Eniku Malayalam ishtamaanu

Wednesday, October 6
7:30 am
     The great thing about living in a flat in a 6 story building is all the little friends we get to meet!  Word has leaked out to some youngsters that there are two white women in the building.  Now it is not uncommon for us to look out the windows and have children frantically waving back at us, ear to ear smiles pleading for us to come out and play.  One evening we spent quite a bit of time with two 12 year-olds, Thamana and Malu, singing and dancing.  Malu showed us classical Indian dance that she learned in dance class (this girl is so good!) and then both showed us a dance normally performed at a wedding.  The girls also sang India's national anthem, and a couple other catchy Hindi tunes.  I guess I should have seen it coming, because after their singing they instantly demanded that Colleen and I sing. BAHAH.  For those of you who know me, you are aware that my strengths lye outside the musical arena…Colleen agrees for herself in the singing aspect (she did play the flute and piano, but clearly we did not have either of these instruments with us).  Regardless, we proudly belt out the Star Spangled Banner (seriously, what is the pitch range in that song!?) Malu and Thamana sat wide-eyed and attentive.  When we finished they both seemed impressed so I felt better about the whole thing.  Malu then asked, "are you famous singers in America?" so seriously, intent and anxious to hear the answer.  Oh my goodness I want to put her in my back pocket and carry her around!  Don't worry I told her the truth, and gave her an autographed demo CD.  The rest of the evening was devoted to dancing to Shakira and Spice Girls (they loved them!), and we taught them the Macarena.  Malu made a request at one point for some "fast music, to dance??? uh… bom bom bom!"…I say, "techno?"…she replies "YES YES!! you have techno?"  Oh dear Indian child, do I have techno…. I unveiled the techno, house, and dance music sections in my itunes library, a selection that could leave you bouncing up and down for hours.  Us four only bounced around for about a half hour but the fact that an Indian child asked me for techno music pretty much just made my life.  I have been scolded by college roommates that I make CDS with too much techno, or by car passengers forced to listen to my ipod.  I truly have come to paradise!
    There are two more little girls who live directly above Colleen and I, and they attend RIMS.  Aysha is in 3rd standard and her mother has asked if we would like to tutor her on some weekdays.  Of course!  Aysha will mosey down to our apartment each Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday with a backpack full o' books.  When helping her with Math, I had flashbacks to when my mom would help me with homework…. giving countless examples of word problems, or drawing diagrams to explain how many pairs of shoes Nidha can make out of this number….etc.  This time I was my mother.  I was giving the examples, doodling division pictures in her notebook, asking how many more tigers than bears India has.  Its really cool to see the wheels turning inside her head, and watching as she writes down the correct answer.  Thanks for setting a good example mom :-)  Aysha also wrote a haiku!  I explained syllables to her (this will be a great lesson for some of the kids, too!) and we circled the syllables in different sentences.  She got it and wrote her very own haiku!  Here it is:

It is a tiger
The dress has seven buttons
It is a spider.

So cute!!  I was proud of her. 

    I want to explain this English business.  I said before that most of the teachers at school DO speak English.  Others speak some, but don't really understand when Colleen and I speak.  This is similar with the little girls Malu and Thamana, they understand us for the most part, but there is a lot of repeating and saying "huh?" on both ends of the conversation.  Indian English is the current form of English spoken in India.  India has the largest number of English speakers in the world.  However, the Indian English spoken has a thick accent influenced by both British English and native languages.  The grammar differs as well.   Certain word plurals will be given an 's':  maths, furnitures… and they always say "isn't it?" at the end of random statements: He is a nice person, isn't it?  I'll be back later, isn't it?"  Or they say things like "how is it?" in random context or "what you want?"  Anyways, the kids at the school can understand their teachers' English (which Colleen and I can barely understand), and they have a hard time understanding the American accent.  They can communicate what they need to; however, it is very evident that Colleen and I will need to work a lot on pronunciation and grammar.  My II standard class yesterday had a very difficult time with my "What scares you?" lesson.  They keep saying "what scared of you?" 
    Nyaan our inglish teechar aanu.  I am and English teacher.  Malayalam (the local language spoken in Kerala) is such a beautiful language that flows and rolls about of the tongue and on paper.  However, it is really stinkin' hard to learn.  I have every intention of becoming fluent in this language so I am studying as much as possible.  I am trying to find a English-Malayalam dictionary; however I can only find a Malayalam-English dictionary---the words are all written in the loopdy loos, so I cant really use that dictionary :(. I don't even know if one exists because I doubt there is high demand for English speakers to learn Malayalam.  Right now I have a small phrase book (and a whole school of Malayalam speakers) to learn from.  So that will have to do for now.  There are so many sounds that I've never heard or uttered before in my life, so I'm rrr-ing, and gkn-ing, and zha-ing, about in my room to practice as much as possible.  Welp its time for school!  Pinne kanaam! (see ya later)