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.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
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.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Outings For Cowgirls and Cowboys
We have a lot of horses here in Lesotho. I thought it would make a good subject for a hands-on study and the children seemed to agree.
After some preliminary research on the children’s part (I love you school library), I took them to the Agricultural College for a field trip. My plan was to have them study horses in three different contexts of Basotho life: agriculture, law enforcement and recreation. My research was to scout out three appropriate field trip sites so one day the school bus driver took me to the Agricultural College and the Police Training College to set things up. (The third and impending field trip is to a pony riding center).
At the Agricultural College I was informed that they have no horses. How silly of me. Agricultural College have horses? This is Lesotho and that would make too much sense. As I was leaving disappointedly, the receptionist told me to check “livestock.” After further questioning, I deduced that there is an adjacent property to the Agricultural College that is in fact part of the Agricultural College, yet . . . See where I’m going here? Lesotho. Logic. Mutually exclusive.
I went to “Livestock.” I proposed the trip. They said, “We have one horse and camels.” I said, “Really? One horse? And camels?” I left. In the car the school bus driver who was chauffeuring me on these inquiries told me that the Agricultural College does have horses (plural) but that they are kept far away in a village. He said this place mainly does veterinary services. Vet! U turn! We went back. I asked if the vet would be able to talk to us. I was told to write a formal application on notebook paper with an official school stamp. The purpose of this piece of paper was to fill up a folder where it would be forgotten about to limit any possibility that the vet might be expecting us.
So began the first field trip of the academic year. I stared the indignant vet in the eye, told her my “application” was approved and between my steady, annoyed teacher gaze and the hopeful horse-loving eyes of the children, she agreed to talk to them about horse health.
My children asked great questions. Dr. Vet clearly is not used to talking to three-year-olds. Rebecca asked, “What happens if a horse falls down?” Dr. Vet said, “
What do you mean?” What do you mean what does she mean? She wants to know what happens when a horse falls down! I repeated Rebecca’s question, and somehow coming from an adult, she was able to respond. She started talking about plaster casts. Charlie raised his hand and said, “What if the horse needs four casts?” Dr. Vet said drew her finger across her throat. “We kill it.” (I’m all for honest answers, but could we tone down the gestures please?) Then Sean, with bodily functions perpetually on the brain asked, “Where does the horse pee and poo?” Dr. Vet and the animal caretaker stared blankly at each other until the caretaker pointed to a spot on the ground and said, “here.” He paused turned his head and pointed to another spot on the ground, “and here.” He continued scouting out droppings and urine puddles, “And here, and here, here, here, here. . .here. EVERYWHERE.” Sean was delighted.
Carefully watching where we stepped, we boarded the bus.
Take II. The Police Training College. At least they were expecting us here. We were assigned an officer and taken immediately to where they keep the horses. They let us into the paddock, locked the gate, and the officer disappeared into the stable. 28 horses bounded down the ramp into the paddock. I felt about a half dozen small hands reaching for mine. “Don’t worry I told them, they won’t come over here.” But they did, the officer nowhere in sight and the horses sniffing and nuzzling the children, nudging them with their noses and releasing their bladders much to Sean’s delight.
Not everyone was as pleased as Sean. About half of my 21 students immediately burst into tears and ran screaming to the gate, rattling the locked chains in hysteria. The rest of the children were all over the horses and loving it. I was trying to lure the criers back, even as the biggest horse of all breathed its hot sour breath in my face before chewing on my skirt. I was freaked out myself, but managed to lure all but two children back to the horses, including Tlotliso, who buried his snotty face in my hair and said, “I’m never coming back here again.” The horses are very well trained so the children were able to freely explore and when the officer reappeared he answered their questions with ease. We were up to our shins in mud and manure, which I consider a plus (for a preschool field trip, not in general). We gathered in the empty stable and learned among other horse facts, how to make bedding for a horse. It involves dried manure so Sean was of course ecstatic to learn about the process.
Then my scholarly little preschoolers scouted out places to sit and sketched their new equine friends with crayons. We finally said goodbye and thanked the officer with a rousing rendition of Yankee Doodle. He was perplexed but appreciative and really, who wouldn’t be?
