Unlike any other fellow Maseru expat I am aware of, I don’t love Cape Town. I was told by my former boss that Cape Town is good for when you need to get to Europe (I believe his euphemism for ‘civilization’) but can’t get to Europe. He warned me not to go to soon after my arrival in Maseru, or I would be unimpressed. I went for the first time about 10 months after my arrival on the continent, and then again exactly a year later. I still wasn’t impressed. It has mountains and ocean and winelands plus all the typical urban “stuff,” museums, restaurants and the like. It just seems to lack something for me, the vibrancy and quirks and gritty charm that make me fall in love with a city.
So when a friend told me the night I should have been tucked into my own bed, but due to a problem with my plane ticket, I ended up imprisoned in a luxurious hotel with an ocean view courtesy of South African Airways, that there were worse things to be than stuck in Cape Town, I didn’t exactly see his point. Also, gorgeous as the hotel and surrounding beach was, I was not actually in Cape Town, but truly stranded miles outside the city on some forgotten corner of the Atlantic. I truly tried to make the best of it, savoring the meal courtesy of my SAA voucher, reading Memoirs of a Geisha in the hot yellow sand, and dancing in the surf early the next morning, but really, I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.
Early the next morning, while waiting to check in to my rescheduled flight, I saw the employee who I fought with the day before. And it was just my luck that out of the dozen or more ticket counters, I was sent to hers. She didn’t look pleased to see me either, but while the day before, her claws were out, today, with genuine sympathy (possibly tinged with fear) she said, “I am so sorry that I have to give you bad news again, but your flight has been cancelled.” I was speechless. I have never missed a flight or had a flight cancelled in my life, and in pre-volcanic ash times, my sense of perspective was not what it might have been. After waiting an hour at ticket sales, I was told that they could send me on a different route, but it wouldn’t get me to Bloemfontein until nighttime, which meant that I still wouldn’t get home until the following day, and would probably miss work, for really no good reason.
Shamelessly playing up the part of the tiny, white, foreign girl, I told her that I couldn’t be traveling after dark, especially at bus stations and borders, that I don’t know a soul in Bloemfontein and any other number of points that would cause the woman behind the counter to envision tales of my slain body in the papers the next day. She said there was nothing she could do. My misery was genuine, though far from unique, as I was in a crowd of stranded, crying faces. Fortunately though, I was the youngest-or at least I appeared to be-and this got me home. Assuming I was a minor, and a troublesome one at that, more than a few people conspired to get me the last seat on another airline into Bloemfontein (and more importantly for them, out of their airport). And I made it back to Maseru in time for the birthday party of a student that I had promised to attend.
My last time in Cape Town, I did all the touristy things (museums, wine, penguins, Nelson Mandela’s prison cell) with the exception of going to the top of Table Mountain. It’s a mountain. It looks like a table. Lesotho has tons of mountains. Some uncannily breast-like. I have some sort of ridiculous opposition to the idea of going up Table Mountain. So considering I have done all the touristy things I think are worth doing, I looked for some less obvious things to occupy my time. I sought out little farmer’s markets, gazed up at the crackly screen of the planetarium observatory, meandered the bays and had a Thai massage that sent post-marathon lactic acid fleeing my body in terror.
And shopped. Now I am not a shopper, with the exception of farmer’s markets and bookstores. And I did a little at both of those. Actually a lot. The school librarian sent me to Cape Town with 2,000 ZAR (enough for about 30 books) to buy new titles for the Early Childhood section of the library. So I bought fresh breads and shiny-paged glue-smelling picture books and was happy.
I also had a shoe-shopping task ahead of me. The week after I got back was the school’s annual dinner/dance. Last year, I wore a dress fashioned out of a second-hand mumu that looked decent, if slightly like the upholstery on my late grandmother’s couch. I decided to go more formal this year with a not-previously-owned red dress from a flea market. Unfortunately, the shoes I bought last year got danced to shreds and at the kiddie racks in Maseru my only options for a replacement were magenta and leopard-print. (And even someone whose two nicest dresses come from a mumu and flea market knows that magenta and red don’t match). I figured in between buying organic tomatoes and South African fairytales I would stumble across a pair of plain, flat, black, size 3 shoes. Ha! 1st problem: Size 3 (or 5 US) is an endangered species in this South Africa. 2nd problem: Stilettos are not. I thought I found a pair I could live with (and more importantly dance in). “Do you have something similar without the heel though?” I asked the saleswoman. She looked at me with obvious disgust and said, “That’s not a heel, that’s a wedge.”
And this point, I quit shoe-shopping, and figured buying a new dress would be easier. I pulled a plain black dress (goes with magenta right?) from the rack of a neighboring store and the saleswoman asked if I wanted the matching panties. Apparently, I cannot tell the difference between a dress and pajamas. At this point, I quit shopping altogether, knowing that after 10 minutes of dancing I would ditch my shoes anyway and that my bare feet match anything.
I devoted the rest of my time in Cape Town to taking trains up and down the coast. Riding public transportation for the first time(s) is a humbling experience anywhere. In Cape Town I found this particularly true. I stayed with a friend who lived only two blocks from a train station. His proximity to the station was about the only thing that prevented me from quitting train travel altogether. To make taking trains in and around Cape Town any more difficult would take a concerted effort on the part of several evil geniuses. Perhaps I have been spoiled by the Metro Transit Authority of New York City, but the Cape Town train system had none of the features that make the subway bearable: a voice announcing the stations over a loudspeaker, lights inside the train cars indicating the station approaching or at the very least, a list of stations in the order in which they appear posted inside the train. Each station has only two signs bearing its name, at either ends of the platform. You usually miss the first because you whiz by before the train begins to slow down. You usually don’t see the second one until you pass it while the train is pulling out of the station. The windows are so low, that to actually see the signs, you have to crouch down and tilt your head at a ridiculous angle, usually only to find that the window is too corroded to see out of anyway. And if by some miraculous stroke of luck (or by repeatedly harassing the seasoned train traveler next you, are we there yet? Are we there yet?), you know where you are in enough time to depart appropriately, you will stand like an idiot waiting for the doors to open before someone tells you they are manual. And I mean really manual. My shoulder cracked audibly while struggling to free myself of the amused train car until an old man thrust his shopping bag full of frozen chop meat at me and yanked it open himself. But the ordeal is not quite over. Cape Town train riders have not yet seemed to grasp the concept of letting passengers disembark before they crowd onto the train. When attempting to exit, I found it best not to look anyone trying to board the train in the eye, just protect your vital organs and step into the crowd like it’s a mosh pit.
