Monday at DJHS

This post is by Rich

A frenetic, packed day one at Diamond Jubilee High School in Mumbai on Monday, August 6th. Alan, Julia, Ingrid, Brendan and I taught straight through from 8:20-2:00 with a 30-minute break, then had a debriefing session with the teachers before returning to the YMCA Guest House, where I sit to write this entry, at 6:43pm local time.

My day was terrific. I opened with Parishma in Class 7-A. In this school, the students do not move between periods - the teachers do. There are 30-35 students per class, and 3-4 sections per grade (7-A, 7-B, etc.) Teachers move from class to class depending on their specialty. Students wear uniforms: khaki pants for boys, skirts for girls, button down uniform shirts, and neckties. Every student is in uniform. Parishma and I co-taught from 8:20-9:30, a creative writing lesson. We reviewed the Bread Loaf rules, then I asked students to make a list of they favorite places in Mumbai, choose one, then write a 5-senses poem about that place. (I went to... I saw..., I heard..., ending with "I felt"). The class ended with a sharing session in which students read their individual pieces. Next I went to 7-C, for a 35-minute lesson with Mehnaz, looking at a Roald Dahl poem called Television. Most of the class was a discussion about the positive and negative effects of television and other technology. Next was an elective period, a 35-minute session with Grade 10 students, taught by Grace. The students were writing advocacy pieces about sustainable practices to solve environmental problems. I gave a quick, impromtu lecture on the Rhetorical Triangle and appeals to Pathos, Ethos, and Logos, then we asked the students to begin constructing arguments. I was amazed at how well they incorporated the agreement strategies in pieces written so quickly. Next was a Grade 8 class with Krishnaveni, a terrific, veteran teacher whom I worked with in the past. I got there late, and the class was doing dramatic readings from the play The Mousetrap. Krishnavni asked me to coach a group on their reading, and video recorded me as I did it, to show other classes.

From 11:15-11:40, we had a tea break, then it was back to class. From 11:40-12:50 I worked with Shabnam in Class 6-A, on a creative writing lesson. We split the class into groups and used the Story Circle model that we've learned from New Orleans folks:

After the Story Circles, students wrote, then shared. The process went really well.

My final class of the day, from 12:50-2:00, was with Glenn, a first-year chemistry teacher, in Class 6-A. The lesson was an experiment, designed to help student synthesize what they have learned about chemical elements so far in the class. First, I led students through writing an 8-line "I am" poem (I am [name], I am wonderful because, I am useful because, I am dangerous because, I want to interact with, I do not want to hang out with, I want to, I am [name]).  After students wrote those poems, and five shared, I then explained how we were going to convert it into a Chemistry lesson. Glenn put the students in pairs and assigned each pair one chemical element - Hydrogen, Oxygen, Flourine, etc. We then asked the students to write an "I am" poem from the perspective of that chemical element. When students has questions about the elements, we referred them back to their textbooks. After they had time to write those poems, we invited them to share:

My favorite was, "I am silicon"

It reads:
"I am silicon (Si).
I am  wonderful because I am metalloid
I am useful because I am used in semi-conductors and computer chips
I am dangerous because I cause damage to the skin
I want to interact with silver, gold and oxygen
I do not get along with chlorine, sulphur and sodium
I want to be the most used chemical in the world
I am silicon (Si)."

 The lesson worked well.

From 2:00-2:45 all of us and our cooperating teachers met in the Teacher Resource Center and debriefed the day. Also today, Ingrid did art projects with various grades, Julia did drama and close reading workshops, Alan did a variety of music workshops (including re-working Dolly Parton's classic song '9-to-5' in a class on Commerce), and Brendan taught writing workshops to grades 3 and 5.

The student workshop has been officially rescheduled to Saturday, out of concern about the possible strike and protests. We do not believe they will impact the area where we are staying, but students attending the workshop will be traveling from other parts of the city, and so the event was rescheduled to ensure their safety.

And so we will return to DJHS tomorrow (Tuesday), and go to the Girl's School on Wednesday as planned. The teacher workshop (75 teachers from 17 schools) is Friday, and the student workshop (102 signed up!) is Saturday. It should be a good week.

