My First Staff Meeting

Dear dedicated reader,

Today was my first staff meeting at the school.

Indian schools have classes Monday through Saturday which is something which I remembered from my time at college in Delhi. Classes go from 10:45 am, Monday through Friday, and then from 8 am to 11 am on Saturday. Saturday afternoon, as I discovered, is reserved for staff meeting.

After my last very active class of girls on Saturday morning, as the students rushed out of the school around us, Jagrutiben, the local teacher assigned to my classes, turned to me and said, “I will ask the principal if you need to attend, as it will all be in Gujarati.” I nodded and curiously followed her to the principal's office in the main corridor.

The principal said if I did not want to, I did not have to attend. I expressed my desire to come anyway, since I figured that it would be good for the teachers to see me doing as they do, to see that I am, in fact, just a regular staff member like them. Already I had joined in on the snack of samosa and baarfi (a milky Indian sweet) that they had shared in the staff room earlier that day. They took pleasure in introducing me to this ‘newfound’ delight (both were foods that I enjoyed in Delhi many times.) Please do not think me insincere; I’ve just found that it can be easier to make friends when you let people be the experts in their culture and explain it to you.

We walked to the meeting, which was to take place on the other side of the school in one of the larger engineering classrooms. When we arrived we were the last ones to come, the room already filled with teachers sitting in neat rows at the desks, men on one side, women on the other, all waiting for the meeting to begin. As we walked to the back, it felt as though 70 pairs of eyes watched as I took a seat next to Jagrutiben.

Soon, the principal arrived, followed by his 3 senior administrators. As they entered, the teachers stood, just as the students do when I enter a classroom. As we sat down again, I felt Jagrutiben’s arm poke purposefully into my side. I looked at her, and she swiveled with her head, indicating that I should look forward. When I did, I saw that the principal was gesturing for me to come to the front of the room. Thinking that he wanted to introduce me as new staff member, I obliged. When I reached the front, he indicated that I should take the open seat next to his senior administrators. So much for seeming like “one of the gang”…

The biggest disadvantage of this seat was that all of the teachers in the room could see my face as I listened to speech after speech from the senior administrators in Gujarati. While Gujarati and Hindi are similar enough that I understood the general gist of the talks, often I would look out at the audience to see laughter and smiles at some joke that had been cracked that I could visibly not understand. After a while, the lull of the spoken Gujarati combined with the heat of the midday had made my eyelids heavy and I found myself repeating over and over in my head, don’t fall asleep, don’t fall asleep…

I was jolted out of my open eyed trance when Mr. Gamit, the senior administrator and English teacher who had come to meet us at the train station, turned to me in what seemed to be the middle of his speech and said, “Since you cannot understand, I will tell you what we are talking about.” After five minutes or so of translation, during which the audience of teachers sat silent, he said to me, “And now, Catben, can you say a few words to these teachers about how you are experiencing here?”

I froze. “Um, right now?” I stammered.

“Yes,” he replied with a smile.

“I, uh…”

“It’s okay,” the principal cut in. “She can do it next time, I think.” Saved! Oh thank you!

With that, the principal rose and dismissed the meeting. Oh great, I thought. Not only did I narrowly miss out on awkward public speaking, but my translation was holding up the dismissal of the entire meeting.

I can’t say I am looking forward to my reception in the Ladies’ Staff Room come Monday.

Best,
Cat