And since I seem to be telling my tales of Cape Town in reverse order, I should end with a little about the ultra-marathon from five feet up, mid-back of the pack. I arrived in Cape Town the evening before the race and ran into sometimes running partner Chris on the street. He has been swilling coke all day, and spastically tells me our race bags didn’t come with pins to attach our numbers to our shirts (they actually did, but his brain was so saturated with caffeine he didn’t have the patience to get to the bottom of his bag). Another runner had collected my bag for me and I hadn’t gotten it from him yet, so I took Chris’s word and we set out in search for safety pins, while he stopped periodically for more coke, or carbs in any form. After purchasing pins, we next searched for an Italian restaurant for further carbo-loading, but had to settle for Thai. It was here (or rather later that night) I learned that all noodles are not created equal, and I will never again replace spaghetti with tomato sauce for pad Thai. Chris said, “I’ll have the 980 calorie please,” and I saw that all nutrition facts were on the menu. I quickly changed my order from my original choice which I now saw was only 207 calories to a more substantial option, wondering when will I ever again change my order because it doesn’t have enough calories? Actually, when will I ever again eat in a restaurant that prints calories on the menu?
Whether from nerves or the queasy feeling of an MSG overdose, I slept two hours at most that night and was greeted in the morning by Chris’s near constant refrain, “We must be mad.” A friend drove us to the start, and we actually hit traffic at 5 in the morning, all cars full of people sipping powerade and chewing bananas. The traffic slowed to a halt and we got out of the car to walk the rest of the way. We all got separated in the massive crowd, although I did run into some other Maseru folk on line for the port-a-potties of all places. As a fine rain started, I lined myself up toward the back.
Two Oceans Marathon is a misnomer. Contrary to popular belief, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet not at Cape Town but at Cape Aguilas, several hours drive from Cape Town, although some will argue that Indian Ocean currents travel up past Cape Town. But one ocean was plenty beautiful for me. One of my favorite moments of the race was rounding a corner and noticing the ocean for the first time a split second before Chris and getting to point it out to him (having the height advantage of more than a foot, he gets to see most everything first, including a whale as we ran along Kalk Bay).
I didn’t have any particular goal in mind since this was practice for the Comrades next month. I got a chance to see what the pacing is like, how much food and drink I need to consume en route and what sorts of stress and pain my body will feel. My knee hurt at the beginning, but the pain subsided fairly quickly until about the 45th kilometer. I was pretty sure I could feel it swelling at that point and it looked pretty wrecked at the end. I could see the front was puffy. I was physically incapable of turning my body to see the back but a companion confirmed it was a dead ringer for the front. Luckily, it healed remarkably quickly and an orthopedist finally diagnosed it as IT Band Friction Syndrome with some secondary issues from altering my stride. These South African doctors are used to crazy runners that want to do Comrades on their broken bodies and they are pretty good about doing what they can to help people be able to stay in the race. In addition to stretching and training advice, I’ve got these ibuprofen patches now. It’s like crack for my knee and I feel great.
Also, as someone who has never really been injured before, or has had any real medical issue, (or has attempted ultra-marathoning before) I have never thought so much about my body as I do now. And lately I’ve been attempting to figure out how to best train my body to be prepared for Comrades while preserving my knee. So while walking the beaches, sniffing melons, trying on shoes, riding trains and browsing for books, in Cape Town, I was also attempting to learn the art of balance. By pure coincidence, I found when I returned to Maseru, that in my suitcase were an equal number of boxes of tofu and bars of really good chocolate (both of which you cannot get here)…of course if you check my kitchen now, two weeks later, you will find much more of one in the refrigerator than the other in the cupboard :)
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
5 Runners That I Know
Two weeks ago, the night before my first ultra marathon, I received an email from a friend. It was sent to two others as well; the four of us ran on the same high school cross-country team.
Kate, training for her first marathon said: "I am on a low mileage week (long run: only 14!), yet still was able to achieve a goal that I've been aiming for my entire running career...I bet the Attackerman [that's me] can guess, when I say that it is the most hardcore thing a runner can do...I puked during a run...It really is something I've equated with ultra-awesome athletes since my WHS track days. And here is the story... Now, maybe yesterday I had ice cream for dinner with a dessert of peeps. So maybe I wasn't properly fueled. And I certainly knew it from the beginning of the run, when not even a half-mile into it I slowed down because I had that feeling in my stomach. I thought that I knew how to push the line appropriately without tanking or ralphing. But as Josh and I are .75 miles from the end of the run, going not-fast but uphill, I stopped, said "I've just got to puke", then puked. Gu and gatorade. A few times. Then started running again! It was f***ing phenomenal...I ran until I puked, and then I ran some more.
Only another runner would understand how impressed I was. I don’t neccessarily advocate running to the point of vomiting, and despite what a few graphic remarks about my knee in recent posts suggest, I am not a masochist. Yet, all the runners I know appreciate the way putting one foot in front of the other again and again and again makes one discover and challenge the limits and possibilities of their own bodies.
Fellow former Blue Devil, Kathleen replied "Lately, when I run I start to get teary eyed as I imagine racing again, running as fast as I possibly can. I'm not ready to race yet, but I have been running an hour about 3x a week. My new orthodics make me a superhuman! My orthodics have addressed my 'one leg shorter than the other' problem and I feel so straight whenever I wear them. It's amazing."
Hearing about their running, particularly the night before my first ultra marathon was enormously inspiring. Angela, a medical student at Columbia University, has yet to surface from her hospital rotations to tell us what she’s up to. But hearing from the others reminded me of watching her race one day. It was the end of the season, but the first time she was able to compete that year. She was worried about the race, but when the gun went off, in the biggest display of courage and love I have ever witnessed, she did what everyone else did. She ran. It took her 30 minutes to complete 2 miles. She was the last to finish, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind who the real winner was that day. She was 16 years old at the time, and she had cancer.
Running makes people do truly remarkable things. After a year of lonely running in Maseru, I’ve been lucky to find a few amazing running partners. I met one of them on the way to the Soweto Marathon. He was running the 10k (which I believe would have been the longest he ever ran) and he gave me a ride up to the race. In the first conversation we ever had, he informed me he would never run a marathon, and stopped short of telling me he thinks I’m insane for 1) doing it and 2) liking it, though he made these feelings clear later. It took a few months, but I eventually coerced him into running with me. He contemplated running the Two Oceans half-marathon until he found out that unlike the ultra marathon, the half marathon did not actually reach the ocean. His solution? Less than 6 months after the Soweto 10k, he ran the 56k Two Oceans ultra marathon. (Technically he remained true to his word and has still never run a marathon).
