Serving in Shillong

“Good morning, Miss,” chant 55 students as I enter the makeshift hall-cum-classroom. For two weeks, I am teaching at Bellefonte Parish in Shillong, Meghalaya which is one of the 7 northeastern states in India. Connected by a thread to the main subcontinent, the northeastern peoples still have much of their tribal tradition and culture. In Meghalaya, the Khasi people maintain their traditional dress, government, and language, even in the booming city of Shillong. English is becoming the prominent language, though, and all business, government, and education is conducted in English. As Sister Helen, who is responsible for the training program, tells me, without knowing English the students in the northeast have no future.

I met Sister Helen through Pam Deacon, a good friend and colleague from my years at PLU. I was planning a 3 month trip to India and wanted to do some volunteer work during my stay. Pam put me in touch with Sister Helen at Bellefonte Parish and we planned for me to come and teach English for a few weeks, staying with the sisters at the convent. When I got off the plane at Guwahati airport in Assam, I really didn’t know what to expect. After only a few minutes wait outside the sparse airport, a smiling, petit nun in a white habit gave me a hug and walked me, hand in hand, to a jeep and driver. Already I could tell this was a very different India than my previous two weeks sightseeing in the Rajasthan desert. There were lush green hills, not a word of Hindi language, and the people looked much more like Southeast Asia natives than your typical Indians. (Khasi people are said to have originally come from Cambodia.)

Over the four hour drive into the hills Sister Helen filled me in on the problems and needs of the locals, like the increase of alcoholism, and domestic violence, villages whose population are mostly illiterate and uneducated, and how she and others are trying to offer solutions. She passionately described projects helping villagers create a sustainable living, high school drop-outs getting a second chance at education, and mission centers supplying the only health care available for miles.

The sisters at Bellefonte Parish welcomed me with open arms upon our arrival in Shillong. Twenty one resident novices sang a warm welcome song, and everyone hugged me and shook my hand saying over and over, “You are most welcome,” a frequently heard verse here. I soon found out that the students I’d be teaching were high school drop-outs studying to take a test to pass the 10^th grade. Some had been out of school only a year or two, but some were in their 20’s and hadn’t studied for a very long time. After the 7^th grade in India all subjects are taught only in English and all graduating tests must be taken in English. These aren’t multiple choice tests, either; they’re full sentence and essay questions in difficult subjects like math, social sciences and economics. For some students who have been educated in their native language or under-educated in villages through the 6^th grade, this is understandably daunting and most fail out before completing 10^th grade. Along with that is the reality that many families need more income than the parents can provide for their large families - 8-10 children is normal - so the eldest one or two are asked to work instead of attending school. Largely for these two reasons, 70% of Meghalaya teens drop out of high school.

The students at Bellefonte study to complete their tests, learning six mornings a week in the parish basement from two devoted sisters. Crammed into a converted hall are benches and long tables that hold up to 60 students, one black board, one white board and one teacher’s desk. Two naked florescent bulbs light the dark basement, and the chill of November begins to seep in through the unheated, cement walls. I had been asked to teach “spoken English,” a broad topic for only two weeks of instruction. I knew these kids would be different from the students I taught for two years in South Korea, so I had planned just one day’s class, figuring I’d see the needs and abilities of these students and go from there. What I found in those 55 smiling faces was an eagerness to learn that I’ve rarely experienced. The students’ abilities range from barely literate to almost fluent. We started with the basics, introductions and some simple grammar, and progressed into past and future tenses, conjugating verbs, proper pronoun use, conversations, and a few fun songs and games. Unlike American teenagers, these kids will try anything I ask them to with a positive attitude, overcoming their shyness to stand up and speak a foreign language in front of their class. For me, it’s a lot of fun to teach motivated young adults who want to – who need to – learn. For them, hopefully it’s a good opportunity to converse with a native English speaker.

