Climate Migration: Indian kids find hope in a new language
A flood in 2019 in an Indian state started eight-year-old Jerifa, her brother Raju, 12, and their parents on a journey that led the family from their Himalayan village to a poor neighborhood in Bengaluru
BENGALURU, India (AP) — Eight-year-old Jerifa Islam only remembers the river being angry, its waters gnawing away her family's farmland and waves lashing their home during rainy season flooding. Then one day in July of 2019, the mighty Brahmaputra River swallowed everything.
Her home in the Darrang district of India’s Assam state was washed away. But the calamity started Jerifa and her brother, Raju 12, on a path that eventually led them to schools nearly 2,000 miles (3,218 kilometers) away in Bengaluru, where people speak the Kannada language that is so different from the children's native Bangla.
Those early days were difficult. Classes at the free state-run schools were taught in Kannada, and Raju couldn’t understand a word of the instruction.
But he persisted, reasoning that just being in class was better than the months in Assam when submerged roads kept him away from school for months. “Initially I didn't understand what was happening, then with the teacher explaining things to me slowly, I started learning,” he said.
