Sukanya Has A Subscription to US Weekly?!
January 11th, 2008
Last night as SEAM, I spent the hour talking again with Sukanya and Rebecca. I brought along pictures I had ripped out from American magazines that I found in our guesthouse. I figured they’d be a good way to spark a conversation about American culture, and also a way for them to practice their English by describing what they saw in the images.So we sat cross-legged on the concrete of the dusty courtyard. I pulled the tattered pages from my bag and we went through them, one by one. Now, my options on pictures (and appropriate ones, at that) were slim. Most of the magazines I found here were of the celebrity tabloid variety. So that explains why the first picture was of singer Gwen Stefani holding her baby, wearing his birthday hat and clutching a red balloon. There was all sorts of stuff going on in that picture that they could describe, and they did well. Through the pictures we went, of smiling babies, of a woman eating a chocolate ice cream bar and of best girlfriends running in a field under a blue sky (it proved a good opportunity to go over the words “flavor”, “grass” and “cloud”).When we had finished, Sukanya flipped over one of the pages, ripped from an US Weekly magazine. She scanned the red-carpet snapshots of celebrity women, pointed to one and said, “Ajalina Joly.” I was stunned. How did these girls know about the actress Angelina Jolie? I asked her if she knew this woman, and she smiled and nodded her head emphatically. “Ajalina Joly!” she said. What did she know about her, how did she know about her, I asked. And then, Rebecca tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out the caption, that in big block letters read: ANGELINA JOLIE. They erupted in giggles.Snookered by a 14-year-old!We took off to the kitchen, where I asked the girls to give me a tour and tell me about all the things they cook and how they do it. It proved a great way to get them talking, and teach them some new words (”pour,” for instance). They showed me the steel covered pot they use to make rice cakes, showed me the shelf stocked with cardamom and pepper, and flipped through Rebecca’s cookbook (a chance to teach them the word “recipe”).Dry of anything else to talk about, I whipped out my iPod and let them listen to some music. It happened to be cued to a song by Madonna called “Little Star” (quiet, Danton!). And they listened, each with one ear piece in their ear.They were so quiet as they listened. “Cool,” Rebecca said finally, using the word I had taught her.”Little,” said Sukanya, putting her hand low to illustrate the word. “Star,” she said pointing to the sky.
Sukanya gives me a tour of the kitchen at SEAM.
That’s Sukanya up front in blue next to Tamilvannen. That’s Rebecca in the green in the back, right.