To train for the Soweto Marathon, I used to do long runs going across the border. While doing some post run grocery shopping in Ladybrand, the nearest South African town, an English man approached me and asked me if I had run all the way there. I confirmed this, and he asked if I’m mad. Shortly after this meeting, he joined the ranks of the insane, and we started training for Comrades together. Chris had run his first and only marathon 20 years before at the age of 21. A former paratrooper at well over 6 feet tall, I have never had such harassment-free running as I do with Chris. It's like running with a body guard. We would meet at 5:30 am and while I gasped for air, he would chat away sharing army nutrition tips (baby food is easily digested energy during grueling exercise), aphorisms (“no one can take this away from you”) and hard core-ness (“If we can’t find a hotel near the race, I’ll sleep outside next to my car"). On his birthday, he told me that he makes the same mistakes at 41 that he did at 21. Being closer to the latter than the former, I didn’t know if I should find this a comforting thought or a terrifying one. Chris became my Two Oceans hero on the starting line. Rather, it was a little before the starting line, as we were lined up so far back from the starting line, we couldn't even see it. 30 seconds after the gun went off we could still sense absolutely no forward movement from the runners ahead. Chris, towering over the rest of us, peered down the street and said he couldn’t believe how many of us there were, it looked like minute or so until we could begin moving- not running, necessarily, but sort of drifting forward. I craned my neck wistfully, but couldn’t see beyond the hairy shoulders of the runner right in front of me. So Chris lifted me up above the crowd to the cheers of the other runners around us, and I saw through the fine rain and the 6 am darkness, for as far as my eyes could see, thousands of pinpricks of runners surging forward like a wave.
2 minutes and 35 seconds after the gun went off, I finally reached the starting line. And thus began my first ultra marathon, which I ran with gratitude and respect to one runner who ran until she vomited and then ran some more, one runner who flies in her orthotics, one runner who raced in between chemo treatments and jogs today cancer-free on the streets of New York City, one runner who ran 56 kilometers to see the ocean and one runner who showed me 7,000 others who ran my first ultra with me.
Kate, training for her first marathon said: "I am on a low mileage week (long run: only 14!), yet still was able to achieve a goal that I've been aiming for my entire running career...I bet the Attackerman [that's me] can guess, when I say that it is the most hardcore thing a runner can do...I puked during a run...It really is something I've equated with ultra-awesome athletes since my WHS track days. And here is the story... Now, maybe yesterday I had ice cream for dinner with a dessert of peeps. So maybe I wasn't properly fueled. And I certainly knew it from the beginning of the run, when not even a half-mile into it I slowed down because I had that feeling in my stomach. I thought that I knew how to push the line appropriately without tanking or ralphing. But as Josh and I are .75 miles from the end of the run, going not-fast but uphill, I stopped, said "I've just got to puke", then puked. Gu and gatorade. A few times. Then started running again! It was f***ing phenomenal...I ran until I puked, and then I ran some more.
Only another runner would understand how impressed I was. I don’t neccessarily advocate running to the point of vomiting, and despite what a few graphic remarks about my knee in recent posts suggest, I am not a masochist. Yet, all the runners I know appreciate the way putting one foot in front of the other again and again and again makes one discover and challenge the limits and possibilities of their own bodies.
Fellow former Blue Devil, Kathleen replied "Lately, when I run I start to get teary eyed as I imagine racing again, running as fast as I possibly can. I'm not ready to race yet, but I have been running an hour about 3x a week. My new orthodics make me a superhuman! My orthodics have addressed my 'one leg shorter than the other' problem and I feel so straight whenever I wear them. It's amazing."
Hearing about their running, particularly the night before my first ultra marathon was enormously inspiring. Angela, a medical student at Columbia University, has yet to surface from her hospital rotations to tell us what she’s up to. But hearing from the others reminded me of watching her race one day. It was the end of the season, but the first time she was able to compete that year. She was worried about the race, but when the gun went off, in the biggest display of courage and love I have ever witnessed, she did what everyone else did. She ran. It took her 30 minutes to complete 2 miles. She was the last to finish, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind who the real winner was that day. She was 16 years old at the time, and she had cancer.
Running makes people do truly remarkable things. After a year of lonely running in Maseru, I’ve been lucky to find a few amazing running partners. I met one of them on the way to the Soweto Marathon. He was running the 10k (which I believe would have been the longest he ever ran) and he gave me a ride up to the race. In the first conversation we ever had, he informed me he would never run a marathon, and stopped short of telling me he thinks I’m insane for 1) doing it and 2) liking it, though he made these feelings clear later. It took a few months, but I eventually coerced him into running with me. He contemplated running the Two Oceans half-marathon until he found out that unlike the ultra marathon, the half marathon did not actually reach the ocean. His solution? Less than 6 months after the Soweto 10k, he ran the 56k Two Oceans ultra marathon. (Technically he remained true to his word and has still never run a marathon).
To train for the Soweto Marathon, I used to do long runs going across the border. While doing some post run grocery shopping in Ladybrand, the nearest South African town, an English man approached me and asked me if I had run all the way there. I confirmed this, and he asked if I’m mad. Shortly after this meeting, he joined the ranks of the insane, and we started training for Comrades together. Chris had run his first and only marathon 20 years before at the age of 21. A former paratrooper at well over 6 feet tall, I have never had such harassment-free running as I do with Chris. It's like running with a body guard. We would meet at 5:30 am and while I gasped for air, he would chat away sharing army nutrition tips (baby food is easily digested energy during grueling exercise), aphorisms (“no one can take this away from you”) and hard core-ness (“If we can’t find a hotel near the race, I’ll sleep outside next to my car"). On his birthday, he told me that he makes the same mistakes at 41 that he did at 21. Being closer to the latter than the former, I didn’t know if I should find this a comforting thought or a terrifying one. Chris became my Two Oceans hero on the starting line. Rather, it was a little before the starting line, as we were lined up so far back from the starting line, we couldn't even see it. 30 seconds after the gun went off we could still sense absolutely no forward movement from the runners ahead. Chris, towering over the rest of us, peered down the street and said he couldn’t believe how many of us there were, it looked like minute or so until we could begin moving- not running, necessarily, but sort of drifting forward. I craned my neck wistfully, but couldn’t see beyond the hairy shoulders of the runner right in front of me. So Chris lifted me up above the crowd to the cheers of the other runners around us, and I saw through the fine rain and the 6 am darkness, for as far as my eyes could see, thousands of pinpricks of runners surging forward like a wave.
2 minutes and 35 seconds after the gun went off, I finally reached the starting line. And thus began my first ultra marathon, which I ran with gratitude and respect to one runner who ran until she vomited and then ran some more, one runner who flies in her orthotics, one runner who raced in between chemo treatments and jogs today cancer-free on the streets of New York City, one runner who ran 56 kilometers to see the ocean and one runner who showed me 7,000 others who ran my first ultra with me.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
The Postal Service and the Prehistoric
It's been awhile since I've updated you on the intra classroom affairs.
Back when I was in the US, I had my assistant teach a Post Office project. It was something easy to do in my absence, and its field trip conclusion coincided with Valentine's Day, so all the children could mail their very own valentines. Aside from the post office books and valentine-making instructions I left behind, I am not quite sure what went on those nearly two weeks I was away. I did get to come back just in time for the field trip though. The best part of this was putting the valentines in envelopes. A few children were familiar with the process, but most showed a mixture of shock and disgust at my suggestion, not to mention demonstration. A few cried when I said, "your turn." Some, enjoying the flavor of the gluey flap, practically ate their envelopes and we had to give them new ones.
