Hyderablog

Back to School

Maya started her school term a few weeks back, and by now she's well into the swing of things. She was quite ready to get back into it, especially since she'd been off from it since mid-June. She has a new teacher, a few new classmates, and the school now has a new principal (German, but fresh off the boat from Cambodia where he was with another int'l school). Maya's in a class of seven kids now, from India, the U.S. the UK and Kenya/France.

The smoothness with which the school year reopened here stood in stark contrast to the horrific school siege in Russia, which was absolutely sickening to everyone. Well....actually not everyone, as the views of one Muslim cleric in the UK make scarily clear. Apparently, children are now "fair game" when it comes to furthering one's political or religious cause.

Anyhow, this tragedy got us to thinking about the security measures that are in place at Maya's school, and the need for these to be ratcheted up a notch or two. It's so sad that we need to think about such things, but this is the world we live in nowadays. And since just about 50% of the students in Maya's school are from either the UK or the US (i.e. the dominant occupying forces in Iraq), it would be incredibly short-sighted NOT to be thinking along these lines. Usha has brought up the issue with the school's new principal, who has been extremely receptive and promised to "do the needful", as the saying here goes.

posted by David @ 12:42 AM