Among the many experiences the sisters at Bellefonte Parish have given me, the most memorable was visiting a small village called Umphrew (pronounced oom-prow). We took a jeep about an hour out of the city over roads hand made by the villagers with only hammers and shovels. The road was very bad in places, washed away by heavy monsoon rains for months every year. We walked about 30 minutes into the village itself, the road being too bad for our jeep. Up through the jungle we trekked, meeting school aged children playing with discarded tires and bamboo poles, men carrying loads of rocks and market goods in woven baskets on their backs, most greeting us with a friendly “Kublei,” meaning God Bless in Khasi language. We were heartily greeted at our destination, the home of one SHG member. Sister Helen has been establishing Self Help Groups (SHG’s) in villages like these for the past five years, working with banks to give small loans to groups of villagers and teaching about simple accounting, organization, social awareness, and savings. As we arrived, an elderly woman was quietly nursing a child whose young mother had died during childbirth. This is a too-common story in remote villages, children orphaned because of labor complications and no nearby doctors or transportation to hospitals. The older woman was now caring for 2 children under three years old.

Twelve women ranging from teens to elderly came together for the morning’s meeting where their record keeping books were checked and Sister Helen talked for an hour about working together as a community and the importance of setting goals for the next year’s business. As the many children entertained themselves, the women from three different groups listened attentively and some gave ideas and feedback about their groups’ needs. Surrounded by farmland and lush jungle, the house was a simple 2 building complex, one building housing the living and bed room, the other the kitchen and food storage room. In one corner of the wood-planked living room was an alter to Jesus Christ with several framed pictures, a small stack of Bibles and prayer books, and assorted faux and natural flowers. After the meeting, the house owners gave us a delicious lunch of fish and potato curries with rice. Other villagers we met offered guavas and pumpkins from their own gardens. They may not have plenty, but what they do have the villagers kindly share.

The women in this village cultivate ginger on several plots of land to sell in the local market and the larger market in Shillong city. Sister Helen has some ideas to help their initiative grow like producing ginger juice and getting access to a vehicle so more goods can be transported for selling. All of these, though, take money which neither the villagers nor the Sisters yet have. Hopefully with their bank accounts and savings plans the groups will have enough to reinvest in the business soon.

Aside from positive people, welcoming arms, and smiling students, what I’ve found in Meghalaya is a need for more education opportunities. The many Christian organizations, like the Salesian Sisters at Bellefonte Parish, are doing so much to build schools and bring competent teachers to places that have never had access to education. There are government schools, but many lack in competent teachers or are not accessible for remote villagers. In Umphrew, for example, there is a morning school for just two to three hours from pre-school to 5^th grade but no secondary school. More and more young people are being trained by the many Christian institutions every year, opening more mission centers, supplying health care and awareness throughout the region. Sister Helen’s initiative is helping hundreds of women, families, and children to meet their basic needs and more, developing programs that will sustain their families and afford them a chance to meet or exceed the poverty line. Of course, these charitable organizations have no basic income. All of the programs are funded entirely through generous donations, mostly from international benefactors. What the Khasi and other indigenous people need is a chance at education, a chance that some are now getting.

Of course, Shillong isn’t the only place in the world in need of English teachers. As English becomes more and more a global language students all over the world need to read, write, and speak English in order to pursue business, economics, computers, politics, hospitality and many other fields. For traveling teachers there is a unique chance to experience the every day reality of a different culture, maybe learn a new language, and meet extraordinary people. You don’t have to be a certified teacher or an English major either, anyone can try this for a week to a few years. For me, it’s been incredibly rewarding and I plan to continue teaching, volunteering, and traveling in other countries. Two weeks is a short time for this experience in Shillong but I’ve promised to come back in the future, next time for longer.

I believe if we can become aware of each moment as it happens we have the power to spread kindness, love, and compassion to all those we meet. My main goal in coming to India was to continue my studies in yoga and Buddhism. I started my travels in Asia in 2008 when I moved to a small South Korean island to teach English in an elementary school. After a life-changing two years, I left an incredible community and dear friends to embark on seven months of travel and study. I spent a month trekking and exploring Nepal, walking through small villages, majestic mountains, and crowded cities, then joined an old PLU friend for a two week journey in Rajasthan, western India. From Shillong, I will travel by jeep, plane, train and bus to reach Rishikesh in the northwest foothills of the Himalayas, a city known as ‘the yoga capital of the world.’ I had no idea that I would develop such an attachment to the sisters in Shillong, the hard-working students, or the Khasi people. Every moment in life is an opportunity to connect with people. I am so grateful to be living my dreams, learning about the world one smiling face at a time.