When we arrived at the post office, the assistant-teacher went inside to find the man she had made the arrangements with. 10, 15, 20 minutes went by. My students were sitting outside the post office window in a neat but noisy row on the corner of a busy street. We started a sing-a-long and attracted much attention from passers-by. When the neat but noisy row swelled into an impatient riot though, I rushed inside to see what was taking so long. Our tour guide, it seemed, was in South Africa. He would be back "soon." I wheedled a receptionist to find us someone else to do the tour, but she wouldn't even let the children come inside. "Please," I said, "They are only three. They cannot wait much longer and the street outside is very busy." "You shouldn't be in such a rush," she told me. The assistant teacher spat something back in Sesotho. I asked her to translate and she said, "The children are climbing up the walls." I turned and sure enough, they were climbing up the railings, pressing the chubby faces against the glass that muffled their screams.
Another 10 minutes went by an the receptionist finally let us in. The children, stir crazy, set about dismantling the post office in the few more minutes it took for our postal worker to arrive and begin the tour. The tour was dry to say the least, and I had to play translator (I certainly don't do baby talk to preschoolers, but his language and explanations were not digestible to three year olds). Then we made a 21 pint-size-person line (much to the fury of the customers that came in shortly after), and each child bought his or her own stamp and dropped their card in the appropriate box. While in line, the children began licking the outsides of their envelopes (possibly they were getting hungry by then) and I had to briefly confiscate a few to save them from disintegration. "Wait for your stamps! You can lick your stamps!" A few of them, crazed by the impending taste of postal glue, sucked their stamps like candy and I had to scrape one off the back of Tlotliso's tongue with my fingernail. We thanked our very late tour guide with a deafening performance of postal/Valentine's Day songs, and surprisingly, the customers and employees looked a little wistful as we waved goodbye and made a noisy exit.
This week concludes a six week study of dinosaurs. I prefer projects that involve field trips, but their are no museums with fossils nearby and the dinosaur footprints you can find in the rocks here all involved strenuous hiking. Then again, after 4 field trips in 5 weeks, I needed a break from the stress and exhaustion that comes from organizing these adventures and subsequently taking 21 small children out into the world. So we got a little creative. With a tape measure we figured out how long various dinsaurs would stretch across our campus. We also made a life-size model of T Rex jaws and teeth on the floor and discovered, yeah, we could be easily swallowed. We played paleontologist and pieced together together cut up paper dinosaur skeletons and we simulated dinosaur battles (T Rex goes to bite Triceratops. Stick him with your horns, Triceratops! Stick him with your horns!) I very much stressed that dinosaurs have disappeared and cannot come back, and to the silent disapproval of the missionaries and staunchly Christian, that dinosaurs lived BEFORE people. Overall, I was very proud of the concepts they were able to grasp, and of their new dino-vocabulary (fossil, extinct, fierce, prehistoric). Instead of a field trip to conclude the study, we made The Preschool Dinosaur Book. This involved massive photocopying on my part, and you know me and appliances, a field trip probably would have been easier.
This afternoon I leave for Cape Town for my first ultra marathon (56 k, about 35 miles) in preparation for the big one (Comrades on May 30, 89k/56miles). As you probably know from reading recent posts, my knee is pretty angry at all these long distances as of late, and I can't seem to get more than 15 or 20 k in without a protest. So after another frustrating week of rest, I'm hoping for a fairly painless and non-swelling Saturday. Yesterday, in a typical short person move, I fell off of a shelf in the PE storage room. I landed squarely on my tailbone, with the plastic, wheeled trunk full of PE equipment I was trying to put away, landing squarely on my other knee. At least now I have two busted knees so if nothing else, I will limp evenly.
Back when I was in the US, I had my assistant teach a Post Office project. It was something easy to do in my absence, and its field trip conclusion coincided with Valentine's Day, so all the children could mail their very own valentines. Aside from the post office books and valentine-making instructions I left behind, I am not quite sure what went on those nearly two weeks I was away. I did get to come back just in time for the field trip though. The best part of this was putting the valentines in envelopes. A few children were familiar with the process, but most showed a mixture of shock and disgust at my suggestion, not to mention demonstration. A few cried when I said, "your turn." Some, enjoying the flavor of the gluey flap, practically ate their envelopes and we had to give them new ones.
When we arrived at the post office, the assistant-teacher went inside to find the man she had made the arrangements with. 10, 15, 20 minutes went by. My students were sitting outside the post office window in a neat but noisy row on the corner of a busy street. We started a sing-a-long and attracted much attention from passers-by. When the neat but noisy row swelled into an impatient riot though, I rushed inside to see what was taking so long. Our tour guide, it seemed, was in South Africa. He would be back "soon." I wheedled a receptionist to find us someone else to do the tour, but she wouldn't even let the children come inside. "Please," I said, "They are only three. They cannot wait much longer and the street outside is very busy." "You shouldn't be in such a rush," she told me. The assistant teacher spat something back in Sesotho. I asked her to translate and she said, "The children are climbing up the walls." I turned and sure enough, they were climbing up the railings, pressing the chubby faces against the glass that muffled their screams.
Another 10 minutes went by an the receptionist finally let us in. The children, stir crazy, set about dismantling the post office in the few more minutes it took for our postal worker to arrive and begin the tour. The tour was dry to say the least, and I had to play translator (I certainly don't do baby talk to preschoolers, but his language and explanations were not digestible to three year olds). Then we made a 21 pint-size-person line (much to the fury of the customers that came in shortly after), and each child bought his or her own stamp and dropped their card in the appropriate box. While in line, the children began licking the outsides of their envelopes (possibly they were getting hungry by then) and I had to briefly confiscate a few to save them from disintegration. "Wait for your stamps! You can lick your stamps!" A few of them, crazed by the impending taste of postal glue, sucked their stamps like candy and I had to scrape one off the back of Tlotliso's tongue with my fingernail. We thanked our very late tour guide with a deafening performance of postal/Valentine's Day songs, and surprisingly, the customers and employees looked a little wistful as we waved goodbye and made a noisy exit.
This week concludes a six week study of dinosaurs. I prefer projects that involve field trips, but their are no museums with fossils nearby and the dinosaur footprints you can find in the rocks here all involved strenuous hiking. Then again, after 4 field trips in 5 weeks, I needed a break from the stress and exhaustion that comes from organizing these adventures and subsequently taking 21 small children out into the world. So we got a little creative. With a tape measure we figured out how long various dinsaurs would stretch across our campus. We also made a life-size model of T Rex jaws and teeth on the floor and discovered, yeah, we could be easily swallowed. We played paleontologist and pieced together together cut up paper dinosaur skeletons and we simulated dinosaur battles (T Rex goes to bite Triceratops. Stick him with your horns, Triceratops! Stick him with your horns!) I very much stressed that dinosaurs have disappeared and cannot come back, and to the silent disapproval of the missionaries and staunchly Christian, that dinosaurs lived BEFORE people. Overall, I was very proud of the concepts they were able to grasp, and of their new dino-vocabulary (fossil, extinct, fierce, prehistoric). Instead of a field trip to conclude the study, we made The Preschool Dinosaur Book. This involved massive photocopying on my part, and you know me and appliances, a field trip probably would have been easier.
