Indian School Addis Ababa, Home Schooling, The case of Bheema and Cinderella, Ethiopian Journey, Blog Post no - 62

There are 1.6 crore Indians living outside the country. Indians love to travel and spread their roots throughout the world but there is one thing that they are very particular about – their children’s education.

To offer quality education, great sacrifices are made and family splits vertically into two, the bread winner moves to the foreign country, the spouse in many cases the mother stays back and takes care of the children’s education needs. 

I had done my own research and Dad’s friend Khanchal also assured me that Addis Ababa has an Indian school and that CBSE syllabus was followed. The school also allowed students from stations other than Addis Ababa to come and write the annual examinations. 

That was a great relief. But another problem cropped up. The time was not enough for Pranav’s admission in the November month, when we landed in Addis Ababa for the first time. We tried but the school was closed for holidays.

On my consequent visit to Addis Ababa, I submitted the admission form and checked the text books that Pranav was having at Geetanjali school in Hyderabad. The text books followed at Indian School were the same as Geetanjali Public School, Hyderabad.

The School Principal Nair was a fine gentleman. He was superbly confident that Pranav would do very well. But pouring cold water on my upbeat mood, he asked “what is your son’s second language? “Telugu” I answered very confidently.

“That will not do” he answered with a firm nod. “He will have to take Hindi”. I pleaded with him. But to no avail. Nair sir was firm. It was Hindi or nothing. I was given the TINA (There Is No Alternative). If Pranav had to study, he has to take Hindi. Pranav does not even know Hindi alphabet. I jumped the gun and accepted the challenge and admitted Pranav in the second class.

Seeing my crestfallen expression, Nair softened a little ‘I know, I know it is difficult to learn without attending a regular full time school. And you have come in January and your son has hardly three months to prepare for his 2^nd class examination”. He went out and consulted his other teachers. It was a quite difficult to stay still. I did not know what was happening.

Sometime later Nair came back. Seeing his cheerful expression, I knew that there was some good news. “Sir” he said “we will allow one-year exemption for your son. He need not write 2d class Hindi examination. But when he is writing his 3^rd class annual examination he will have to write both 2^nd class and 3^rd class hindi exams.” But hindi text book was not available. Nair asked me to come later and take a Xerox copy!

I was confident that the mother-son duo of Padma and Pranav can pull it off. Pranav was reasonably smart and Padma had worked as a teacher in India.

Back at Bahirdar this news was met with silence that you could cut with a knife. Both mother and son were shocked. But I brought them down to reality and said “we have no choice. It is either Hindi or go back to India”. Immediately they perked up and said that they will take it as a challenge. To learn hindi from scratch, cover the syllabus of UKG, 1^st class and write 2^nd class and 3^rd class hindi examinations at one go is an arduous task.

The hindi text book was difficult to procure. Two or three attempts were made but every time the hindi Xerox was elusive. Finally, it was Mr. Khanchal who took it as a challenge. He deputed his employee and after nearly three months the Xerox arrived by post. I mentally thanked Mr. Khanchal for his support.

Padma and Pranav were relieved and it was amazing to see Pranav pick up hindi just like a duck takes to water. It was the taste of things to come. Pranav proved later, that he has a special gift as far as learning new languages was concerned!

Most Indians in Ethiopia followed the home schooling concept. Home schooling is where the home becomes the school and it is the parents who take the responsibility of teaching their children. Padma had to take care of both Pranav’s and sahithi’s schooling needs.

In places like Arba Minch, Mekele and Gondar, Indian families with children organized schools in their own houses. All other Indian families send their children and mothers became different subject teachers. It was the closest they came to create a real school like atmosphere. If there are around 10-15 kids a school atmosphere could easily be created.

Bahirdar was very different. There were around 15-20 Indian families. But most of them were bachelors, forced bachelors (who left their wife/husband and children in India) newly married couples or Indians who came to Ethiopia, post retirement. Rangam’s daughter Rhea from POLY and Azaz Ahmed’s daughter Shareekha from PEDA campus were in the same age group.

POLY, kable 7 and PEDA campus were away from each other and getting these three kids to a place was a logistical night mare. And sending them alone to each other houses was not possible in Bahirdar at that time. It was safe but the children could not bear the teasing that came their way.  

Pranav and Sahithi had a five-year age difference and would fight like cats and dogs. Sahithi was slender as a reed but had an iron will to irritate both her mother and brother. She would continuously nag Pranav. She could not bear Padma showering even a vee bit of attention on him.

Pranav at that time was very interested in Mahabharat. Adding to his interest was the Mahabharat special Amar Chitra Katha comics that we had brought from India. Pranav loved the stories and was quite intrigued as why brothers fought with each other.

This was not to Sahithi’s liking. She wanted her mother to fawn on her and tell her Cinderella story. She went up to Padma who was reading out Mahabharat to Pranav, stomped her feet angrily and screeched “Stop reading him Mahabharat, it will make him fat”. And before Padma could recover she added “you better read us Cinderella story instead, that will make us thin”

This accusation stopped Padma in a mid-sentence. She garbled, recovered and asked sarcastically “well, well how does learning about Mahabharat make one fat?!”. Sahithi looked on haughtily “you told me that Bheema eats a lot and that he is large and big. Look at Anna, he too is becoming like BHEEMA!”.

“That I can understand” answered a stunned Padma “but how does listening to Cinderella make you thin”. Sahithi was irritated that her mother was not getting the logic. “Amma” she said gratingly “Don’t you SEE! Cinderella is thin and very beautiful. Show me one picture of Cinderella in the book where Cinderella is fat?”. Padma was too stunned to answer seeing Sahithi’s smug and “cat who had all the cream” expression.