Pakistan Today 22 April 2012
By Rabia Ahmed
Eighteen girls in identical blackburqas. One greets the same girl several times as it turns out. Despite the outward sobriety they’re charming individuals, and hats off to them for their courage: they’re at this (free) school to learn computers and from me English, me being a person who has had to look up the difference between an adverb and a pronoun in a hurry the night before. Even more courageous, they are there in spite of their social circumstances.
These girls’ fathers are rickshaw drivers or similar low wage earners, while the more prosperous might own a store. They all live in the area surrounding this school and this, coupled with the fact that the strict supervisor of the school is the only male on the premises, has allowed their parents to send them here. They are fortunate in belonging to families that support their decision to continue their education. For those of us in luckier circumstances, to ‘continue an education’ generally means a Masters or a PhD. For these girls it means anything more than class five, eight or matric, although there is one very bright seventeen-year-old who has not been schooled beyond class four, while a handful have studied to an intermediate, or even a Bachelors level. Their English however is exceedingly poor, as how can it possibly be otherwise?
To live in Pakistan is to feel grateful at every step for a privileged life if one has wealth. These are privileges people take very much for granted in the first world: the opportunity to play, study, and have some leisure, in short the opportunity to have a childhood. These girls, before they arrive for these classes at nine in the morning (at a beautifully appointed centre established by some dedicated people) have helped cook and feed their younger siblings, cleaned and washed their homes and the clothing for their entire family. When they return home they will be expected to make up for their absence by carrying out several further chores.
The bright young girl mentioned earlier was away from school for a week because she took it upon herself one day to cook rotis at their neighbour’s house, when their own was without gas as usually happens. My mother would have praised my enterprise had I done this. Her father grounded her for her daring, and it was only when the supervisor for the centre reasoned with her father that he agreed to let her continue.
It is a world apart.
They are more careful of their stationery, these girls, unlike children from wealthier homes. Books are carefully covered with paper and names inscribed in prettily decorated letters on the flyleaf; pencils and pens are carefully stored. It is obvious that the order of priority in which these items are to be replaced if lost is understood: food first, clothing second, and if finances permit after the bills are paid, the stationery; but naturally the boys come first.
The textbooks are good in the absence of anything local and interesting. Written by an Englishman, they have a liberal sprinkling of Pakistani names among the Annes and Richards, with teacher’s guides and notes. Nothing prepared me though for my students’ comments such as, ‘My father says we must not say ‘God’, Miss? He says we must only say ‘Allah’.’
You’re quite right, Nyla (not her real name naturally), it’s better to say Allah, so long as you’re Muslim and depending on the conversation, just as doctors would do better (conversely) to write a prescription for Metronidazole rather than Flagyl, or Levofloxacin rather than Levaquin. How this question arose in the middle of paraphrasing Alice in Wonderland though, I have never been able to discover. However it may have been, I have learnt to squash such discussions at the outset – who knows what misunderstandings might arise as a result of a single ‘flippant’ remark? One would rather these girls be allowed to continue coming to the centre.
The nation owes me for one thing at any rate. Here sit fourteen girls, and if multiplied by the national birth rate, a potential total of some one hundred and one and a half people who will never say ‘bowel’ ever again when what they mean is ‘bowl’. What is more, they will never direct persons to their homes by saying that they must get there via Shezan’s ‘backside’. I have seen to that, and whether or not I ever manage to teach them the difference between an adverb or a pronoun (or myself for that matter), I consider my efforts well spent.
These girls’ fathers are rickshaw drivers or similar low wage earners, while the more prosperous might own a store. They all live in the area surrounding this school and this, coupled with the fact that the strict supervisor of the school is the only male on the premises, has allowed their parents to send them here. They are fortunate in belonging to families that support their decision to continue their education. For those of us in luckier circumstances, to ‘continue an education’ generally means a Masters or a PhD. For these girls it means anything more than class five, eight or matric, although there is one very bright seventeen-year-old who has not been schooled beyond class four, while a handful have studied to an intermediate, or even a Bachelors level. Their English however is exceedingly poor, as how can it possibly be otherwise?
To live in Pakistan is to feel grateful at every step for a privileged life if one has wealth. These are privileges people take very much for granted in the first world: the opportunity to play, study, and have some leisure, in short the opportunity to have a childhood. These girls, before they arrive for these classes at nine in the morning (at a beautifully appointed centre established by some dedicated people) have helped cook and feed their younger siblings, cleaned and washed their homes and the clothing for their entire family. When they return home they will be expected to make up for their absence by carrying out several further chores.
The bright young girl mentioned earlier was away from school for a week because she took it upon herself one day to cook rotis at their neighbour’s house, when their own was without gas as usually happens. My mother would have praised my enterprise had I done this. Her father grounded her for her daring, and it was only when the supervisor for the centre reasoned with her father that he agreed to let her continue.
It is a world apart.
They are more careful of their stationery, these girls, unlike children from wealthier homes. Books are carefully covered with paper and names inscribed in prettily decorated letters on the flyleaf; pencils and pens are carefully stored. It is obvious that the order of priority in which these items are to be replaced if lost is understood: food first, clothing second, and if finances permit after the bills are paid, the stationery; but naturally the boys come first.
The textbooks are good in the absence of anything local and interesting. Written by an Englishman, they have a liberal sprinkling of Pakistani names among the Annes and Richards, with teacher’s guides and notes. Nothing prepared me though for my students’ comments such as, ‘My father says we must not say ‘God’, Miss? He says we must only say ‘Allah’.’
You’re quite right, Nyla (not her real name naturally), it’s better to say Allah, so long as you’re Muslim and depending on the conversation, just as doctors would do better (conversely) to write a prescription for Metronidazole rather than Flagyl, or Levofloxacin rather than Levaquin. How this question arose in the middle of paraphrasing Alice in Wonderland though, I have never been able to discover. However it may have been, I have learnt to squash such discussions at the outset – who knows what misunderstandings might arise as a result of a single ‘flippant’ remark? One would rather these girls be allowed to continue coming to the centre.
The nation owes me for one thing at any rate. Here sit fourteen girls, and if multiplied by the national birth rate, a potential total of some one hundred and one and a half people who will never say ‘bowel’ ever again when what they mean is ‘bowl’. What is more, they will never direct persons to their homes by saying that they must get there via Shezan’s ‘backside’. I have seen to that, and whether or not I ever manage to teach them the difference between an adverb or a pronoun (or myself for that matter), I consider my efforts well spent.
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