in other words
2016
Small Town, Big World: The Wheels
On the Bus Go… uh, wait… There is No Bus
By Britt Benson Steele
Kids all over the world attend school. Some
things are the same. Some things are different.
School is a topic that is easy to make a
straight across comparison to the United States.
When we traveled to India and Bali, the school
children, their uniforms and ways of being caught
my attention and inspired me
to take pause.
One of the things that
touched me is how the students
play such an important role in
the culture of the place. I’ll
offer up two examples: The
first is from India. The students
there, all in identical uniforms,
do not ride a school bus.
Instead, they ride a “rickshaw,”
which is like a covered ATV
vehicle. Generally, a rickshaw
serves as a taxi during normal
business hours. However,
come time to travel to and from
school, they second as school buses. Drivers do not
receive payment during these times, and simply take
it upon themselves to contribute to society by taking
children to and from school. With this as a general
practice, they each load their vehicle with children
and everybody does a small part. If, however, you
need a taxi at the same time a school transport is en
route, you might wait 15 minutes or so and decide
to begin walking in the direction of where you are
going, in the hopes that a rickshaw driver will be
available for at least part of your journey.
I remember smiling big when a rickshaw
would stop and out hopped 8, 10, or 12 kids from
a vehicle designed to hold three to four passengers
plus driver. The kids were always laughing, dressed
ra
th Health Se
l Pa
r
the same and not bothered in the least by being
crammed tightly into a tiny little vehicle. The
laughter came pouring out of the open doors of the
rickshaw each time it rolled up.
In Bali, there are no rickshaws. Instead,
children either walk to and from school or hop on
the back of the family motorbike. With similar
tolerance for close quarters, Balinese families are
known to load 3-5 people
on a single seat motor
bike without hesitation.
Similar to India, children
wear their matching
uniforms. In India, the
children dressed as if they
were attending an English
boarding school, while in
Bali, the uniforms tend
toward bright colors,
An
especially
unique practice in Bali is
the honor and respect for
Saraswati, the goddess of
education, music, and the
arts. The students offer their gratitude by bringing
their brooms with them to school once a week
and taking on the responsibility for cleaning the
school. There are no janitors in Balinese schools.
The children do this work, and as they grow, this
translates naturally into a morning village practice
of cleaning the streets.
And so, the wheels on the bus… well, they
DON’T go…. for there is no bus, and the lessons
the children learn while at school are cultural and
communal. And, the adults do their part, whether
they are in Indonesia or India. Adults realize that if
they want the kids to get to school, they need to take
them. And if they want the village to be clean, they
need to clean it. There is no bus. There is only “us.”
9
Where Do You
Read The Voice?
Jim and Kathy Eckland took the
Voice with them on a recent vacation
and stopped in Cave Creek, AZ.
Tobie
Finzel read
the Voice
during
a recent
vacation
in front of
the hot air
coming
out of
Kilauea on
Hawaii.
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