Thanks for reading,
Rich

Mumbai Planning Meeting

This post is by Rich

Greetings from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It's 8:53pm local time and I've just returned from going out to dinner at a very nice Asian Fusion restaurant in the Phoenix Mall called Pa Pa Ya, about a 15-minute cab ride from the YMCA International Guest House, where we are staying. The Guest House is a terrific. It's a hotel, really, with nice rooms and a good restaurant. It's not fancy but it fits our needs perfectly. I stayed here back in 2015 when we were here for the first ABL Mumbai Conference.  Now we're back, for the South Asia Peace Literacy Conference. In Karachi we called in Arts Without Boundaries, because publicly labeling it a Peace Conference might have attracted unwanted attention.  However, it's really all part of the Andover Bread Loaf International Peace Literacy Network. Our goal is to create a more peaceful world, using the power of literacy, in all its forms, to build communicates and connect teachers and students across boundaries, and to critically examine what it means to internationally communicate across difference. And so, we're now in Mumbai.

Today was our planning session, at the Diamond Jubilee School:

Our host is Lee Krishnan, who attended the ABL Teacher Workshop alongside Mohsin Tejani from Karachi, me, Mary Guerrero, and others, back in 1997. The four of us have worked closely every since, in the US, India, and in Karachi. This is my third trip to Mumbai. I came in 2007, along with my sister, Eileen, and spent a week teaching with Lee. In 2015, Lee and her school hosted an ABL conference, and it was such at hit that by the end of the event the school principal, Nutan Iyer, was asking when we would return. Well, 2018 is the answer. Yesterday, August 4th, Brendan, Julia, Alan and I flew in from Karachi, and are joined by Ingrid Hess, a U-Mass Lowell professor, artist, and children's book author.

The flight from Karachi to Mumbai used to take a little under two hours, flying direct. However, the animosity between the two governments is so strong now that you literally can not fly direct. Instead, I flew from Karachi to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates - a two hour flight across the Arabian Sea. After a three-hour layover, I flew from Dubai to Mumbai - two hours and forty-five minutes. In all, it took eight hours to travel what should take two. It's absurd. It's like flying from Boston to New York but having to go through Houston because Boston and New York don't get along.

But we made it. Mohsin his colleague Basil Andrews are still back in Mumbai, dealing with visa issues. An American can get a visa to go to India in one day, on line. For a Pakistani, it takes two months, invitation letters, etc.  It's complicated. We are hopeful that Mohsin and Basil will be able to join us.

Our host institution is the Diamond Jubilee High School (DJHS), which is part of the Aga Khan Education Services (AKES). We've partnered with AKES since the mid-1990s, and they have connected ABL with a long list of wonderful teachers and schools. AKES schools are intended to serve the Ismeli Muslim community in some of the poorest areas in the world. DJHS serves students in Grade 1-10, and you don't have to be Muslim to go to school there, or to work there. It's a terrific place that I have come to know well. We will also work with the Diamond Jubilee Girl's School, located a short distance away, that serves exclusively Muslim girls, in a neighborhood where girls do not always go to school. I remember that place well from my last visit - it was truly inspirational.

Brendan, Alan and I all participated in the 2015 conference and today it was great to see and reconnect with many friendly faces, including the principal, Nutan Iyer, and teachers, including Shabnum, Jamila, Fatima, Arjuman, Taskin, and more. They remembered us well and even reminded us of workshops we did back then that I couldn't remember! Apparently some of the students remember us as well, and are excited about out visit, and working with us further. We are excited as well.

This week, we will spend Monday and Tuesday team-teaching with DJHS teachers at Diamond Jubilee, then Wednesday we will team-teach at the Girl's School. On Wednesday evening we will host a family literacy night at DJHS. On Thursday we will run a one-day student workshop for about 100 kids, hosted at DJHS. On Friday we will run a one-day teacher workshop, also at DJHS. There are 75 teachers from 17 different schools signed up. It will be a full and busy and rewarding week.

One possible kink in the plan is that a political group might stage a protest - that has nothing to do with us, mind you - on Thursday. They did protest last Wednesday, demanding higher wages and more jobs for their community, and some schools shut down out of fear of violence. It is rumored that the group will protest again this Thursday, and if that rumor is confirmed, we might cancel the student workshop on that day, possibly rescheduling it for Saturday.

But the planning must begin. Today (Sunday) we gathered at DJHS to meet with and co-plan with our  co-teachers. ABL International has evolved a model of co-teaching, so we intentionally work side by side with local teachers. We've been in touch on-line over the last several weeks, but nothing beats meeting in person.

Alan, Julia, Brendan and I are each paired with several DJHS teachers to plan and execute lessons. My schedule is typical of us four: on Monday I co-teach a 7th grade creative writing class with Parishma at 8:20am, a 7th-grade English class with Mehnaaz at 9:30, a 10th-grade writing class with Grace at 10:05, an 8th-grade class with Krishna at 10:40, a 6th-grade creative writing class with Shabnam at 11:40, and a 6th-grade chemistry (!) class with Glenn at 12:50. On Tuesday I teach a 6th-grade English class with Mehnaaz at 8:20, an 8th-grade narrative writing class with Parishma at 9:30, a 10th-grade Commerce Studies class with Saira at 10:05, a 6th-grade writing class with Fatima at 10:40, a 6th-grade geography class with Mubaraka at 11:40 and a different 6th-grade geography class with Mehnaaz at 12:50. On Wednesday, I will co-teach an English class and a creative writing class to 8th graders in the morning, and two classes with 1st graders in the afternoon. Lee made up our schedules, and she does not mess around.

