thanksgiving in this far away place!

i suppose i should reflect on the fact that today is thanksgiving, as i am making all of my students write about what they're thankful for and having a moderate level of success at that.

i thought, then, that i would tell you about how thankful i am for my...

new water filter!

the water in my town is not safe to drink. check out pictures "a" and "b" below for proof of this...picture a
picture b (and no, it's not that, this really is how brown the water is here some days...)

so for months (5 now), i have been surviving off of 13 litre water jugs and, on lazy days, 1.5 L water bottles to get me through and to keep my thirst quenched. as you can imagine, i've acquired quite a collection of these items and am still searching for a recycling bin in my town to donate them to. here is just a portion of them taking over the corner of my kitchen...

on a recent date, the peace corps kindly brought me a water filter to solve this problem. it is the magical, very stylish machine seen here...
and its function is to boil water, trap the steam and guide it through a system of fancy cooling tubes and then drip out the cool water droplets into the clear reservoir jug, thereby transforming my otherwise undrinkable water into pure, almost-fiji-like goodness.

the aftermath of what is left over from the water in the filter is quite a disgusting affair shown here...

so i hereby give thanks for this marvelous little machine that saves me lots of money, much effort necessarily exerted in hauling 13 litre jugs up 4 flights of stairs, and the planet a few empty plastic water bottles. hooray!

happy thanksgiving everyone! eat lots of jello and green bean casserole for me!

the upswing

november 2008

the peace corps has compiled (perhaps it is better to say they're currently utilizing compilations of others) data on the mental and emotional journey of volunteers (and all people, really) who work abroad as it spreads over the time they are away from 'home.' they then feed it into our little heads that there is a curvy, bouncy, squiggly journey that our temperaments embark on when in unfamiliar surroundings and my assumption is that this fancy graph of sorts is intended to ease our troubled minds when we hit the point of,

"what in the hell am i doing here again?"

at this point, having been here nearly eight months, this magical little chart dictates i should be on the upswing, climbing out of a dark and ominous low point that hits folks around four months in. i recently returned from a pc meeting (which was most decidedly an irrelevant excuse to socialize and drink beer without the judgment of one's small town looming) and i was about ready to brush all the tedium of statistical data aside when i realized:

i am in an upswing.

i am on my third (or is it fourth?) good monday in a row and all of the rocky waves i was riding are slowly calming. as i wrote previously, there is an increasingly tangible number of moments when this really does seem doable and worthwhile, though there is always room for improvement.

i returned home yesterday after 5 days of travel and found that someone had carved my name into a small piece of wood that had been designed (and lacquered and the like) to look like a quaint little tree branch. whoever had done this also nailed it to my door.

unbeknownst to me, there was also a sign (slightly larger in size) nailed to my new mailbox in the downstairs entryway and a brand new lock system in place on that box. i have had this conversation with some of you about how my neighbors and people in other blocks often end up with my mail because i never had a mail box, and in the midst of struggling to get a box for my mail this was of course, the most pleasant of surprises.

this morning, groggy and just plain out of it, i stepped outside of my apartment only to find my sweet sweet neighbor waiting to give me the key to my new locked mail box.

i could not have been more delighted. i was overwhelmed with gratitude and a warm fuzzy feeling devoured my insides as i trotted off to school.

it never ceases to amaze me how sometimes the smallest gestures in life mean the most. never.

and after all, it seems suiting to have my attention narrowed to all of the things for which i am grateful this week, especially since i am not in the states to tell people in person.

the icing on the cake of today's wonderfulness: no classes tomorrow-- the school's 25th anniversary is tomorrow and instead of teaching, we're all going to lunch to eat and drink rakia.

awesome. the upswing has taken hold, no 9th graders will be subject to my wrath tomorrow and i have only 4 more tuesdays until my trip to london.

life is beautiful.


november 2008

i just want to say...

sundial park, my home state, summer 2005



shhhhhh.


i don't want to disturb the positive wave i'm riding on. heaven forbid i jinx myself.


i just have to write about another encouraging day.
i just have to express my gratitude for those students who warm this heart of mine.
i just need to say that this is morphing into something altogether different, something that is... increasingly 'doable.'
i just want to say that i as i work towards detaching myself from the results of being a teacher here,

there are some really beautiful and touching moments, knowing smiles, awakened souls and refreshed spirits.

i fear i do not write of these moments often enough.

i cannot use words to explain these individual, nuanced, subtle, yet monumental experiences without stripping away some of their meaning. inevitably, the infinity of each moment is lost in the telling.

believe me, gifts are being bestowed upon me in wrapping i've never known to look for or rip open. and what wonderful surprises each of them are!

because when you feel like a good scream...

there's nothing quite like having a place to sream at any given moment to aid you in releasing your angst.



since i deleted my post from yesterday, i thought i'd add a consolation post.

because i've mentioned that sometimes this experience makes me want to just scream out loud...and that often i find i am without a private corner of the world to do so alone, i thought this finding would be relevant.

and humorous.

ha.

check it out: the "screambody"

a little different

i had a(n):

lovely
peaceful
sunny
accomplished
contemplative
detached
harmonious
quiet
genuine
smooth
exciting
different

day today.

and
for the first time
(in a long time),
i am at peace
with where i am here
with where i am in my own mind
in my own heart.

blissfully,
perfectly,
graciously,
quietly
content.

progress is slow,
excruciating,
exquisite,
unrelenting,
transformative,

but

once in a while
days like today
come along and
make it all worth the struggle.

