Bye bye Keila!

After spending almost 5 weeks with Keila Knoebel, wife of Dr Marcelo Knoebel, I wave a tearful goodbye to her as she makes her way back home to be with her son and family. I got a chance to get to know Keila my first day in Philadelphia when Marcel, Keila and I made our way to St Peters school to interact with the kids there. First days are always tough and we managed to survive through the day by talking about things, trying to get to know each other. The next day, the three of us had a wonderful lunch and I learned the most wonderful things about this very special couple.

Things like Keila made a pitstop to the post office each day to send something out to her son - and how Keila would insist on going back to the same restaurant and ordering the same things because she had liked it so much the first time around..

Bug eyed as I was, I thought the 2-months of the fellowship would last forever. And yet today, at the Phoenix airport as I just hugged Keila, I found myself surprised at how quickly this time had passed by.

Keila? You are a wonderful person and have such a gentle soul inside of you. I wish you all the very best and pray that success finds you and your family wherever you are.

Oi!

Day 1

I made it to Philadelphia on the evening of March 22 to get some RnR before the first official day of my fellowship with the Eisenhower Fellowships. Not having the benefit of experience in travelling around the US, a lot of my worries were laid to rest after my initial meetings with my coordinator, Jan Campbell and the rest of the team at EF.

The first day already has me off to a raving start with an informal speaking engagement at the St Peters School, closeby to the EF House, with a Fellow colleague, Marcelo Knoebel and his wife, Keila. The Headmaster of the school, Mr Costello was a gracious host who spent a great deal of time taking us around the school premises and demonstrating the hard work that his students have put into their projects.

The tour of the school was a real experience. Atleast the schools that I've interacted with in Karachi, are just so differen than what I saw today - Between 11-12 students per class with an emphasis on the arts, great discipline, students of all ages interacted with Keila, Marcelo and me. The size of the classrooms and the layout of the rooms revolving around the central parlour on every level was an interesting way to pull out the kids from a class and still have space for activities in a central location. During our Cheese Pizza lunch, we got a chance to ask some of the students all sorts of questions and were asked a lot of questions right back.

Not that I have visited a lot of schools in the US (none, to be precise) but I was impressed that the students of St Peters studied French starting in the younger classes. Seeing "Pomme de Terre" scribbled on the blackboard brought back lots of memories from my own French language classes back in school.

After an extensive tour, we were ushered into the theater room where Marcelo and I made brief addresses to the students. While my presentation focused a bit on what I did and what my work was all about and more on life in Karachi itself, Marcelo's presentation talked more about NanoTechnology and his field of work.

The trip to the school allowed me to have an interesting insight into what a school can strive to be - Schools are supposed to make the process of education fun and I think for schools in Karachi who are looking for guidance and 'examples' of how this can be achieved, the St Peters school is definately one that they should be looking at. (www.stpetersonline.org)