Brendan was not on the same flights from Karachi to Dubai as I was - he flew late in the day on Saturday, while I left in the morning. This gave him the time to visit the Dream Foundation Model School in Karachi. This school serves some of the poorer students in the city. It charges no fees. They sent us about half of the participants in our Karachi workshop, and also a wonderful, wonderful teacher, Junaid Ahmed, who helped bring the kids and worked with us all week. He is really something special. Brendan told wonderful stories about his visit. The school trains 9th and 10th graders to work as assistant teachers in the younger classrooms, and intentionally develops students as leaders. Brendan was especially impressed with Aziz, a student who participated in our workshop and whom I consider the coolest man in the universe. He is an assistant teacher with younger students and is magical with them. I am jealous that Brendan had the chance to spend time there.

Here is the kicker - the Dream School is funded in part by Madonna, the pop singer from Michigan. Crazy world we live in.

Thanks for reading,
Rich

Final Exhibition

Posted by Rich

It's 9:07pm on Friday, August 3rd, our final night in Karachi. This evening was the final exhibition of the Arts Without Boundaries program co-sponsored by The School of Writing and Andover Bread Loaf. We held the final exhibit at The Second Floor (T2F), a community arts space in the DHA area of Karachi, just a few blocks from The School of Writing offices. It was an outstanding event, with great joy for us all. Visitors  said they had never seen anything like it before. Rahedeen Ali, director of the Writing Center at Habib, said she was moved to tears. A parent said, "my daughter has been coming home each day and telling me how great her day was. She said this has been the most incredible week of her life." Another visitor said, "We don't have anything like this in Pakistan. You gave these kids a voice."

We gathered at The School of Writing offices at 10am to begin final preparations. Brendan, Alan, Julia and I each met with our small group of ~6 students to work on their writing for the exhibition. Each student selected one piece to perform at the exhibition, and we coached them on delivery. In my group, 3 of the 6 students chose pieces they had written in Urdu. I was not able to coach them on content, but I did coach them on delivery (reading clearly and slowly and loudly with emphasis and rhythm.) Surprisingly, I found it easier to coach the Urdu speakers, because I could really focus on delivery. After that session, Julia and Alan led the students through rehearsals and final tweaks of the music and theater performances. We had lunch, then walked over to T2F. 



On the first floor, T2F has a large open space with brick walls and a hardwood floor. One wall is lined with books and art for sale. This was our performance space. On the second floor there is a cafe. We set up the space, hung 75 photographs (that were printed and framed overnight in a spectacular effort by a special crew) around the space, and rehearsed the performances. At 4pm, the big show began. Including participants, we had an audience of perhaps 50 folks, including some parents, visitors from the university and from the Pakistani-American Cultural Center, and other fans of TSW.

Jinaid, the terrific young teacher from the Dream Model School, served as Master of Ceremonies. He first introduced Mohsin, who spoke in Urdu and gave the audience and overview of the week and how it came about, including the story of how Lee Krishnan, Mohsin and I came up with the idea for this conference while riding on a bus to Vermont in July of 2017.




The photographs are really something. In two days touring the city, the kids really captured the look and feel of the places, people, sights, sounds, movement, tastes, smells. Once the space was filled with images, ringing all around, the space felt really special. And these were the 75 that the students chose out of perhaps 1,000 photos they took.

The first performance was music. Alan's music group performed their original composition, "Imagine Karachi", using song and drums. It was full of those pauses that make music - the space between the notes. A person I was sitting next to said she was surprised that they composed the song in only four days. I pointed out that it had been more like three hours.



 After that performance, the first 13 participants read their individual pieces. Jinaid called each reader up to the microphone in random order. Some read in English, some in Urdu.



At the halfway mark, the theater group performed the first of their two pieces, "Empress Market." A dozen students re-created the feel, sounds, and sights of one of Karachi's oldest marketplaces, complete with our colleague Brendan McGrath as a beggar.



