Time at the community seems to be flying now. With just around five days left in our internship period, we are torn between the desire of having fun with the kids and teaching them new stuff. It's not that we don't want them to learn new things but the thought of this internship ending is actually beginning to give me jitters now.
It is now that I truly understand the concerns of that sixteen year old girl who kept wanting to be told again and again that we would not forget them after our internship is over. Maybe she has a better grasp over practical life than me or maybe she knows how to see through promises.
Come to think of it, I have been questioning myself a lot in the past two days. Have I made promises to these kids which I won't be able to fulfil ? Will I be able to take some time off my college schedule ? Would after some time, these kids even remember me as "woh didi ne kaha tha woh aayengi, aaj tak toh aayi nahi "("That girl had said she will come, she hasn't till now ") I have had some great moments with these kids and the last thing I want is for them to remember me as the person who couldn't keep her promise. If there is something that has been added to my list of expectations from myself, is the task to meet these kids atleast once a month and not to let them forget the great memories we had over the span of this month.
Yes, one might say that there is still time left for me to get all sentimental over leaving the community, but today in class when the same question of "Aap humse milne aaoge na ?" ("You will come to meet us, right ? ") was raised by a boy of around fourteen years of age, I couldn't help but think of how many expectations even these kids have of us when we leave and how disappointed they would be if we could not even pay them a visit after some time. No, that is something that I would never want, to see these kids get upset because of me, because of something that I promised but couldn't fulfil. However, I think such a situation would never really come up, regardless of how attached the kids have become to us, we know deep inside that we are twice as much attached to them now.
It's almost like that now I can imagine each one's reaction on a particular thing and visualise them smiling over some silly joke which we might have cracked during the class, and not to forget their morning prayer. For some time there wouldn't even be a single day when I would not have their voices in my head, singing the prayer early morning.
Yes, such would be their effect. Yes, my expectations of myself have increased tenfold.
As for the class, we had a worksheet on Maths prepared for the kids, five questions to be done each day in class, the class started off with doing those. Yet again, after having done the same thing since a long time, it was just natural for us to expect them to give all correct answers and when that didn't happen I wouldn't say we weren't upset. There were four kids who got all five correct, and the result of the rest of the class was just satisfactory, though it could have been much better. With bonding and any kind of relation, comes expectations, and it is these expectations which either make or break the relation, the person.
We quickly discussed the questions and went on to Science, discussed the different states of matter and then moved on to Water.
Teaching all of this in English, explaining each line in Hindi so as to ensure that they understood everything was a major task. We quickly found interesting ways to make things clear to them and the class ended after covering just basics of Water.
Yes, it is true that expectations either make or break a person. A person might be able to stand upto someone dear's expectations, thus making both of them ecstatic and optimistic or it might simply work the other way round, by increasing the pressure, thereby reducing the throughput and hence causing disappointment to everyone around. It is one thing to expect something from someone while giving them their space to live upto it and it is another to start commanding their life in the hope of getting your expectations fulfilled.
I hope never ever did we behave like the latter :) .
It is now that I truly understand the concerns of that sixteen year old girl who kept wanting to be told again and again that we would not forget them after our internship is over. Maybe she has a better grasp over practical life than me or maybe she knows how to see through promises.
Come to think of it, I have been questioning myself a lot in the past two days. Have I made promises to these kids which I won't be able to fulfil ? Will I be able to take some time off my college schedule ? Would after some time, these kids even remember me as "woh didi ne kaha tha woh aayengi, aaj tak toh aayi nahi "("That girl had said she will come, she hasn't till now ") I have had some great moments with these kids and the last thing I want is for them to remember me as the person who couldn't keep her promise. If there is something that has been added to my list of expectations from myself, is the task to meet these kids atleast once a month and not to let them forget the great memories we had over the span of this month.
Yes, one might say that there is still time left for me to get all sentimental over leaving the community, but today in class when the same question of "Aap humse milne aaoge na ?" ("You will come to meet us, right ? ") was raised by a boy of around fourteen years of age, I couldn't help but think of how many expectations even these kids have of us when we leave and how disappointed they would be if we could not even pay them a visit after some time. No, that is something that I would never want, to see these kids get upset because of me, because of something that I promised but couldn't fulfil. However, I think such a situation would never really come up, regardless of how attached the kids have become to us, we know deep inside that we are twice as much attached to them now.
It's almost like that now I can imagine each one's reaction on a particular thing and visualise them smiling over some silly joke which we might have cracked during the class, and not to forget their morning prayer. For some time there wouldn't even be a single day when I would not have their voices in my head, singing the prayer early morning.
Yes, such would be their effect. Yes, my expectations of myself have increased tenfold.
As for the class, we had a worksheet on Maths prepared for the kids, five questions to be done each day in class, the class started off with doing those. Yet again, after having done the same thing since a long time, it was just natural for us to expect them to give all correct answers and when that didn't happen I wouldn't say we weren't upset. There were four kids who got all five correct, and the result of the rest of the class was just satisfactory, though it could have been much better. With bonding and any kind of relation, comes expectations, and it is these expectations which either make or break the relation, the person.
We quickly discussed the questions and went on to Science, discussed the different states of matter and then moved on to Water.
Teaching all of this in English, explaining each line in Hindi so as to ensure that they understood everything was a major task. We quickly found interesting ways to make things clear to them and the class ended after covering just basics of Water.
Yes, it is true that expectations either make or break a person. A person might be able to stand upto someone dear's expectations, thus making both of them ecstatic and optimistic or it might simply work the other way round, by increasing the pressure, thereby reducing the throughput and hence causing disappointment to everyone around. It is one thing to expect something from someone while giving them their space to live upto it and it is another to start commanding their life in the hope of getting your expectations fulfilled.
I hope never ever did we behave like the latter :) .
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