand Sinhala, so, for all I know, they might be writing gibberish. I raised this issue with the principal this morning and plan to explore it further. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them had low levels of fluency like many deaf Americans with English. My Grade 7 kids are learning the ABCs because no one has ever taught it to them before. They’ve been copying English passages more as if they were intricate pieces of art rather than the building blocks of language.

Peggy: Adam welcome to the world of education… Ideas like language pragmatics and meaningful writing are replaced with teaching to the test and completing the currriculum. Sometimes it seems like all hell is going to break loose if you don’t get the students to work to page “X” in the curriculum guide, then the work has to be met with a certain profeciency so you can hurrry up, finish and get to the next level.

Tell me about it! Thankfully, I don’t have to teach the book here; and I think the teachers at the school are a little relieved about that, although I think they daren’t admit it to me. However, one of them–the sole deaf teacher–approached me earlier today about doing a class after school for any student who wants extra practice in English, so I’m going to do that tomorrow afternoon. I hope to use a whiteboard…the chalkboards are killer.

Adamzmom: Do you have any idea how deaf some of the students are?
It sounds as though English is being taught as a first language. Are they allowed to learn Sinhala? […] Do most live there? If so, they probably have not been exposed to many good role models for the languages. Are you sure you know EVERYTHING after just a couple days? HMMM. A great challenge for you! I’m sure the kids like you already. How do they adapt to a foreigner? How is the teacher/student ratio at RSS?

Sinhala is being taught as the first language, that’s for sure. They don’t start using English textbooks until Grade 3; all other subjects are taught in Sinhala. It’s rather disconcerting to read a math book and not understand it because so much of it is written in a non-math language! And you’re right, Mom…I don’t know everything! I get the basic gist of it…but I’m learning every day. For example, I just figured out why some students are having a hard time grasping the concept of capital and lowercase letters–Sinhala has just one script for its alphabet (no lowercase or cursive), and fingerspelling doesn’t have letter cases, either. So for English to have uppercase/lowercase print letters is something new for them. I have to be careful not to slip into cursive writing because they literally can’t read it; a cursive “l” looks to them like an “e.”

Amanda: i thought the report I read from the previous volunteer touched upon a certain degree of privitization, not so much by a company, but rather no longer getting government support. about the educational centers that are owned and managed by private organizations with meager assistance from the govt

Sorry for the confusion! No, the education is completely public and regulated by the Colombo government. I’m not an expert on the educational bureaucracy, but I get the feeling that the education system is completely uniform nationwide, unlike America where we have all the state and county and district school boards with different standards, etc. All the kids in the entire country wear the same school uniform. Principal Abeygunawardana told me this morning (we tend to have a morning chat every day) refers to the government often, as if it is his immediate superior.

Niknws: 1) Have you looked into the connection between reading and writing? […] Do you have ESL experience? […] It seems apparent the children understand grammar if they are able to compose in the way you are stating they can. It is the “gap” that could use assessing. A good place to start would be to assess whether they can spell (writing) in their own language and spell in SSL. Is the spelling carrying over between the two native languages?

No, I don’t have any ESL experience. I somehow thought that perhaps my bilingualism would help out here (and it has, don’t get me wrong), but the lessons I’m teaching are so basic that I can’t remember learning them myself because I was too young to remember how I learned them in the first place. One of my focuses is solidfying the connection between reading and writing, because there is definitely a gap there. Some kids are able to recite the fingerspelled alphabet perfectly but can’t write it down correctly! They definitely can spell and write in their own language, but English and Sinhala are so different and I, unfortunately, don’t know Sinhala and am halfway fluent in Sinhala Sign Language too, making for a messy, but fun, teaching experience!

AdamzSis: Do tell us at some point how you teach ‘em in a language you don’t know and how they understand you. With the mesh of BSL, ASL, and bits of SSL, I’m wondering just how you’ll teach them basic command of English.

Tell me about it! After a lesson on man/woman/person and their plural forms, I went to teach them how to read, “How many men/women/people are in this room/school/country.” It quickly devolved into messy bilingualism as I was telling them to ignore “are in this” and read “How many” as one unit and do it all in sign language…oh boy.

Tayler: Does this mean you may be returning to Sri Lanka after January?

I honestly don’t know.

Sasha: maybe you could try to visit one or 2 other deaf schools and see how they are doing with english, and hopefull give u some more insight into the best way to teach them english. more knowledge always help.