Julia and Amtul did extraordinary work with that group, capturing the student voice in the piece. After that, the other 13 participants read their individual work. Finally, the theater group performed their second piece, about the Hindu Temple we visited, honoring the rituals they had observed. At the end, Hasnein thanked the organizers of the week, the participants, and the audience. Many folks tried to single out us four Americans, but we pushed back. This week was about Karachi, not about us. When we took the group photo, some wanted me to sit in front, but I refused. The TSW staff sat in front, ringed by the students. I was in the back, as well I should be.

When the event ended, we spent some time chatting and hugging and taking selfies and smiling and enjoying each other. The students did not want to leave. One told me he didn't want the feeling to end. Adult visitors were clearly moved. Several spoke about how there isn't a venue or tradition for student voice in Karachi, and spoke of the importance of providing it. For me, it was very cool to see four art forms - writing, photograph, music, and drama - combine to tell the story of Karachi.

On a side note: I began to realize today that for many of the students, visiting the Hindu temple was a really big deal. This is a country that is 96% Muslim, but that has a significant Hindu population. Many students testified that they began to understand the importance and richness of religious diversity.

During the day, I got to speak with some of the T2F staff, including Babool Aqeel, the communications manager, and Arieb Azhar, the executive director. T2F is an initiative of PeaceNiche, the non-profit started by Sabeen Mahmud, who was assassinated in 2015. PeaceNiche supports a number of initiatives for peace, including T2F. I discussed with them the local cafe and bookstore in Lawrence, El Taller, which has a similar mission to T2F, and even a strikingly similar physical space!

After our event ended about 6pm, we stuck around at T2F for a while as their weekly Open Mic event took place, and had dinner in the cafe. The Open Mic was pleasantly surprising to me. About 75 young adults, mostly 17-25 or so, crowded into the space, and signed up to read poetry, play music, do comedy, and enjoy each other's company, in a safe space. I signed up and read my "Goodbye to Karachi" piece, and Alan performed his song "Avalance" on his makeshift Taiko drums (a drum top on a plastic bucket).

Check out lots more photos and video from the event on The School of Writing Facebook Page, thanks to Annie Tejani, including a video of me reading Goodbye to Karachi.

More hugs, more selfies, and we headed back to the Guest House. Alan and Julia fly out at 7am, I fly at noon, and Brendan at 7pm. We are all heading for Mumbai, where we will spend a week working with Lee Krishnan and her folks at the Diamond Jubilee School. We are exhausted, but energized. I am jealous of Brendan, who has time tomorrow to visit the Dream School as the guest of Jinaid before he flies later in the day.

All week, the lingering question has been Mohsin's visa to India. A core dream of this conference was the hope that we could bring Indian teachers to Pakistan, and Pakistani teachers to India. So far, we've been unable to do so, due to visa issues. The animosity between the two governments is severe. Mohsin applied for his visa two months ago, and despite pressures from every direction we could think of, it has to come through yet. We had hoped for four other folks - one was denied, and two others languish in the process. We remain hopeful we can get Mohsin to Mumbai next week, but it's no guarantee.

I leave at 8:30am for the airport. My next post will likely be from either the Dubai airport en route, or from Mumbai once I arrive.

Thanks for reading,
Rich

Habib University

This post is by Rich

It's 9:50pm on Thursday August 2nd and we've just returned from an evening visit to Habib University which was really, really cool. It's been a long day, as every day has been long, but I didn't want to miss Habib, a place I've heard so much about.

Habib University was founded in 2012, with Mohsin's friend Wasif Rizvi as president. It's the first expressly liberal arts university in Pakistan, a country with perhaps 1,000 colleges and universities. Most of the colleges and universities provide technical or business training. While Habib does offer majors in computer science and electrical engineering, as well as social policy and other liberal arts fields, every student must study a liberal arts core. The school was started by the Habib family, a major banking family in Pakistan. We drove there after session today, met with several administrators, went on a tour of the facility, and had dinner. It was very, very impressive - a brand-new space with the latest in design computers, film studio, library, swimming pool, tennis court, etc. The school's motto is "Every human being's worth is in their Yoshin." The word "Yoshin" is an Arabic word meaning "thoughtful self-cultivation." Their five core values are beauty, respect, excellence, passion, and service. The architecture really struck me. It is not like any other university I've been to. It does not try to be Oxford or Yale - it's designed appropriate for its space, and I think defines a new Pakistani architecture. Lots of open air spaces, wide hallways, plenty of meeting spaces, large indoor and outdoor auditoriums. The school currently has 650 students and is growing fast - expanding to close to 900 in two weeks, and more after that. This spring they graduated their first-ever class, and Mohsin's son Ali was one of the graduates. All of the members of his inaugural class as considered co-founders.

