We found love in MAO.

At the entrance. (Courtesy: MZ)

Turning into the school alley we’d see a good number of children eagerly waiting outside the school. They would scream with delight at the sight of our van and would run alongside it as we made our way to the building. When we’d get off, they would just stand there in a line against a wall and look up at us with smiles on their faces.
Some of them, and even children who were not students at the school, would extend their hands to shake ours. Upon entering the school, I would be greeted by the sight of one of my students sitting in the only chair in the corridor, wearing his huge pink school bag. He’d shake my hand as I would greet him with an ‘Istarey mashay’, Pashto for ‘Assalam-o-alaikum’ (something which he had taught me a couple of days earlier.)

The fellows would then go to unpack in the staffroom. Some of us would grab the stationary boxes and head up to our classrooms while others would help conduct assembly. Assembly was something that reminded me of my own school days. After the commands of ‘stand at ease!’ and ‘attention!’, there would be recitation from the Holy Quran, followed by Allama Iqbal’s dua and a fast-paced national anthem, sung by the students at the top of their lungs. The students would then file out of the assembly hall, class by class, and would head up the stairs to their respective rooms.

In class, we’d conduct attendance and would use the time before bell to make announcements and remind them of class norms and rules. Sometimes we would engage them in a game of Simon says or conduct an exercise which would get their energy flowing. Classes would begin at 8.15 and each class would last 35 minutes. During this time, the fellows whose classes were scheduled in a later period would be busy in the staffroom downstairs making charts or rehearsing their lesson plans. After two classes, there would be a break for around half an hour in which remediation would be carried out for some of the students. The students would go out to play after they received their lunch packs. When the classed would resume, the fellows who had already given their lessons would now be busy downstairs marking the exit slips.

Playing Scrabble. (Courtesy SS)

After all the classes would end, there would be time for remediation and reading. We would give them books to read or sometimes read with them. I once conducted a fun reading session in which I read out flashcards which small poems on them in which new words were introduced to them in alphabetical order. I made them read out loud with me and they did. Some even acted out the meaning of some words and phrases like what it means to tiptoe and patting the knees, etc. There would always be some students who weren’t interested in reading. To engage them, I started bringing Scrabble to class and they learned the rules of the game surprisingly fast. They loved playing with words and aiming for high scores above 20 and 30. The first time I brought it to class was also the first day of fasting at school. Some of them asked us to stay with them after school all the way till 4pm just because playing the game made them forget they were hungry for a while :p

Attendance used to be low on Fridays and had permanently dropped during Ramadan. While it was bad that many of them would now be missing out on school, it also meant that we would be able to give more attention to the children who did show up. Sometimes even the fellows would take leave due to illness or injury and during those days, other fellows would take their place and ensure that their period doesn’t go wasted. It was admirable how they all worked so hard, without complaining about the extra work. Over time we had all bonded so well with each other and with our students and would often express our appreciation for each other through hand written positive posts. That really kept us going and kept us motivated.

Our students were very curious about us when we came and I remember questions like:

‘Teacher, are you Muslim? I’ve never come across your name in the Quran.’

‘Teacher, what’s the point of studying business?’

‘Do you go for taraweeh? Are you Deobandi or Barelvi?’

‘Are any of you mohajirs (immigrants)?’

'Teacher, why do these people (our FDOs) come and sit in the back and take notes?'

‘Where do you go after teaching us? Where do you live?’

On the other hand, they loved telling us about themselves, where they lived, how they spend their time. Sit with them for a while and they’d weave before you a vast net of stories of their families, their teachers, their lives. I wonder if someday we would be a part of their stories. How their eyes would shine as they reminisced about the days our van showed up at their school in the early summer mornings and how some of the younger kids would chase it in delight. How they’d crowd together for a game of Scrabble or anagrams. How they’ll laugh merrily when they’ll think back of the day the tree outside their classroom got axed as they sat through a lesson on the root system. How excited they would be the day Connor would visit their school and how everyone would surround him and try to pull him to their own classrooms. I wonder who’ll get to listen to these stories.

By the end of summer school we had become so attached to our students that staying up at night, missing out on meals, making an extra effort to improve our lesson plans was all done willingly. Waking up in the mornings was easier when there was meaning in our lives. I cannot identify when exactly we had started to live for them and not for our own selves but this is what had begun to happen. I hope we live each day of the next two years in similar spirit.