Intrigued with India, Holly Tierney plans to continue her work

SALISBURY — Many young people find the experience of living abroad to be life-changing, but perhaps none more than Holly Tierney, 20, of Salisbury, daughter of Stephanie and Paul. As part of an Intercultural Youth Exchange program, Tierney spent six months teaching English in a school in Ramnagar, a village in southern India. Now that’s she’s home, she’s making plans for a permanent move to India.

“I thought I’d go for six months and then come back,� she said. “I never expected this to happen. India has a way of growing on you.�

Tierney’s experience started with a visit to Google. She knew she wanted to go to Nepal or India, so she researched exchange programs on the Internet. Intercultural Youth Exchange has branches in 34 countries and orchestrates exchanges for 2,000 participants annually. The idea is to have two people swap countries for the exchange, though that doesn’t always work out.

Tierney’s stay in India began last fall with a week at an orientation camp, sponsored by Intercultural Dialogue Exchange, the Indian branch of the program.

“They really prepared me very well to get immersed in the culture,� she said. “They tell you a lot of facts. Indians don’t like to get bad news or to say no. If you say something the wrong way, they can be offended. There was a lot of learning of what to say and what not to say.�

Teaching in a ‘small’ village

After orientation, Tierney was sent to a private school in the village of Ramnagar, which was described to her as a small village of about 200,000 people.

“I’m thinking, OK, my town’s about 5,000,� she said. “But it’s a small village in India.�

The school teaches 400 students age 3 to 14 and has only six teachers and two volunteers. Tierney said the average class size was 60 to 80 students and sometimes she would be in charge of as many as 200 at one time.

“A big problem in India is the student-teacher ratio is not sufficient anywhere,� Tierney said. “There’s such a need for teachers that I could just go to a school and say, ‘Can I work for you for food?’ and they’d say, ‘Yeah, sure.’�

Though Tierney was brought in to teach English, she said she ended up teaching a bit of everything, due to the shortage of teachers. She said the school was English-speaking but most of the children who attended spoke several languages.

“There are 50 major languages in India,� Tierney said. “Hindi is the national language, but it’s mostly used as a linking language. People usually speak about five languages: their native language, the neighboring languages, Hindi and English.�

Tierney was able to use music in the classroom. She’s well-known in Salisbury as a musician and has played her trumpet at various venues throughout the Northwest Corner. In India, however, children have less exposure to music than they do in the United States.

“Teaching English was the only way I was allowed to teach through music,� she said. “The schools have no sports, no music. It’s all math, languages, science. The students really hadn’t had any experience with music. Just to keep a steady beat was difficult, but they learned really fast.�

Tierney said she used mostly American folk songs, since she was teaching English. She said her students knew nursery rhymes, but they would chant rather than sing them.

Living as a native

Tierney had a host family she would visit for meals, but she actually lived in an apartment building on her own.

“I became really close with my neighbors,� she said. “All the time I had kids running in my apartment and people visiting. Culturally it’s a very close-knit community. People are always inviting you to dinner.�

Tierney said the closeness of the community helped her to fall in love with India, but she added that it could get overwhelming.

“There are times when it can be really chaotic in India because there are so many people,� she said. “The buses are crowded and you always have people asking you questions: What’s your name? What are your parents’ name? As a Westerner, they want to know so much about you. In the beginning that was difficult, but you adjust. People are curious about you and they care about you.�

She was also able to travel on her own for about a month. Though that seems like a long time, Tierney said she felt she barely saw a fraction of the country.

“India is so big and culturally, every town you go to, things change, the language changes. I want to see more. Even Indians say they don’t know all of India.�

As part of her experience, Tierney made an effort to live as much like a native as possible.

“I really immersed myself in the culture,� she said. “I dressed like them, I ate their food, I really did everything the way they did.�

Changing a life

While in India, Holly became acquainted with a young man, Balasubramanyam (“everyone just calls him Bala�) who was working with the exchange program that sponsored her.

His experience working for non-governmental organizations — he was president of a child labor union and has worked with programs that pay families to keep their children in school rather than sending them to work — inspired Tierney to think of ways she could help over a longer term.

Tierney is thinking of starting a safe home for battered women in India. But because of the nature of Indian communities, it will have to be more than just a place for women to live. The women will need jobs and their children will need to go to school. She said the exact shape of the project will depend on what funding she and Bala are able to get.

“We’ll start small and build up,� she said. “To get a project started, you have to buy land, about 4 or 5 acres. One acre is about $4,000. Once we have the land, other sponsors will see we’re serious about this.�

While she is in the United States, Tierney said she plans to work and fundraise and save money to buy the land and get her project started. She plans to return to India permanantly in October 2010 and will spend a few years volunteering and visiting other project sites to see how they work.

“It’s really possible,� she said. “I’m very excited. My parents are very supportive.�

Tierney said that while she had participated in smaller community service projects before, both around town and on a church mission trip to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the longer experience in India changed her life.

“Before, I couldn’t imagine long-term volunteering because of money reasons and putting that much time aside,� she said. “But it really is a liberating experience.