This afternoon I leave for Cape Town for my first ultra marathon (56 k, about 35 miles) in preparation for the big one (Comrades on May 30, 89k/56miles). As you probably know from reading recent posts, my knee is pretty angry at all these long distances as of late, and I can't seem to get more than 15 or 20 k in without a protest. So after another frustrating week of rest, I'm hoping for a fairly painless and non-swelling Saturday. Yesterday, in a typical short person move, I fell off of a shelf in the PE storage room. I landed squarely on my tailbone, with the plastic, wheeled trunk full of PE equipment I was trying to put away, landing squarely on my other knee. At least now I have two busted knees so if nothing else, I will limp evenly.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
How it Went
When I got on the starting line on Saturday at 6 am for a 73-kilometer day, I hadn’t run in three days. And the last time I ran, I made it one kilometer before the snapping in the back of my knee kicked up and I had to hobble home feeling pathetic. After three cranky days of popping anti-inflammatories, icing to the point of freezer burn and smearing horse meds on my flank or leg or whatever, I didn’t have particularly high hopes that I would finish the marathon, let alone spring back for the half-marathon and 10 k later that day. On the 4+ hour drive to Lake Umuzi in Mphulanga province, Mike repeatedly turned around with a gleam in his eye saying, “Are ya ready for the challenge? Are ya?” I said, “I don’t know if I can even run one kilometer.” Mike was also injured (plantar fasciitis and Achilles something or other), but at least he could run in a straight line. The pain I could deal with, it was the snapping that was immobilizing.
Mike used to live in the town where the race was held. He took me to meet his runner friends and bragged to them that I was running my first Comrades in May. One of them said something snide sounding in Afrikaans and Mike replied in English, “only just.” I surmised the man had asked if I qualified and I felt very indignant by the exchange. Later I found out he asked a somewhat less insulting, “Is she old enough?” It’s a problem I have in this country- appearing to Southern African eyes to be about ten years younger than I am, coming off as something like a more believable Doogie Houser with a better theme song.
I dubiously went through all the pre-race rituals, pasta the night before, bananas in the morning, special socks, plus all that horse-and-advil-voodoo on my knee. I fell asleep early but if I shifted in the middle of the night, a sharp pain jolted me awake. I was nervous in the morning, not knowing how far I’d be able to make it . . . and not particularly wanting today to be the first day that rather than finishing a race on foot, getting hauled back in a medical vehicle. Mike gave me some pain pills to carry with me and take mid-race. I thought he was nuts, but it must be a South African thing, because another man offered me some mid-race.
Luckily, the course was flat. Well, maybe it wasn’t, but it’s the flattest thing I’ve run in Southern Africa. South Africans don’t believe in designing flat courses. In America, a fast, flat course is supposed to be a draw for runners. In South Africa, the hillier the better, and the courses loop and snake to make sure you climb and descend as many meters as possible at the steepest gradient the natural geography will allow.
For the first 10 k, the pain was distracting, but it was the longest I had been able to run without stopping in a week. Then it subsided into a dull nauseating ache in my knee and, for some reason, now my foot. By 30 k, the rest of my body caught up, so no particular pain seemed significant. At that point in a marathon you just hurt, no matter how slow you go, and I was going slow, trying to pace myself for the two races later that day. For part of the race I ran by a man who boasted he had a fractured bone in his foot. He said he was just going to run through it because it was too close to Comrades (the 89 k race I’m running in May) to rest and it was going to be his 20th. He bounded ahead on his broken metatarcel and I didn’t see him again. Lunatics, these South African runners.
I finished the marathon, and amazingly, I felt decent enough to continue with the next two races later that day. I stopped at the Medi-Clinic (South African hospital) tent where a nice lady iced and arnica-d me and then called over a medical professional of unspecified position to “do nice, special things for your knee.” She poked, prodded and contorted me, called it an inflamed meniscus, and warned that if I wanted to do Comrades, I’m better off calling it a day, resting a week and then resuming training. She also pointed out that my knee was swollen. Very. Front and back. Then she called over someone else- a physical therapist who is also a runner. The physical therapist thought it was IT band friction syndrome, but agreed with her predecessor on everything else. Then they taught me how to tape my knee and told me a type of brace I can get (or where to cut a hole in my current and apparently useless one). She apologized profusely for convincing me to drop out of the 3-in-1 challenge but assured me with a week of rest and a week of easy(er) runs, I should be able to run the 2 Oceans Marathon (at 56k, my first ultra) in three weeks, and the Comrades.
I met up with Mike who ran 3:11 on his injured foot. He nodded when I told him the verdicts and prophecies of the Medi-Clinic tent, but I could tell he was thinking, “lame.” And he gave some half-hearted, “Yeah, you run anymore today, then you’ll have to take a month to recover,” but I could tell he was thinking, “wimp.” Mike limped his half marathon in 2 hours. Just by the times, you could tell he was in pain- 3:11 marathon, 2 hour half marathon- you do the math. But he stayed on for the 10k because it was his fifth year doing the race and he would get his permanent number this year. I think that is another South African running phenomenon- if you run a particular race for a certain number of years, any time you do that race from then on, you get the same number to wear on your shirt and no one else can ever have that number.
I spent the remainder of the day feeling pathetic and lazy for only running a marathon. And only in South Africa, can one feel pathetic and lazy for “only” running a marathon. The lunacy is definitely contagious.
Mike used to live in the town where the race was held. He took me to meet his runner friends and bragged to them that I was running my first Comrades in May. One of them said something snide sounding in Afrikaans and Mike replied in English, “only just.” I surmised the man had asked if I qualified and I felt very indignant by the exchange. Later I found out he asked a somewhat less insulting, “Is she old enough?” It’s a problem I have in this country- appearing to Southern African eyes to be about ten years younger than I am, coming off as something like a more believable Doogie Houser with a better theme song.
I dubiously went through all the pre-race rituals, pasta the night before, bananas in the morning, special socks, plus all that horse-and-advil-voodoo on my knee. I fell asleep early but if I shifted in the middle of the night, a sharp pain jolted me awake. I was nervous in the morning, not knowing how far I’d be able to make it . . . and not particularly wanting today to be the first day that rather than finishing a race on foot, getting hauled back in a medical vehicle. Mike gave me some pain pills to carry with me and take mid-race. I thought he was nuts, but it must be a South African thing, because another man offered me some mid-race.
Luckily, the course was flat. Well, maybe it wasn’t, but it’s the flattest thing I’ve run in Southern Africa. South Africans don’t believe in designing flat courses. In America, a fast, flat course is supposed to be a draw for runners. In South Africa, the hillier the better, and the courses loop and snake to make sure you climb and descend as many meters as possible at the steepest gradient the natural geography will allow.