=)

apparently 'me' isn't translating

warning: this is one of my most spastic postings and it lacks continuity in the worst way. i will crank out better writing soon, i assure you.

who knew that coming here would bring me closer to enrique iglesias? turns out, enrique is all the rage here and if you haven't heard of his new album "insomniac" or his hit ring my bells, i'd highly recommend pulling yourself into the enrique fan circle. pronto.

why is this relevant you wonder?

well, readers, today in two of my classes, we translated enrique's big hit ring my bells ...AND, bonus, it was one of the most productive days i have had here to date. no kidding. i now know the lyrics to this song in english and in the language here. integrated much? YES!

other things of note...

oh yes. while sitting at coffee for a looooonnng time with colleagues today, i learned that 'ghetto' is a word in the language here. my colleagues have been using it to describe our school, in fact, and i never once noticed it.

imagine hearing "gay-TO" used in a sentence you already don't understand much of.

would you make the connection? ya, neither did i.

at any rate, it is now clear to me just how low our school is on the totem pole of schools in this country (not that that was unclear before).

i am trying my hardest to want to sit through coffee when this topic is discussed with a frequency that makes my head spin. there is an unmistakable gap between my world and that of the colleagues i sit with on these occasions and i have not found materials to bridge it.


i am beginning to realize that in my obsessive plotting, pitying, writing, coping, dealing with this experience i have unknowingly alienated myself from a lot of the people i see on a daily basis. this was never my intention.

so i figure, i will suck it up and sit there whilst being careful to not give the impression that i am right on board with all of the negative stewing and chattering. these folks think i am 'too closed' and cold, though i know i am not a cold person. it's just that... well,i haven't yet found the balance between being myself here and managing the overwhelming mass of issues that are writhing in my town and in my mind and soul, too.

what an exquisite challenge.

i gave up on my 7th graders today and taught to only 4 students the entire period. the rest of the class digressed into pandemonium as students yanked chairs across the wood floors, threw sunflower seeds everywhere, screamed and yelled out the windows, launched water bottles at each other and ran amok. i decided my energy was best spent teaching these wonderful 4 students instead of disciplining the entire class period (as it usually happens). those 4 students could not have been more grateful. they were upbeat, focused and SO excited to learn, to finish the extra worksheets i had prepared for them, to work on telling time, to come to the board and write with my neat pens...ah. success amidst disaster.

oh, and another person from my group left. sigh.

i must carefully monitor my words here, but i will add another poem because these poems say nothing if not everything i am dying to say.

this book, 'the gift' while on the surface appears religious in scope, says so very much about experiences in life that resonate within me. you'll have to pardon my excessive quoting of these brilliant words...

on my town:

It Has Not Rained Light

It has not rained light for many days
The wells in most eyes look
Drought-stricken

Thus friends are not easy to find
In this barren
Place

Where most everyone has become ill
From guarding
Nothing.

On this primal caravan
Careers and cities can appear real in this
Intense
Desert heat,

But I say to my close ones,

"Don't get lost in them,
It has not rained light there for days.

Look, most everyone is diseased
From 'making love' to
Nothing."

the 8th tuesday

october 2008

hooray! another tuesday is over, which essentially means i have made it through the week in one piece.

i asked my director to sit through my 9th grade class today, thinking the students would behave in a more appropriate manner with her there. surprisingly, their behavior improved only slightly. the most enjoyable (and here i reveal the slightly vindictive side of me) part of her being there was the part where students from other classes (who were coming to interrupt mine (a frequent occurrence)) glanced in her direction as they walked in. you could read the "uh oh" looks from across the room the second they tore my door opened and stepped inside. finally!!! validation for my many weeks of complaining about students entering my classes and explaining that, yes, there really is a reason i lock my door to keep them out. i am actually not making that up.

at least they're scared of her. because i certainly feel about as ineffective as a big green slug plopped right in the middle of this crazy situation expected to sparkle some fairy dust on it all and make it work.

once upon a time, i worked at disney world and made 'magic' out of my days. maybe i should have considered a longer tenure there because my fairy dust seems impotent here.

anyhow, halloween weekend was enjoyable! i traveled to a place far away and spent the weekend paying homage to the celebration of costumes and crazy parties. there was indeed a crazy party, though i thoroughly enjoyed the chance to just relax away from site more than any of the rest of it.

in my friday classes, we celebrated halloween by playing games, pinning tails on cats, eating lots of candy, making mummies and counting how many skittles i jammed into an old jar. there were no spooky trick-or-treat trails, nor were there any haunted houses but the spirit of halloween was there and i think all involved enjoyed themselves. pictures are below.

i do not have much else to say today. i need sleep more than anything so i will leave you with a few lines from a poem i stumbled across in 'the gift' by hafiz...they seem appropriate now:

"Listen:
Not once in our history
Has an ant gone out and captured
An elephant single-handed.

Does that tell you anything new?
Maybe not.

This teaching business
Isn't
Easy."

Hafiz

some mummies and good costumes!