 I spent time chatting with Rahdeen Ali (wearing yellow in the picture above), who is the manager of the Writing Center. It's one of the first Writing Centers at any university in Pakistan. Mohsin was helpful its its creation. Rahdeen and I discussed writing centers and ideas for promoting and improving her work. I also chatted with Yasmin Bano, an administrator of Habib, about expanding the community service program. These people are very smart, very serious, and committed to the goal of making Habib one of the world's top 100 universities by 2030. I wouldn't be against them. I promised to do some workshops at Habib when I return to Karachi.

I was thrilled to unite with Yasmin Bano, who I met at the 2002 ABL conference at the Mzizima Primary School in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, and with R____, who I met at the 2000 ABL Millennium Conference here in Karachi. It was great to be together with them and with Mohsin, both to remember the conferences, and to realize that here we are, 16-18 years later, still doing the work.

The quote "those that love sausage and respect the law should never watch either of them being made" is traditionally attributed to Mark Twain, and generally means that the process of creation can be messy. Today was the sausage-making day of our student program. We spent the day at The School of Writing offices. The students arrived about 9:30, and all had selected two pieces of writing for the final exhibition, as we had asked. We worked with each student one-on-one to go through the photographs they took on our two field trip days, and asked them to select three for the exhibition. Once that process was complete, we assembled together in the main space for a series of warm-up exercises led by Julia and Alan, then divided up into two groups, each with about 12 students. Julia and Amtul took one group for the next three hours, while Alan had the other group. After messy sausage-making (metaphorically), each group emerged with a fantastic performance. Julia and Amtul's group created two scenes, one of Empress Market, and the other of the Shri Laxmi Narayan Temple, each including movement, words, and sounds. Alan's group used drums, words, sounds, rhythm, and melody to write and perform an original song, "Imagine Karachi."  At 3:30 the groups came back together and performed for each other, and made minor tweaks. What the kids did, and the facilitators facilitated, in three hours, was impressive to watch. It was very-good sausage making.

As I've discussed with all the facilitators, this week is an experiment. We won't know how to do it until we do it. It's a beautiful, magical, rare opportunity, to have a group of master teachers together with 25 students and a full week to work with them. It's an experiment in what's possible in teaching and learning. It's an experiment in communicating across difference. It's a learning experience for all of us. And it looks like it's going to end with some darn good sausage.

On Friday we will meet again at 10am, to work the performances and practice for the final reading. After lunch we will walk over to T2F ("The Second Floor"), a community arts space, to prepare for the final exhibition, which is scheduled for 3-6pm. In addition to the theater and music performances, the students' photography (some 75 images) will be on display, and each student will read a piece of their writing. It should be pretty cool.

At the end of today's session we held a quick debrief, then gave each participant a Post-It note and asked them to write a few thoughts. Here are some:

"I enjoying a lot last four days we make so much."
"Last days we make so much fun with Sir Alan"
"We built knowledge and learned a lot. Keep it up!"
"In these four days I got to see my city in a new way."
"The whole training was just amazing which was a blend of writing, photography, acting, and singing. Really thank Brendan, Julia, Alan, Rich, Sir Mohsin, the Andover Breadloaf & The School of Writing for this opportunity."
"Overall session was learningful and enjoyable. All the teachers were loving and great."
"This past week was a lifetime experience for me, got a chance to meet new people, saw many new faces and got a chance to work with them really boosted my teamwork skills and confidence."

I look forward to the final exhibition at T2F tomorrow, I do not look forward to leaving Karachi on Saturday morning, and I *do* look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones in Mumbai starting Sunday, and our work there next week.

Thanks for reading,
Rich

Our First Photowalk

On Tuesday, we had our first of two Photowalks. The School of Writing has created an incredible program in which students and teachers are taught the basics of digital photography and then taken out to culturally important parts of Karachi. They include destinations of state, social and religious significance.

Already familiar with taking photos on their phones, Basil Andrews, a marvelously talented photojournalist, did a workshop with the participant on Monday regarding the technique and emotion of a great photo.

Our first stop was Old Karachi, a bustling street with buildings, some of them just abandoned facades left standing, built back in the mid-late 19th c.

Then we went to Shri Laxmi Narayan Mandir, a Hindu shrine, right alongside a port. There was a funeral ritual in progress, with the ashes being prepared for final dispersal into the water (note: we were told repeatedly that it was alright to take a picture, something we pushed back on intensely, until finally giving in, with as much reverence as we could manage in this kind of situation).

Outside the temple shrine was a transgender beggar who was making bread to sell. It is not unusual to see transgender people, and they will undoubtedly be beggars. From my discussion with Pakistanis, they are considered an inferior class of people who will not get any sense of belonging or normalcy in this society. I note that this is obviously the norm when it comes to transgender lives all over the world and do not share these thoughts with a wagging finger. In other words, we all gotta get our sh*t together when it comes to rights for all people.

