Education on the Pakistan Border

I’ve just returned to Mumbai following several days in Jammu, which is located up north on the Pakistan border. I went there to do a site visit at an organization that’s providing scholarships to children in several impoverished villages along the border. Ever since 1947, there has been border tension in the area. Infiltrations, terrorist activity, and cross border firing are ongoing concerns, and more than 100 villages have had to relocate. The situation has adversely affected the economy of the area and brought uncertainty to the lives of people there. Education has been a major casualty. A child’s participation at school is not a given, especially if you’re a girl. Families are extremely poor, and parents generally choose to send their sons but not their daughters to school. The scholarships enable almost 200 girls, orphans (which here means the child’s father has died), and children with special needs to attend school.

I visited the one-room homes of scholarship recipients and sat with them and their families as they helped me understand what the scholarship means to them. Parents see education as a way of helping their daughters gain financial independence. Mothers who know what it means to be illiterate and totally dependent are especially hopeful for their daughter’s future. When we asked the girls what they want to be when they grow up, the only answers given are a teacher or a doctor. Because the children are not exposed to other career paths, they’re unable to even dream of alternative possibilities. Scholarships cover school fees, books, transportation, and uniforms. The awards average 2700 rupees or about $70 a year, and you get what you pay for…. “School” in the rural areas of Jammu is nothing like what we’re used to at home. Teachers show up infrequently; many are absent up to 2/3rds of the time. Children learn by rote, and creativity is stifled. There are no report cards. In fact, there is no ongoing feedback. Progress is tracked only through an annual state test. Children who attend school have no mentors; parents are incapable of helping them with homework because most are illiterate themselves.

I was excited when I met one little girl who shared her notebook with me. In beautiful print, she had written about life in the village. Through a translator, I eventually realized that she had not authored the piece. The girl then produced the schoolbook she’d copied it from. I asked if she could read what she wrote. She said yes and then read the letters rather than the words. She had no understanding of what she had written.

As we visited homes within the village, we attracted hundreds of kids and others intrigued by our presence. We had to take the children we were interviewing inside so that others who had gathered wouldn’t intimidate them. We were intimidating enough.

At one point, a child arrived a few minutes late. The mother explained that her daughter has typhoid fever, but she still wanted to participate in the interview. (Suddenly I felt intimidated.)

Dasra (www.dasra.org), the nonprofit I’m volunteering for, is exploring a partnership with the organization that is providing the scholarships to girls in Jammu. I’m hopeful that we’ll go forward.

R&R

We took a few days off to visit Dharmsala which is located in the foothills of the Himalayas. It’s an incredibly beautiful area with the most spectacular scenery I can remember. The roads in the area are terrible, though. Getting from place to place entails entrusting your life to someone you’ve just met and hoping like heck that his brakes are good enough, his tires aren’t too bald, and he’s an expert on a stick shift. Going up, down, and around the mountain was not my favorite thing. (In fact, I hated it! I was real mindful of the fact that the drivers believe in reincarnation, but I do not.) I wondered just how many vans are lost on the mountain each year and then decided to stop thinking about that. The road was just so steep and narrow and meeting up with oncoming vehicles required precise negotiation of one van around another.

The Dali Lama lives in this beautiful, peaceful area. We visited his temple, and I could have sat and watched the Buddhist monks for hours. The Tibetan people who have come here are warm and welcoming, and veggie Tibetan food is great (especially after eating Indian food for so long.). We hired a tour guide for the day, and I was hoping to learn a lot more about this place. Unfortunately, his English was only slightly better than my Hindi. Enough said. The cold temperatures were a real shock to me. I’ve acclimated to the heat of Mumbai. So, first order of business: purchasing wool hats to stave off the penetrating cold. Should have waited until after this trip to get my haircut!

Above, some of the children we met along the way. See that each has a "snot rag" clipped to him or her! Above, carrying bricks on a construction project.