this sky

i am unabashedly in love with the sky here. i know it is the same sky i left at home, but there is a tangible difference, a laziness about it, as if it enjoys yawning through the day, freely gliding from one hour to the next. i am seduced by its simple beauty, unable to tear myself from watching it simmer away each night in brillant splatterings of colors like it did, here, last night.

one day at camp, i let the kids look through the hoards of photographs on my camera. one particularly memorable kid could not get over the amount of pictures i had of various sunsets throughout this country. he thought it was just plan 'silly' and laughed out loud at me for 3 or 4 minutes. he was also the kid who laughed the loudest when i would not understand something in the language, or would answer incorrectly when i thought i really knew the right words to use when replying to his dozens of questions. i so loved his laugh that i could not be upset, and maybe my love of sunsets is absurd. but i just don't care.


this sky

this
sky
where we live
is no place to lose your wings
so love, love,
love.

-hafiz

a good friend had this poem on one of his blog posts, and i loved it so much i had to recycle it here. it is so relevant to this experience. it speaks to a faith in the workings of the universe that i do not understand, but am willing to trust in the midst of so much unknown.

today, i met with my new friend, a student and the best english speaker in the town, (i will call him 'g') and we ate домашна торта (homemade cake) instead of studying the language, as we originally intended. once the cake was completely devoured, we dove into a bit of language studying. i was reminded today that to teach is to examine what we already know. and sometimes, we may not know how to explain, to describe, to conceptualize that which we know already when we are forced to. it is good to begin the unwinding of this knot now, before i begin teaching, as i suspect it will creep up on me given enough time.

the paradox, though, is that i think teaching is more about learning. and this is when life starts to look pretty rosy for me because i know that this experience really is a privilege for me and that i will probably take more away from it than i am able to give. but how quantifiable is that really? and who is keeping track?

this language is, undoubtedly, a challenging language to master, but i am determined to learn more regardless of the pace i must work at.

'g' speaks remarkable english for someone who has lived in this tiny town his whole life. we are able to have conversations about incredibly broad topics, which is wonderful because he is the kind of kid you really want to get to know. he has such a kind and pure heart. he reminds me that amidst the cloudiness of living in this new place, there are people with whom i can build relationships and friends to be had. in the end, i wonder if my time here isn't really about the lasting relationships, the connections made on behalf of people who grow to learn and understand each other.

or, perhaps, i like this idea because it takes the emphasis off the results of teaching and places the importance of being here on spending time with people. which, coincidentally, i am much better at doing than teaching.

i am excited to see how this part of the adventure unfolds.