COA BEAT I found my answer in the 2007 Cricket World Cup taking place in the Caribbean. I started posting scores and talking about players and teams; soon enough, some of the students started contributing, disagreeing with me. After the early exit of India (my home country) from the cup, the students had the upper hand, which proved to be the turning point. My country’s humiliation got them talking about why they, the West Indies, deserved to win. I took this opportunity to talk about the differences between my culture and theirs. Surprisingly, they thoroughly enjoyed this and started bringing in discussion topics like arranged marriages in India and the practice of voodoo in Jamaica. Gradually, I began talking about growing up in India and my second-hand experiences of what life on the streets was like. I also talked about my friends who have substance abuse issues. Knowing that ten thousand miles away there were youth who had the same problems got the adolescents to open up about their lives. Over the next few weeks, I heard some disturbing stories about child abuse but also shared games of table tennis and cricket. In retrospect, I did morph into one of the Hollywood movie characters in my own way. This ability to connect with the adolescents allowed me to leave Jamaica, and the Watson year, with some fascinating experiences that will keep me thinking as I head to a graduate degree in developmental psychology. Here is my favorite from my time in the Caribbean: “I love girls! I love the way they smell, the way they talk, the way they walk, the way they eat.” I looked at Andre. From the very first time I met him, I was struck by his energy and enthusiasm. He was always willing to go on adventures, talk about himself and crack jokes about his problem with drugs. Andre, sixteen, had a home in one of the ghettos around Kingston but had bouts of street life when he was in one of his drug binges or when his mother threw him out of their ramshackle home for stealing her day’s wages to score cocaine.
“What else do you love?” I asked after about an hour of this. Andre looked disappointed. I had stolen the high that comes from talking about girls. “Well...” he said in his thick Jamaican accent, “I love music—come, I’ll show you.” He bounced to his feet and ran down a side street lined with cardboard boxes. He stopped halfway up this narrow alley, raised his hands in a gesture of welcome and exclaimed, “Welcome to the home of Andre.” He moved aside a few clothes drying on the box and motioned for me to sit. He took a seat next to me and started rummaging in the plastic bag that held his possessions. Over the next few minutes he emptied his entire bag. In front of us stood a pile of junk that ranged from beer bottles and soda cans to a metal sheet, a canvas painting pulled taut over a bowl, and a genuine harmonica. “You ready?” he asked. For the next half hour, Andre jumped and bobbed and weaved and danced. He sang and whistled and beat boxes and played the harmonica. He rapped and tapped and jangled his way through song after song of his own Jamaican rap music. “Where did that come from?” I asked when he was finally done. He laughed, “Well, whenever my mom throws me outta the house I don’t have a TV to watch and so I need to make my own rap. You like them?” “Yeah!” I said truthfully. “Do you want to be a rap star?” “Yeah,” he said as he packed the instruments back in his bag. “One day you will be watching TV somewhere in the world and you will see me on MTV.” We started walking out of the alley. “So you write these songs because you want to be on TV and be famous and get lots of money?” I asked in a presumptuous tone. “No,” he said, “I write my rap to get the girls.” He laughed, “Have I told you I love girls?”
Nikhit D’Sa ’06 has just entered Columbia University’s Teachers College for an MA in developmental psychology, focusing on the psychological impacts of at-risk behavior among adolescents. His tuition will be covered by a highly competitive Jack Kent Cooke scholarship.
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