{"id":1211,"date":"2013-01-05T02:59:44","date_gmt":"2013-01-05T02:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/?p=1211"},"modified":"2013-01-05T02:59:44","modified_gmt":"2013-01-05T02:59:44","slug":"government-home-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/?p=1211","title":{"rendered":"Government Home Class"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been five classes in all for the young women at the government protective home, each successively with fewer girls in attendance.\u00a0 Being teenagers, they exhibit the universal traits of being a teenager anywhere.\u00a0 They want to be special, to get attention, to be of individual significance, to be entertained, to show off, to be with their friends, to be rebellious.\u00a0 As a class begins, several young women who are either pregnant or not feeling well* crowd the sides of the dingy room and are like mermaids to my students.\u00a0 One by one, girls defect from the drill lines to sit with compatriots on the side, or have a lie down.\u00a0 Sometimes, a defector or a mermaid will re\/join the class randomly when there is something they find fun being done.\u00a0 They disappear just as quickly back to the sidelines as soon as they feel bored or feel they are not being paid attention to.\u00a0 With the language barrier, exercising order and discipline is a dance with alienation and estrangement.\u00a0 It is emotionally exhausting.<\/p>\n

That said, there is a core group of roughly 12 girls who appear to look forward to each class, and who can\u2019t wait to do all the drills and exercises.\u00a0 Since using their real names or showing their pictures is forbidden, I will call them The Dirty Dozen, or the DD for short.\u00a0 Every time Sajji and I come to class, the DD inspires me.\u00a0 They are gifted with natural athletic abilities, quick minds, and a large capacity for work.\u00a0 It is my great fortune that I have made their acquaintance, that I learn from them possibly as much as they learn from me.<\/p>\n

* \u2018Not feeling well\u2019 is a term often used for a girl who is having her period.\u00a0 In this part of the world, a girl who is going through her period is not expected to participate in physical exercise, or even go to school.\u00a0 And not having access to pain relief (due to protocols or expense), I\u2019m not sure I can blame the girls from not wanting to be active or at school.\u00a0 But this practice has obvious consequences, as pointed out by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn in their book \u2018Half the Sky.\u2019\u00a0 Consider a girl who is excused one week of class per month per year.\u00a0 In 46 weeks of school, the girl misses an additional 11 weeks of academic learning. \u00a0This is often enough to cause them to eventually drop out.\u00a0 And this is routine and accepted in many developing countries.\u00a0 Oh, my kingdom for an ibuprofen\u2026<\/p>\n

Off to class.<\/p>\n

\"129_1552\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been five classes in all for the young women at the government protective home, each successively with fewer girls in attendance.\u00a0 Being teenagers, they exhibit the universal traits of being a teenager anywhere.\u00a0 They want to be special, to get attention, to be of individual significance, to be entertained, to show off, to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1211"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1211\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}