For the first 10 k, the pain was distracting, but it was the longest I had been able to run without stopping in a week. Then it subsided into a dull nauseating ache in my knee and, for some reason, now my foot. By 30 k, the rest of my body caught up, so no particular pain seemed significant. At that point in a marathon you just hurt, no matter how slow you go, and I was going slow, trying to pace myself for the two races later that day. For part of the race I ran by a man who boasted he had a fractured bone in his foot. He said he was just going to run through it because it was too close to Comrades (the 89 k race I’m running in May) to rest and it was going to be his 20th. He bounded ahead on his broken metatarcel and I didn’t see him again. Lunatics, these South African runners.
I finished the marathon, and amazingly, I felt decent enough to continue with the next two races later that day. I stopped at the Medi-Clinic (South African hospital) tent where a nice lady iced and arnica-d me and then called over a medical professional of unspecified position to “do nice, special things for your knee.” She poked, prodded and contorted me, called it an inflamed meniscus, and warned that if I wanted to do Comrades, I’m better off calling it a day, resting a week and then resuming training. She also pointed out that my knee was swollen. Very. Front and back. Then she called over someone else- a physical therapist who is also a runner. The physical therapist thought it was IT band friction syndrome, but agreed with her predecessor on everything else. Then they taught me how to tape my knee and told me a type of brace I can get (or where to cut a hole in my current and apparently useless one). She apologized profusely for convincing me to drop out of the 3-in-1 challenge but assured me with a week of rest and a week of easy(er) runs, I should be able to run the 2 Oceans Marathon (at 56k, my first ultra) in three weeks, and the Comrades.
I met up with Mike who ran 3:11 on his injured foot. He nodded when I told him the verdicts and prophecies of the Medi-Clinic tent, but I could tell he was thinking, “lame.” And he gave some half-hearted, “Yeah, you run anymore today, then you’ll have to take a month to recover,” but I could tell he was thinking, “wimp.” Mike limped his half marathon in 2 hours. Just by the times, you could tell he was in pain- 3:11 marathon, 2 hour half marathon- you do the math. But he stayed on for the 10k because it was his fifth year doing the race and he would get his permanent number this year. I think that is another South African running phenomenon- if you run a particular race for a certain number of years, any time you do that race from then on, you get the same number to wear on your shirt and no one else can ever have that number.
I spent the remainder of the day feeling pathetic and lazy for only running a marathon. And only in South Africa, can one feel pathetic and lazy for “only” running a marathon. The lunacy is definitely contagious.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Boss of Me (And How He Got the Job)
This May, I will be hopefully completing my second ultra marathon. This particular race, at 89 K of hilly roads, is dubbed, "the ultimate human race." When a friend of mine who ran it last year heard I was thinknig about signing up, he put me in touch with a South African man who lives near by who has completed it about 20 times.
His name is Mike and I do whatever he tells me. If he's run it 20 times, he must know a thing or two in addition to being obviously crazy.
He also convinced me to join him for a race in South Africa known as the Kosmos 3-in-1. The idea is to run a marathon in the morning, a half marathon at 1 pm and a 10 k in the evening, totaling 73 K (16 less than the Comrades). Plus it gives your body an idea of what it feels like to be vertical and in motion all day.
I signed up, and a week before the big day, something funky at the back of my knee started snapping like a rubberband. Yesterday was my fourth day in a row of giving up midway on a run and hobbling home. Yesterday, I shut the blinds, threw my skirt on the couch, squeezed into a knee support, donned my new sneakers and ran around my livingroom. I convinced myself I was healed, ate a chocolate bar and called it a night.
Then at 5:10 this morning, the rubberband started snapping one kilometer down the road. Have I ever mentioned that running may be the only thing that keeps me sane in the kingdom in the sky? It is.
The 3-in-one is three days away, so I emailed Mike in a panic saying I don't think I can run. His reply: "It is probably an over use injury as you body is adjusting to higher milage. I am also currently injured and Lisa got some "Ice Man" a healing gel used in Horses. I have applied this week with remarkable results." Within an hour, I had the horse meds delivered to my work with "We'll pick up for the race Friday morning. How is pasta for dinner that night?"
I should be outside doing PE with a group of 3-6 year olds but I'm supposed to rest for a couple days. So I'm sitting barefoot at my computer, an ice pack tied to me with a scrap of Mozambican fabric, smelling like a medicated horse.
**Note, if you have any knee-related expertise and advice, please share, but my cranky brain cannot handle a lecture right now.
His name is Mike and I do whatever he tells me. If he's run it 20 times, he must know a thing or two in addition to being obviously crazy.
He also convinced me to join him for a race in South Africa known as the Kosmos 3-in-1. The idea is to run a marathon in the morning, a half marathon at 1 pm and a 10 k in the evening, totaling 73 K (16 less than the Comrades). Plus it gives your body an idea of what it feels like to be vertical and in motion all day.
I signed up, and a week before the big day, something funky at the back of my knee started snapping like a rubberband. Yesterday was my fourth day in a row of giving up midway on a run and hobbling home. Yesterday, I shut the blinds, threw my skirt on the couch, squeezed into a knee support, donned my new sneakers and ran around my livingroom. I convinced myself I was healed, ate a chocolate bar and called it a night.
Then at 5:10 this morning, the rubberband started snapping one kilometer down the road. Have I ever mentioned that running may be the only thing that keeps me sane in the kingdom in the sky? It is.
The 3-in-one is three days away, so I emailed Mike in a panic saying I don't think I can run. His reply: "It is probably an over use injury as you body is adjusting to higher milage. I am also currently injured and Lisa got some "Ice Man" a healing gel used in Horses. I have applied this week with remarkable results." Within an hour, I had the horse meds delivered to my work with "We'll pick up for the race Friday morning. How is pasta for dinner that night?"
I should be outside doing PE with a group of 3-6 year olds but I'm supposed to rest for a couple days. So I'm sitting barefoot at my computer, an ice pack tied to me with a scrap of Mozambican fabric, smelling like a medicated horse.
**Note, if you have any knee-related expertise and advice, please share, but my cranky brain cannot handle a lecture right now.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Reading Month Challenge
March is Reading Month at school. Each year we set a goal and if the students reach it, the director has to do "something." Last year, his phone, laptop and keys to his office were confiscated and he was required to sit in a rocking chair all day (about six hours) reading aloud. By 2:30, his voice was wrecked and his daughter (my student at the time) told me her daddy spent the rest of the day asleep on the sofa. The year before he ate a massive grasshopper. The teachers have come up with the Reading Month challenge in the past, but this year, the children are all putting forth their suggestions.
The first graders first said the director should kiss a girl, and the boys, (deciding that was too mean perhaps) voted to change that to kissing a frog. I tried to explain the concept to my three and four year olds ("If you read lots and lots of books at home, Mr. Director will have to do something for you"). Some initial suggestions were:
-give us cake
-kiss us
-pat our head
-take us to the seaside
-bring toys
Then I introduced the idea that we could ask him to do something funny, so they added,
-be a clown
-be a ballerina (I informed them that Mr. Director already said "no cross dressing, please.")