After some preliminary research on the children’s part (I love you school library), I took them to the Agricultural College for a field trip. My plan was to have them study horses in three different contexts of Basotho life: agriculture, law enforcement and recreation. My research was to scout out three appropriate field trip sites so one day the school bus driver took me to the Agricultural College and the Police Training College to set things up. (The third and impending field trip is to a pony riding center).
At the Agricultural College I was informed that they have no horses. How silly of me. Agricultural College have horses? This is Lesotho and that would make too much sense. As I was leaving disappointedly, the receptionist told me to check “livestock.” After further questioning, I deduced that there is an adjacent property to the Agricultural College that is in fact part of the Agricultural College, yet . . . See where I’m going here? Lesotho. Logic. Mutually exclusive.
I went to “Livestock.” I proposed the trip. They said, “We have one horse and camels.” I said, “Really? One horse? And camels?” I left. In the car the school bus driver who was chauffeuring me on these inquiries told me that the Agricultural College does have horses (plural) but that they are kept far away in a village. He said this place mainly does veterinary services. Vet! U turn! We went back. I asked if the vet would be able to talk to us. I was told to write a formal application on notebook paper with an official school stamp. The purpose of this piece of paper was to fill up a folder where it would be forgotten about to limit any possibility that the vet might be expecting us.
So began the first field trip of the academic year. I stared the indignant vet in the eye, told her my “application” was approved and between my steady, annoyed teacher gaze and the hopeful horse-loving eyes of the children, she agreed to talk to them about horse health.
My children asked great questions. Dr. Vet clearly is not used to talking to three-year-olds. Rebecca asked, “What happens if a horse falls down?” Dr. Vet said, “
What do you mean?” What do you mean what does she mean? She wants to know what happens when a horse falls down! I repeated Rebecca’s question, and somehow coming from an adult, she was able to respond. She started talking about plaster casts. Charlie raised his hand and said, “What if the horse needs four casts?” Dr. Vet said drew her finger across her throat. “We kill it.” (I’m all for honest answers, but could we tone down the gestures please?) Then Sean, with bodily functions perpetually on the brain asked, “Where does the horse pee and poo?” Dr. Vet and the animal caretaker stared blankly at each other until the caretaker pointed to a spot on the ground and said, “here.” He paused turned his head and pointed to another spot on the ground, “and here.” He continued scouting out droppings and urine puddles, “And here, and here, here, here, here. . .here. EVERYWHERE.” Sean was delighted.
Carefully watching where we stepped, we boarded the bus.
Take II. The Police Training College. At least they were expecting us here. We were assigned an officer and taken immediately to where they keep the horses. They let us into the paddock, locked the gate, and the officer disappeared into the stable. 28 horses bounded down the ramp into the paddock. I felt about a half dozen small hands reaching for mine. “Don’t worry I told them, they won’t come over here.” But they did, the officer nowhere in sight and the horses sniffing and nuzzling the children, nudging them with their noses and releasing their bladders much to Sean’s delight.
Not everyone was as pleased as Sean. About half of my 21 students immediately burst into tears and ran screaming to the gate, rattling the locked chains in hysteria. The rest of the children were all over the horses and loving it. I was trying to lure the criers back, even as the biggest horse of all breathed its hot sour breath in my face before chewing on my skirt. I was freaked out myself, but managed to lure all but two children back to the horses, including Tlotliso, who buried his snotty face in my hair and said, “I’m never coming back here again.” The horses are very well trained so the children were able to freely explore and when the officer reappeared he answered their questions with ease. We were up to our shins in mud and manure, which I consider a plus (for a preschool field trip, not in general). We gathered in the empty stable and learned among other horse facts, how to make bedding for a horse. It involves dried manure so Sean was of course ecstatic to learn about the process.
Then my scholarly little preschoolers scouted out places to sit and sketched their new equine friends with crayons. We finally said goodbye and thanked the officer with a rousing rendition of Yankee Doodle. He was perplexed but appreciative and really, who wouldn’t be?
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Three Weeks, Three Countries, Happy New Year
Sani Pass
Durban
Pretty little bird on a gigantic leaf
awesome bark
A lot of children, CiCi included, get lost at the beach on Christmas. A police officer saw us taking this photo and asked us if we think that's funny. I thought he was going to reprimand us, but then he started laughing and said, "yeah, it's pretty funny."
Nambia, Mostly Sand
desert beauty
ship wreck!
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