We ended our day at Frere Hall, a remnant of the Raj, or British rule, which ended with the independence of India. This, of course, leading to the great Partition that started in 1947, and whose effects are still felt to this day.

Frere Hall was a performance venue of the late 19th c. built by the British to entertain their community. It is now a cultural landmark that contains an exhibition space for contemporary artists.

The other half of students went on a different Photowalk today, and we will be switching destinations tomorrow. Today was magnificent and I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow brings.

This post is by Rich

It's 8:43pm on Wednesday, August 1, and we returned to the Guest House a few minutes ago. Today was another day of adventure exploring Karachi. Today Group Two, my group, visited Old Karachi, the Shri Laxmi Naryan Hindu Temple, and Frere Hall. After exploring, we returned to The School of Writing for writing and sharing, and the facilitators planned for tomorrow's work.

While riding along in the bus between sites, Mohsin and I invited Annie to join the 2019 ABL Teacher cohort, and she said she was excited to do so. We quickly began making plans for an ABL-TSW conference in 2020, with student and teacher programs in Karachi and Lahore, and a professional development sessions for faculty at Habib University. The work has just begun!

The sharing session this afternoon was a real breakthrough. Every single student shared a piece of writing. Some shared in English, some in Urdu. They supported each other. They used specific sensory details. When a student read in Urdu, I didn't know exactly what they were saying, but I *felt* it. Today, I feel like our student participants really understand what we're trying to do here. And just in time. Tomorrow, Thursday, is a busy work day, at The School of Writing. We will curate photographs, edit writing, and divide into two groups. One group will work with Amtul and Julia to develop a theater performance, and the other will work with Alan to develop a musical performance. It's all leading up to our big show, a public exhibition at T2F (a.k.a. "The Second Floor"), a community arts space, on Friday afternoon.

This evening, Annie took several of us shopping for jewelry at the markets. I selected two gold necklaces with matching earrings, and Annie did the bargaining. The original asking from was Rs. 1800 each. By the time Annie got done, I paid Rs. 2500 for both - about $22 US. She is indeed an expert shopper. Dinner was a quick stop at Mr. Burger, Karachi's fledgling competition for the Burger Kings of the world. I can report with authority that the chicken sandwich at Mr. Burger is far superior to anything US fast food has to offer.

While my group was exploring those three places, Group One went to the three places we went to yesterday. And yes, both Alan and Julia rode camels on Karachi's Sea View beach. Some things you don't know are on your bucket list until you do them.

Our first stop today was Old Karachi, the city's oldest commercial district. We walked down the street, observing the shops and people, and I learned how to cross a busy city street like a Pakistani. It resembles the old American video game "Frogger." The roads are packed with motorbikes, rickshaws, cars, pedestrians, an the occasional animal cart. You look for openings and you go.

Having been raised in a family hardware store, I was excited to see a real Karachi hardware store:

 As we walked, we passed by the New Menom Masjid Mosque, the largest mosque in Karachi, with capacity for 10,000 people. Devout Muslims pray five times a day, and men are encouraged to do so at a mosque. Women are generally expected to pray at home, or if they do visit the mosque, there is a separate praying area for them. Mohsin asked, and to our surprise, we were given permission, to enter the mosque. Annie was with us, and she had to remain in the ladies' area while Mohsin, Brendan and I explored the mosque. 

I spoke with Annie later about the irony of two white Irish-Catholic men from Boston being allowed to explore the mosque while a Pakistani woman who has lived her her whole life is not allowed. To our further surprise, we were allowed to enter the madrasa that was connected to the mosque. Think of it like a parochial school connected to a church in the Christian tradition. At a madrasa, the Koran is the primary text, although students also student other subjects such as math and science. In the madrasa, students and teachers sit on the floor in small groups, studying their lessons. One goal of the madrasa it to memorize the entire Koran. It usually takes at least three years to do so, and is considered a great accomplishment. One who does can then take the name Hafez. One of the teachers at the school spoke proudly of a student who had memorized the Koran in seven months, eleven days - a record for this madrasa.

The New Memon Masjid mosque was built in 1949, just after the partition that split India in two, and created Pakistan as a majority-Muslim country. At the time of partition, many Hindus who were living in the area moved away, into India, while many Muslims in what is now India moved into Pakistan.

Our second stop was the Shri Laxmi Naryan Hindu Temple, on the waterfront. To me, the location seemed odd. It was right on the water front, part of the port. You go under a bridge to get to it, and the shipping docks are nearby, as well as two water-front office buildings under construction. The Temple is located on the waterfront, which is important for ritual. Our students were enraptured with the displays of Hindu gods.