-jump up and down
-jump up and on a trampoline
-go camping (it is a little funny to imagine this guy camping)
Or we can ask him to do something difficult, I suggested, so they went on with,
-read a book (well, it is difficult for a three year old)
-build a house
-make a washing machine
and my favorite. . .
-I think you should give me a paper bag and a bridge and a mountain.
The first graders first said the director should kiss a girl, and the boys, (deciding that was too mean perhaps) voted to change that to kissing a frog. I tried to explain the concept to my three and four year olds ("If you read lots and lots of books at home, Mr. Director will have to do something for you"). Some initial suggestions were:
-give us cake
-kiss us
-pat our head
-take us to the seaside
-bring toys
Then I introduced the idea that we could ask him to do something funny, so they added,
-be a clown
-be a ballerina (I informed them that Mr. Director already said "no cross dressing, please.")
-jump up and down
-jump up and on a trampoline
-go camping (it is a little funny to imagine this guy camping)
Or we can ask him to do something difficult, I suggested, so they went on with,
-read a book (well, it is difficult for a three year old)
-build a house
-make a washing machine
and my favorite. . .
-I think you should give me a paper bag and a bridge and a mountain.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Back to the US
When I landed in JFK, it didn’t take long to get into an argument with a (very rude) utter moron. On my customs form, I wrote down Lesotho and USA in the space for country of residence. I have a residence permit for Lesotho, but I am still a legal resident of the state of NJ (I have a driver’s license and am registered to vote there). When I got to the front of the line at customs, the agent asked, “Which country are you a resident of?” I said, “Lesotho and U-” before I was cut off. “You can’t have two countries.” I try to explain the situation so that he could tell me which is the country relevant to put on the form, but he cuts me off every time I open my mouth and just keeps repeating, “Yeah, yeah, you have to pick ONE.” Finally I just said, “Fine. USA.” He scribbles something on my form. “So you are now staying permanently in the USA.” “No, for ten days,” I told him. Then he shouted that the US is therefore not my country of residence (which we could have ascertained long before had he actually tried to listen to me). I threw up my hands, “Then put Lesotho.” “I can’t!” he said. “I already crossed it out!. . . and I don’t know how to spell it.” I spat out the letters before stomping off to baggage, and the man called after me, “Welcome hoooome!”
Welcome home indeed. It took about an hour for our luggage to appear on the baggage carousel and a terrified voice would intermittently apologize for the wait, which he would blame on a different vague problem every time. When I emerged into the arrivals area, my parents were waiting with a coat and scarf. Knowing that the New York winter would be at least 60 degrees warmer than the Lesotho summer I was coming from, I emailed my parents from my layover in London (Heathrow being it’s own freezing-and expensive-hell) to bring me some winter things to the airport. I bundled up over my linen pants and t-shirt which smelled like horse and sweat as I had boarded the plane a day and a half before, immediately following a pony-riding field trip with my students.
The entire way from the airport to my parent’s house, I was pretty sure we were going to crash, but my father kept insisting we were just in the midst of a little something called traffic. And not the kind of traffic we have here in Southern Africa where you brake a lot and crawl along the road, but the kind of the traffic where you drive as you normally would, only the road is as congested as a bumper cars arena. Culture shock #1: tri-state area traffic.
I spent the last bit of bitterly freezing daylight, running through the leafless tree-lined suburb and fell asleep in front of a plate of eggplant in a Jersey diner meets Jersey Italian kind of a restaurant. Thus ended my first day in America after a 20-month absence.
I spent the following day in New York City. Culture shock #2: double-decker trains. That’s right. New Jersey transit, when did you get so . . . tall? I fell down the stairs my first time on one of those. And it was not on the stairs to the upper story, but on the stairs going from the doorway to the seats on the bottom . . .because I was staring at the second story. Culture shock #3: obese pigeons. They were actually spherical. When I met Angela at the Met, I asked her what on earth had happened to this ubiquitous city critter, but she claimed that is how they always look. For the rest of the day I managed to disgust an employee of the museum by losing my entrance badge and requesting another, eat vegan Thai, and attempt to get a slice of vegan chocolate peanut butter cake at my favorite bakery/bar/music venue/used record store, but settled for a less satisfying cupcake instead when I found they were all out.
But the real reason for my trip to the US besides stuffing myself full of warm, fresh bagels that taste slightly of the paper bag they sell them in was for job interviews.
The job fair was like a freaky parallel universe where a normal job application process goes into fast forward. For several weeks leading up to the job fair, you post your profile on the agency’s website, scour the website for openings and email countless resumes to schools. Once you arrive at the actual fair, technology goes backward a couple centuries, and communication happens via notes. Everyone has a folder in a filing drawer and candidates can write messages to recruiters and vice versa. Upon arriving at the fair I saw a postcard in my folder that said, “Have you ever dreamt of working in a chalet in Central Switzerland right on Lake Luzern with a small group of 4-5 year olds?? I would love to talk to you-please stop by our table and set up an appointment!!”
1. No I haven’t ever dreamt of working in a chalet in Central Switzerland right on Lake Luzern with a small group of 4-5 year olds. . .but I am now!
2. Is this really a request for a job interview or are you trying to sell me something?
During the 4 hours of sign-ups, you wander around a massive hotel conference room trying to get schools to grant you an interview for later that weekend. Posters behind each table indicate what positions are open and if there are any requirements. When I made my stop at the table for the school in Switzerland, the openings were listed as-I am not joking-soccer positions. It said, verbatim:
-Striker (With ability to teach High School math)
-Midfield (Some High School IT experience needed)
-Defense (Prefer experience in Primary and Middle School learning support)
-Goal keeper (Background in Middle School General Science).
-Winger (Must be experience in Early Childhood, Quick on feet)
-Bus Driver (Also need to teach primary German[?!])
So I actually had to walk up to a school principal (who inquired, in writing, about my Swiss chalet dreams), introduce myself and say, “I would like to apply for the position of Winger.”
I tried to stick close to European tables because they all had chocolates. After inquiring at a school in Helsinki, I reached for a hazlenut bar, only the recruiter thought I was going for a handshake and extended his arm. I made an awkward U-turn from the chocolate bowl to his hand but he had already pulled his hand away. It could not have been more awkward, but he just said, “Go on, have some chocolate.”
In addition to applying to be a Winger at the chalet school, I set up interviews with schools in Accra, Cairo, Doha (on a whim), Kinshasa, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Sadiola (middle of nowhere mine in Mali) Sofia, a school in Japan whose city I can’t remember, and ditto for Saudi Arabia. I actually had no intention of working in Saudi Arabia-EVER-but the director hunted me down and charmed me into signing up. I later cancelled that interview. Interestingly, another teacher who was interviewing for a school in Saudi Arabia told me it’s known as the New Jersey of the Middle East, as in, disdained by it’s neighbors (I’m also from Jersey). I spent a fair amount of my networking time teaching people how to pronounce Lesotho (Le-soo-too). Apparently people from Qatar (Cutter) had the same problem. Thus began an exhausting weekend of interviewing in hotel rooms overlooking the frozen Charles.
