February 18, 2008 - Tamil Nadu, India

The George Foundation - Shanti Bhavan

I’ve been put in charge of reading to the preschoolers for this week. Every night, from 8:15pm to 8:30pm is story time at Shanti Bhavan. Last week I read to the ‘Big Dorm’ (Grades 2-4). The first night I made the mistake of thinking they’d be at a similar level to what we were interested in reading at that age. Not so much. One forgets that little things that make sense to a North American child because they’ve grown up with it don’t necessarily have the same connotations for children here. In the story I’d picked, for instance (a favourite of mine at around that age), there’s a punch line involving a household with two toasters. When I first read that story I found that sentence extremely amusing. To the kids here, this was just the culmination of a story they weren’t really comprehending anyway. A large number of them didn’t even know what a toaster was – why would they?! I learnt quickly and progressed to Roald Dahl, who fortunately, accompanied with the fabulous drawings by Quentin Blake, is almost always acceptable to all children.

Anyway, back to the preschoolers. I was reading to the preschoolers, or at least attempting to do so. First we read about animals. Large pictures, few words. Polar Bears… Growl. Lions… Roar. (They like making animal sounds). Then came a hippopotamus. ‘A pig!’ shouted one kid. ‘No, an elephant!’ shouted another. ‘It’s a hippopotamus’ I replied, and then realized I had no sound for it to make. Nor did I have a sound for the walrus or flamingo. Fortunately they were all able to stand on one leg to imitate the flamingo, but still. What was the author thinking?! Obviously the animals should have distinctive sounds. What kind of sound does a walrus make anyway?! In the end we were offered a topic of conversation instead. We got to talking about grandparents when we saw the walrus, because one child saw a distinct similarity between the grizzled mouth of the walrus and that of a grandfather.

The animal picture book was finished a little early, but foreseeing this I’d brought another 8-page cardboard book I deemed suitable. Winnie-the-Pooh. Well. This also proved to be much more difficult than anticipated. ‘Have you guys seen Winnie-the-Pooh before?’ I asked. ‘Noooo’. ‘Alright then. This is Winnie-the-Pooh,’ I pointed out the distinctive bear on the cover, ‘and this is Piglet.’ ‘Pig!’ they shouted. ‘Yes, pig. Piglet.’ I said. We turn to carboard page number 1. ‘Pooh Bear and Piglet are friends’. I point to Pooh Bear ‘Who’s this?’. ‘Mommy and baby’ comes the reply. ‘No, no. This is Winnie-the-Pooh and this is his friend Piglet’. Blank stares. ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ I try pointing again. ‘Who’s this?’ The kids have given up trying to figure this out by this point, no answer. Alright. We keep going. It turns out Pooh Bear and Piglet are friends through all the seasons. Unfortunately, seasons don’t really make sense to the kids here yet because it’s pretty much always sunny with the occasional periods where there’s lots of rain. Playing in big piles of leaves in Autumn isn’t a memory any of them has. Also, still a no go on the whole who Pooh Bear is thing. We move on to Winter. Pooh Bear is wearing a snow cap. ‘Santa Claus!’ they cry out, desperate to be able to answer something. I give up. ‘Yup, it’s Santa Claus’.

I still haven’t quite learned my lesson yet though. Pooh Bear and Piglet are outside in wintertime. ‘What are they doing kids?!’. No answer. Alright, I’ll lead them to it. ‘What are they wearing on their feet?’. ‘Slippers!’ they all shout. The following is pretty much a direct transcription of what I said out loud to them ‘Well no, they’re not really slippers, they’re ice skates. They’re skating on ice. Oh wait you’ve probably never seen ice skating before. They’re skating on water. Frozen water. Have you seen ice before? Do you know what ice is? No. Right. Ok then, let’s move on to Dr. Seuss.’

Dr. Seuss, if anyone can recall, has rather interesting looking creatures peopling his books. Fortunately by the time we’d clarified that the dog in the story was not a camel, it was 8:30pm. Time up. Better luck next time.