I would love to do that. I’ll talk with David and Nerissa and see if they know anything about the other schools.

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Consciousness-Raising

Last Friday morning, Amila and I rode onto the school campus in a green three-wheeler and were met by boys who looked distraught. It was a poya day; this meant no classes and a three-day weekend. Nothing for overactive boys to be upset about, right?

“Bald-Head is leaving! He’s leaving us!” they cried.

Rohana Special School employs three male matrons (or four; I’m never sure) to watch the boys who sleep in the dormitory. All are hearing, and none of them are remotely fluent in Sinhala Sign Language. Daily, their job shifts begin at 1:30 PM and conclude at 7:30 AM the next morning when the students assemble in front of the Buddha shrine for morning prayers.

Imagine being hours away from your home village, in the care of people who did not understand your language, and have not bothered to learn even after years of continued employment.

We–that is, all the people who have an interest in seeing Rohana become the best school in the country–wanted to see the male matrons go. All of them. So, after some behind-the-scenes work, one of them was finally on his way out the door.

Except that, on this Friday morning, it seemed as if we had gotten rid of the wrong one. The boys apparently didn’t despise Bald-Head (his sign name refers to his bald spot) .

“He helped me when I was sick,” Gayan said.

Priyathkara added, “He’s nice to me. The other two are so mean, they yell at us.”

What the boys were telling us now were contrary to what we had heard from all the past volunteers about this same person.

One day, Sophie asked Bald-Head what he would do if the boys’ dormitory suddenly burst into flames.

“I don’t care,” he replied.

Peter, another volunteer, worked at Rohana for one year and quickly became fluent in Sinhala Sign Language, while watching Bald-Head fail to even learn how to say “good morning.” He expressed to David that he wanted to strangle him daily.

Could this really be the same person that the boys so desperately wanted to keep around?

After a few hours, it became clear that Bald-Head, who was walking around the second floor red-eyed from tears, had voluntarily resigned. There was really nothing we could do. I felt terrible for the boys. So what if he couldn’t sign “how are you?” as long as he could help the boys and, as Gayan said, take care of them when they were sick?

A game of football proved to be a good distraction, and at the end of the day Amila and I headed back home. What followed was a long, long discussion between Amila, David, and myself on the importance of sign language as the primary language used at Rohana.

Amila and even I, in some small part, were leaning towards the “better of two evils” position — that it was probably better to just keep Bald-Head because, at the very least, he helped.

So we, as two deaf people, found ourselves in the remarkable position of being lectured by a hearing Englishman that the right to communication is, and should always be, unconditional at the school. Especially when considering the matrons, who act as the deaf children’s primary guardians.

Pretty quickly, I silently admonished myself for willing to settle for less. I grew up in a deaf institute–and while it was not a signing environment, I couldn’t imagine the torment I’d have to endure if my houseparents couldn’t understand anything I was saying.

Side note: I will admit that the boys are now left with the two worser matrons; it would have been infinitely better if Bald-Head could have stayed on until after the other two were dismissed, but sometimes you just have to take your chances as they come.

It took about fifteen more minutes before I was finally able to convince Amila, using my not-quite-fluent-yet-but-getting-there Sinhala Sign Language skills, that it was frankly ridiculous that Bald-Head didn’t know sign language. He had worked there for four years. Would a teacher for the blind be qualified if she didn’t know Braille? Could a teacher teach English if she didn’t know the ABC’s? The same rule applied here. If you don’t learn sign at a deaf school, you deserve to be fired.

David said it best: “People who do not learn sign language make deaf people disabled.”

I walked away from the intense discussion feeling a little dazed. On one hand, I had just attended a consciousness-raising session; Deaf power was surging through me.

On the other hand, I realized with sadness how I had taken communication access for granted in America. Sure, we have problems–audism/oppression at deaf universities, educating the ignorant about the ADA–but when all’s said and done, we have it pretty damned good back there.

Here we were, David and I, trying to convince a Deaf sri Lankan that matrons at deaf schools should be able to sign, and it took us thirty minutes.

In a country whose sign language vocabulary classifies people as either “deaf” or “people,” as if to imply that deaf people are not actually people, the widespread realization that communication access is a human right, not a privilege, is still far off.

A few minutes later, Amila repeated back to me what he understood from the discussion.

“Of course they should be able to sign.”

Mission accomplished.

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