Perhaps my most interesting interview was with a school in Kuala Lumpur. The elementary school principal was deep-voiced and huge (although my hands are small, I was surprised when we went to shake that my hand was thoroughly engulfed-as in, my fingers could not reach around to the other side of his hand). He was suffering from temporary facial paralysis that left him completely unable to smile. Do you have any idea how unsettling it is for an grim-faced giant with the voice of James Earl Jones to tell you that he likes you? Very.
As you can imagine, there is only one place you can end up after a stressful winter weekend in which you have shaken about 400 people’s hands, and that is with a very bad cold. Luckily my friend Jordan pumped me full of Emergen-C, respiratory tea, osha root extract (vile), elderberry syrup (pretty good), and Kumbucha (a home-fermented Russian tea- tastes like cider vinegar) and I was more or less fit to get on the plane back to summer.
Welcome home indeed. It took about an hour for our luggage to appear on the baggage carousel and a terrified voice would intermittently apologize for the wait, which he would blame on a different vague problem every time. When I emerged into the arrivals area, my parents were waiting with a coat and scarf. Knowing that the New York winter would be at least 60 degrees warmer than the Lesotho summer I was coming from, I emailed my parents from my layover in London (Heathrow being it’s own freezing-and expensive-hell) to bring me some winter things to the airport. I bundled up over my linen pants and t-shirt which smelled like horse and sweat as I had boarded the plane a day and a half before, immediately following a pony-riding field trip with my students.
The entire way from the airport to my parent’s house, I was pretty sure we were going to crash, but my father kept insisting we were just in the midst of a little something called traffic. And not the kind of traffic we have here in Southern Africa where you brake a lot and crawl along the road, but the kind of the traffic where you drive as you normally would, only the road is as congested as a bumper cars arena. Culture shock #1: tri-state area traffic.
I spent the last bit of bitterly freezing daylight, running through the leafless tree-lined suburb and fell asleep in front of a plate of eggplant in a Jersey diner meets Jersey Italian kind of a restaurant. Thus ended my first day in America after a 20-month absence.
I spent the following day in New York City. Culture shock #2: double-decker trains. That’s right. New Jersey transit, when did you get so . . . tall? I fell down the stairs my first time on one of those. And it was not on the stairs to the upper story, but on the stairs going from the doorway to the seats on the bottom . . .because I was staring at the second story. Culture shock #3: obese pigeons. They were actually spherical. When I met Angela at the Met, I asked her what on earth had happened to this ubiquitous city critter, but she claimed that is how they always look. For the rest of the day I managed to disgust an employee of the museum by losing my entrance badge and requesting another, eat vegan Thai, and attempt to get a slice of vegan chocolate peanut butter cake at my favorite bakery/bar/music venue/used record store, but settled for a less satisfying cupcake instead when I found they were all out.
But the real reason for my trip to the US besides stuffing myself full of warm, fresh bagels that taste slightly of the paper bag they sell them in was for job interviews.
The job fair was like a freaky parallel universe where a normal job application process goes into fast forward. For several weeks leading up to the job fair, you post your profile on the agency’s website, scour the website for openings and email countless resumes to schools. Once you arrive at the actual fair, technology goes backward a couple centuries, and communication happens via notes. Everyone has a folder in a filing drawer and candidates can write messages to recruiters and vice versa. Upon arriving at the fair I saw a postcard in my folder that said, “Have you ever dreamt of working in a chalet in Central Switzerland right on Lake Luzern with a small group of 4-5 year olds?? I would love to talk to you-please stop by our table and set up an appointment!!”
1. No I haven’t ever dreamt of working in a chalet in Central Switzerland right on Lake Luzern with a small group of 4-5 year olds. . .but I am now!
2. Is this really a request for a job interview or are you trying to sell me something?
During the 4 hours of sign-ups, you wander around a massive hotel conference room trying to get schools to grant you an interview for later that weekend. Posters behind each table indicate what positions are open and if there are any requirements. When I made my stop at the table for the school in Switzerland, the openings were listed as-I am not joking-soccer positions. It said, verbatim:
-Striker (With ability to teach High School math)
-Midfield (Some High School IT experience needed)
-Defense (Prefer experience in Primary and Middle School learning support)
-Goal keeper (Background in Middle School General Science).
-Winger (Must be experience in Early Childhood, Quick on feet)
-Bus Driver (Also need to teach primary German[?!])
So I actually had to walk up to a school principal (who inquired, in writing, about my Swiss chalet dreams), introduce myself and say, “I would like to apply for the position of Winger.”
I tried to stick close to European tables because they all had chocolates. After inquiring at a school in Helsinki, I reached for a hazlenut bar, only the recruiter thought I was going for a handshake and extended his arm. I made an awkward U-turn from the chocolate bowl to his hand but he had already pulled his hand away. It could not have been more awkward, but he just said, “Go on, have some chocolate.”
In addition to applying to be a Winger at the chalet school, I set up interviews with schools in Accra, Cairo, Doha (on a whim), Kinshasa, Kuala Lumpur, Mumbai, Sadiola (middle of nowhere mine in Mali) Sofia, a school in Japan whose city I can’t remember, and ditto for Saudi Arabia. I actually had no intention of working in Saudi Arabia-EVER-but the director hunted me down and charmed me into signing up. I later cancelled that interview. Interestingly, another teacher who was interviewing for a school in Saudi Arabia told me it’s known as the New Jersey of the Middle East, as in, disdained by it’s neighbors (I’m also from Jersey). I spent a fair amount of my networking time teaching people how to pronounce Lesotho (Le-soo-too). Apparently people from Qatar (Cutter) had the same problem. Thus began an exhausting weekend of interviewing in hotel rooms overlooking the frozen Charles.
Perhaps my most interesting interview was with a school in Kuala Lumpur. The elementary school principal was deep-voiced and huge (although my hands are small, I was surprised when we went to shake that my hand was thoroughly engulfed-as in, my fingers could not reach around to the other side of his hand). He was suffering from temporary facial paralysis that left him completely unable to smile. Do you have any idea how unsettling it is for an grim-faced giant with the voice of James Earl Jones to tell you that he likes you? Very.
As you can imagine, there is only one place you can end up after a stressful winter weekend in which you have shaken about 400 people’s hands, and that is with a very bad cold. Luckily my friend Jordan pumped me full of Emergen-C, respiratory tea, osha root extract (vile), elderberry syrup (pretty good), and Kumbucha (a home-fermented Russian tea- tastes like cider vinegar) and I was more or less fit to get on the plane back to summer.
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