House visits - day 2

Before I forget the details of the rest of the house visits, let me put them down.

For going to Rahul's house, one need to go through umpteen number of small winding streets. I have been there only once and I didn't want to lose my way trying to get there. So I called his mom to ask her to come and pick up his books, together with him. But before I could ask her, she told me that it would be nice if I could visit them at home. She agreed to pick me up from the main road. I reached the junction at 8.15 am. Rahul's father greeted me and left directly to work from there and we walked to their house. On the way she told me that Rahul is at his uncle's place. I felt angry and upset, as he is the one who can get affected most by the summer setback. He is not motivated to read on his own and even after repeated requests to his parents, they don't seem to guide him in the right direction. I still gave all the instructions to his sister and ask her to go to her uncle's house and get the work done by Rahul. I followed up for the next 3 days till the books reached him.

Since I have not been to Kiran's house till now, I had a little bit of trouble in finding his place. But he was waiting for me near the road. We walked up to his 4th floor apartment. He is one of the better offs in my class. I gave him the books and explained how much needs to be done everyday. He was the only one who started doing the work even before I finished explaining. He kept doing page after page while I waited for my colleague to come. They are making a video, with one child from each TFI fellow talking something. His father told me that he has been playing all the while, now that he has got the books, till he finishes he will not do anything else. Oops! that was not the idea. If he finishes the whole thing in 2 days and plays around for the rest of the vacation, his summer setback might still be the same. So I asked his father to also get him more books to read and write during the vacation.

I reach Riya's house and the first thing that catch my attention is the huge air cooler in their room which is taking 1/4th the space in the room. But it is indeed cool in here when compared to the 41degrees outside. Her parents think that I have done some wonder on Riya, she was detained in 4th standard last year and this year she has even managed the first rank once. I have once again told them that she is an intelligent girl and she is putting in the right effort in the right direction now. Again the same question of next years teachers and I reassured them that I will still be there teaching English and Maths.

Since I have not been able to reach Nanda's father's mobile for the last 2 days, I asked Riya whether she can take me there, since I knew thats Nanda's house is very close from her house. We walked to Nanda's house. When I reached there she was just lying down on her bed doing nothing. This is exactly what I do not want them to be doing during vacation. Can't she at least go and play something!! She said she will play (argh, did any kid need any asking from her teacher for going and playing, ever? ). I gave her the books and explained her what she needs to do. Since I saw her distracted I asked her to repeat what I have told and she couldn't. So I explained again and this time with some minor corrections she managed. There is a new woman in the house, whom she was calling 'mommy', may be that explains the distraction. I need to find details of that soon, so that the distractions are not allowed to affect her studies or her behavior.

I am done with 12 and tired to death. My mind is busy finding ways in which I can avoid the last one visit. Then I shout at myself for doing everything half way (this time 92% way) and go to Umesh's house. Last time when I visited Umesh's house, his mom had to search for him for more than half an hour to get him back to the house. This time again the same story. She told me that he was waiting for me all this while and has just stepped out. I worry most about him getting into bad company and she tells me that she too worries the same. But since the time his father has passed away, she says that, she doesn't have much control over him. I sit and wait, while several kids go in and out of the house. Every kid who enters the house get an invitation for coming and eating lunch, a request to also call some other kid for lunch and also to find Umesh. All of them go out trying to find Umesh, but with no success. During the time, the pressure on me to have chicken biriyani there is also increasing. Finally I explain what all need to be done by Umesh on a daily basis to his mom and also write that down in a small note book she has given me. I agreed to eat some biriyani and eat just 2 spoonfuls much to her protest. I wait for another 15 mins to round it off at one hour and decide to make a move from there. She apologizes again and agrees to make sure that Umesh does the work daily before he goes out to play.

Tanned, tired and thirsty, I am done with the first step in the summer setback attack plan. Now the next one is to follow up by calling up all of them and checking on how much they have finished. I know that some of them wouldn't need any calling up for them to be on track, but some could do with even daily calls. I would like to visit them again, sit with them and correct the work they have done till then. Let me see whether there is any scope of 'House visits - day 3 and 4'!