Our third and final stop of today's tour was Frere Hall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frere_Hall
 It's surprising to me to realize that Karachi is a such a young city. It was basically a small fishing village before the British East India Tea Company arrived with a gun boat in 1839 and colonized it, turning Karachi into a shipping port for goods from the Pakistani interior. The indigenous folks opposed colonization, and there was a major rebellion in 1857. The British government then sent the army, and occupied Karachi with the military for decades. During this time, they also built what are now some of the most famous places in Karachi, including Frere Hall. It's a lovely old building that dates from 1865. It was originally built to be city hall, and has had a variety of other purposes. Today it houses a library on the first floor (quintessentially dusty, with a complete set of Shakespeare dating from 1893). The second floor (or, first flood, as they say here), is a museum.  The famous Pakistani artist Sadequain  was halfway done painting a mural on the ceiling when he died in 1987. The museum now hosts a collection of his work.

While were at Frere Hall, we stumbled into a film crew from "I am Karachi," an organization seeking to document life in Karachi and to promote the country. They invited our students to form an impromptu chorus and sing the Pakistani national anthem, and they agreed to do so. Its a beautiful song - to my ear much prettier than the US anthem.

On the way up to the second (first) floor of Frere Hall, I encountered this wall text:

It's hard to read this image, but basically it says that this building was erected in honor of Sir Henry Bartle Frere in commemoration of his "nearly nine years" of service as colonial administrator of the Sindh province, and the great esteem in which the people held him. I call bullshit. Sir Henry Bartle Frere was the colonial adminstrator at the time of the 1857 rebellion, and was knighted for helping to crush the rebellion. He does not seem like an admirable figure. Eventually he was discredited for service in East Africa, but not before Frere Hall was built in his honor.

And so I am left with some perplexing questions. Empress Market and Frere Hall were both designed and  built by British colonizers. Actually, I feel certain that the Brits didn't do much of the building - local people probably did. They are symbols of a brutal, racist, violent, colonizing era. And yet, today they are quintessentially Karachi, used by Pakistanis for commerce and culture, celebrating Karachi and its way of life. What do we make of such spaces? of such places? Are they legacies of colonialism, or are they the heart of Karachi? Or both?  In light of the movement in the US to remove Confederate statues, or to rename the ALA's Children's Book award away from Laura Ingalls Wilder because of the racist content of her books, and the ongoing campaign to change the racist name of professional sports teams in the US, it's got me thinking.

Thanks for reading,
Rich

...and Brendan rode a camel

Posted by Rich

It's 9:58pm on Tuesday July 31, and we just returned to the Guest House from the first-ever Family Literacy Night held in Pakistan. Modeled after what ABL has developed in Lawrence, and propagated throughout our network, it's a very simple model: invite families to come to a space, write together following simple prompts, and share, with the goal of building community. We don't pretend to have invented the idea - community literacy circles are a very old and very powerful idea, built by giants before us (including by US civil rights leaders in the 60s, and South African post-apartheid healing circles in the 90s), but ABL has done what is can to refine and implement a model that works in a lot of contexts. So thanks to Mohsin and The School of Writing, we led a workshop for about 30 folks at the Pakistan-American Cultural Center this evening. Check out social media for more photos and video.

Two moments stuck out for me. The first was a woman who came with her 14-yr-old daughter and 12-yr-old son. She shared her dream to complete her own education. She married and had children young, and was not able to complete her education when she was young, but now that her children are growing, she is studying alongside them, and they attend workshops at The School of Writing together. Another participant was a young man, perhaps 18, who told Brendan that when he first discovered The School of Writing three years ago, "I was a zero," and that The School of Writing's programs have changed his life. Alan opened the evening with a stunning performance of "Avalanche" on the drums - three buckets with drum lids, an improvised musical platform that left everyone speechless. I led the writing workshop, and at the end of the sharing, Brendan, Alan, Julia and I were presented with gifts from the Pakistani-American Cultural Center. Mohsin hopes to host Family Literacy Nights once a month from now on, possibly hosted at T2F (The Second Floor, a local community center and cafe.)

But, the really cool thing that happened today was that Brendan rode a camel. Oh, and the Yankee hat thing.

