A concrete floor perspective: what I learned from India's children

They frightened me, the children.

The multitude of small bodies in a variety of heights and clothed in every assortment of vibrantly colored rags imaginable. They stood, each entirely unique from the other, socks sliding down into ill fitting shoes, toes twitching in plastic flip flops, bare feet leaving prints in the dust, the only commonality was the endless depth of their penetrating blank stares.

One evening, after a walk through the rice fields where we were entertained by puddles of vanishing frogs, we stepped into the school yard just before dinner. The children sat in small groups, the air trembled with the silence of their stares. Dadingdading chimed one disembodied voice, then in a mystery of transformation the yard of hungry students became a field of ringing bells dadingdading dadingdading and it wasn't until we had passed completely through them that I realized they had been saying Didi (older sister), good evening.

They frightened me because their stares would hunt me and find me. They would stand at the gate and stare. They would peek through the bushes and stare.  They would beckon me with flowers to come and sit with them on an empty school bus and stare. They would walk right up to me and stare.They made me shy with their stares.

One night, we invited a group of small girls over to the house to learn an English song. There was no power and I saw them only slightly by dim battery operated lamp light. The curse of the stare was nullified in the face of gentle darkness and we sang together and held hands.

The next day we had an assembly. I stood at the back and watched shyly as the children filed in and took up seats on the concrete floor. Two girls, tiny and brave, came up to me grabbed my hand and led me to a spot amongst them on the floor. We sat close enough that every part of me was touching another girl and, though I couldn't really communicate with them, it was from the concrete floor that I learned what it meant to be one with them...

I learned the language of the hand squeeze, the dance of restless sitting, the community of minty sweets passed from hand to mouth, the secret of entertainment in a glance. I learned the pulse of giggles hidden by hands over mouths and the beat of sleepy eyes and sore knees. I learned that their stares had weighed me, inspected me, knew me... and still let me sit among them.

My newly gained concrete floor perspective found and loathe to forget, I instead put it to good use.

A small, very dark, sullen, forgotten looking little girl constantly pushed aside by her peers and always about the work of some dusty chore, in clothes ill fitting and drab, caught my attention. I let her stare in silence. As we wandered around the girls dorm I dropped my hand to my side. I left it there dangling and open. She stared. We moved among the crowds of others taking pictures and chattering and she stayed by my side, her hand open as well. She edged closer and in a moment that was so small and silent as to be totally lost in the mayhem that we moved through, I dared to take her hand in my own. And there it stayed, along with a slightly shocked and shy smile on the face of my dear little one, until school began.

He was different because his grin was so quick to appear. A little cowlick of dark greased hair perfectly complemented his thin askew tie and pants belted just a little above the waist. His grin became reminiscent of the Cheshire cat in that as soon as I noticed it he would disappear completely. I sat in the garden one damp morning in a spot that I had picked specifically because I was hidden. So I thought. Then before my eyes this cowlicked Cheshire cat appeared and handed me a page torn from a coloring book which he himself had colored. His name was Suraj and with haste I drew a picture of an elephant for him in exchange.

When the children's stares became replaced with tasteless biscuits hailed from hidden pockets in their uniforms I knew that my lessons had been well learned.

I wrote my name in dry chalk on a painted on the wall blackboard before a small class of students in weary thin desks. I blinked hard. The deep blankness of their ancient eyes had been replaced by an engaging brightness that revealed the fullness of their youth. They asked me questions about the great wall of China, about how I teach English to people who can't speak English, and about why I love rotis. They laughed and struggled to produce even more English and twenty minutes after the lunch bell sounded they sat attentively in their desks and begged me to stay and continue talking with them. They were the ones that tempted me to throw the rest of my life away alongside them in that very village and when their voices reached through my friend's telephone at the train station where we sat ready to depart asked why did you leave? no answer seemed legitimate.

I gained many things from India, but perhaps the most valuable to me was the concrete floor perspective which I owe to the children.