We got to The School of Writing offices about 8:30 this morning. As we waited for the students to arrive, Alan presented gifts to Anny and Ali, Mohsin's 20-something children: baseball caps from the New York Yankees. There were very excited. As a card-carrying fan of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, I objected to the team logo on the front of the cap, but even I had to admit it was pretty cool:

I, meanwhile, wore my Andover Wrestling hat today:

When the students arrived, Mohsin explained that we would split into to groups for our work documenting the life of the city, and distributed a handout with a brilliant model. We would visit three spaces: a religious space, a public space, and a market space, for one hour each. In each space, students would spend 20 minutes observing, 20 minutes making photos, and 20 minutes writing about the experience. Each student was provided with a camera. We split into two groups, and we were off.

I was in Group Two, with Mohsin, Anny, Basil, Brendan, and about 15 students. We boarded the bus and headed out. Our first stop was the Empress Market Sadder. It's an open-air roofed market place with many stalls, each selling various goods: toiletries, henna, foodstuffs, meats, nuts, animals. We roamed the alleyways lined with small shops. The foodstuffs area was an eye-opener. One stall sold chicken, with a cage of live chickens and a man butchering the chickens fresh. There were a lot of bugs about, and I suspect that the health authorities might have an opinion on the proceedings. There was an area that sold pets, including a parrot whose asking price was $2500, and also monkeys, rabbits, cats, dogs, and smaller birds. I was disturbed by the conditions in which the animals were kept. There are indeed laws to protect against animal cruelty, but not the budget to enforce them. Although I was dismayed, I had to remind myself of what I know about the US agriculture industry, and the way animals are often treated in our slaughterhouses. We keep such ugliness out of sight... Other parts of the market were awesome. In one area, men used a turning device to grind the oils out of nuts, including coconuts. Anny bought some henna and has promised to decorate my hand with mendi later in the week. Our students photographed and interviewed shopkeepers.

Later, I head a story of the market. In 1857, local people rose up in revolution against British colonizers. The British army suppressed the revolution with brutal violence, butchering people and displayed the bodies in this area, to terrorize the populace. Local people began to leave flowers and turned it into a kind of shrine. The British didn't like that, so they build a marketplace on the spot, to serve the shopping needs of British folks. Nearby is St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, and St. Patrick's Catholic Church (to serve the Irish impressed into service in the British army.) Today, the market is decidedly Pakistani - some students in our group called it "the heart of Pakistan."

Second stop was Mohatta Palace. Built in the 1920s as a Hindu Temple, it has undergone various purposes and is now a museum. It's a gorgeous building with lovely gardens inside a wall. We walked the grounds and explored the exhibits, including the work of Imran Mir, one of Pakistan's most famous designers and artists. I remembered seeing his work at a museum in New York. A quote of his on the wall struck me as profound:  “I enjoy art. I am an artist constantly, not just when I am creating it. When I walk down the street all of my senses are open to the influx of sensations. I see the sharp lines of a small Zach three building, the swaying branches of the trees, the showering droplets of the fountain, and I am filled the a yearning to incorporate these visual experiences in my art.” - Imran Mir, 1950-2014.

Last stop was at Sea View beach. Beach culture in Pakistan is not like that in the US. There were a bunch of people at the beach, but nowhere near what you'd expect at a US or Caribbean beach on a 90-degree day. No one was in a swimsuit - folks wore regular clothes. Only a few people went in the water, most just wading in the edge. Mohsin explained that the tides are so strong that it's actually prohibited to swim in the ocean in July due to safety. There were a lot of horses and camels to ride, food vendors, and dune buggies to rent. It was pretty dirty with litter and a strong wind blew sand, making it not an entirely pleasant experience. Still, the ocean is the ocean, and so I waded a bit in the Arabian Sea, and Brendan rode a caml.

In case you're wondering, it costs Rs. 100 to ride a camel - about 80 cents. I declined, as I had my camel ride when I visited Karachi back in 2000. 

We returned to the The School of Writing about three, then had a one hour debrief session with the students. I asked them to write a quick five-senses poem (I went, I saw, I heard, I smelled, I tasted, I touched, I felt) about the day, and we shared in small groups, then as a whole. The kids are having a great time and had some profound observations about their experiences, and the day.

While we were visiting Empress Market, Mohatta Palace, and Sea Side, Group One was visiting three different sites. Tomorrow, we will switch, and our group will see three new places. On Thursday we will reconvene as a big group to try to make sense of it all, and prepare for Friday's exhibition.

Julia missed part of our work today, as she conducted a workshop for 35 teachers at the SPELT offices (Society of Pakistani English Language Teachers), using the texts of Shakespeare to teach close reading skills.

It's a tremendous gift we have this week as educators, to work together with a small group of students and teachers to build models that can be duplicated at TSW and as after-school programs throughout Pakistan. When does a teacher get the chance to explore a new culture and work with a group of master teachers like this? I am indeed grateful.

Thanks for reading,
Rich