The Affair As It Stands Today

I think I'm falling in love with teaching, not in the sweeping romantic at-first-sight way, but in the halting and uncomfortable way that more often actually happens. I am nervous thinking about it, and spend an enormous amount of time planning for it though I know half the equation is outside my control and no amount of preparation will take into account all the variables. Just before our encounters I feel a deep panic, a sense that if I just sprinted for the door I could be rootless, uncommitted and unafraid (conveninetly forgetting that when I was thus unattached I yearned for something to push against). In the first days only a sense of obligation to the people who brought us together-- my parents for instilling in me a huge value for education, Catherine and Grace and Katie for being my first comrades in independent travel and therefore my fellow in learning that it gets easier and proves to be worth the discomfort, the Mexico crew for teaching me ways of getting to know a place, my Whitman loves for constructing my first full home away from home and camp for letting me live in the strongest communities I've ever known, and of course Stazh for setting me up on a blind date with teaching in Guatemala. For these people I stayed, though I left my first lesson tearful and afraid on a level deeper than perfection or commitment. As I've recounted, the next lesson left me somewhere entirely different: exalted, full of hope and satisfaction, optimistic with that first giddy bloom that is physically incapable of sustaining itself. Now each lesson it is uncertain whether I will leave thrilled or crestfallen-- but I'm getting better at timing, at gauging my classes' needs and abilities and adjusting as I go, at gathering a ballast of understanding so each new development doesn't submit me to a fit of aimless spinning, and even when I spin I am reasonably confident of regaining my course. (I was in a river kayak on Lago Atitlan this weekend, ergo am physically very conscious of the disorienting effects of spinning).

So all this means I'm readying myself to commit, to settle down with teaching, to acknowledge our awkwardnesses and our imperfections and to proclaim that it's worth working through. I spoke to Neil on Friday about the possibility of an internship. It's only talk at this point, but he sounded tentatively excited and said he'd speak with Doreen, one of the director-type figures, this weekend. I've yet to find out the result. I suppose I'm in the waiting-by-the-telephone phase in a way. I feel fairly peaceful about it at the moment. Though our relationship is tumultuous, teaching and I are doing okay. I don't think it's a heartbrteaker. I haven't much of an idea where we're going, but I'm shyly looking forward to finding out.

Some logistics, for those among us who like that sort of thing: On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I teach in San Andres Itzapa, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm in Santa Maria de Jesus. The English teaching load is distributed (in ever-changing configurations) among Neil (the program coordinator, to assign a title that may or may not be official, and most constant figure in our constellation), me, Kavin, and Liv. The latter two will be leaving soon, alas, but before they do Neil's grasping some much-needed vacation, so we're to be on our own for the next two weeks. I'm looking forward to the opportunity of flinging myself full-bodiedly into teaching, leaving behind any opportunity of second-guessing for at least this two-week period because I don't imagine I'll have time. Each class we teach is a bit different. There are morning and afternoon groups with different kids, so each kid attends a half-day with us and the other half either in government school or working at home, depending on the day. In Itzapa, we have the same two groups on Mondays and Fridays, and then two groups on Wednesdays that take Spanish literacy and other subjects with other volunteers on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. In Santa Maria we have the same two classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Our smallest group is eight; the biggest could be more than twenty if everyone showed up on the same day, but when attendance is almost entirely self-motivated and kids are needed for work in their families' fields and homes, it's harder to enforce and the bigger classes rarely have more than fourteen or sixteen kids. They range in age from 12 to 20, and are grouped more by ability than age. Some lesson plans can be used in more than one class, but when one class is reviewing the alphabet and "Hello, my name is Sulmi. What is your name?" and another is learning about expressing opinions about their classes (with all the vocab of subjects and tastes that implies), more planning is definitely in order. Neil works his derriere off to keep us prepared, suggesting activities around which we can structure whole lessons, forming the syllabus, and training us during lunch hours. His experience and his attention to the needs of our classes have done a lot to orient me inthis world, and while I quietly kill the hidden hopes I had of teaching poetry or incorporating creative writing elements into my lessons, I fill the space they leave with more practical goals of creating a base of understanding, of motviating these bright and curious kids to keep coming to a school that is both entirely superfluous to their basic survival and invaluable in terms of exposing them to playfulness, to classrooms that don't revolve around copying off a board, to lateral thinking (maybe, hopefully, please) and a freedom to try things-- speaking, writing-- even when the result isn't perfect that I am learning along with them.

I still have reservations about teaching English. I've read a bit too much postcolonial theory not to recognize the trouble with teaching the language of a world power to a community who will probably only ever come in contact with it in the service sector, pampering its tourists, or emigrating to its cities and farms and laboring to maintain its standard of living. I got my first teenager trying to sell me pot in the center the other day, claiming in broken English that by not buying I was insulting the country he loved, and I almost started crying at the thought that this bitter boy might be an example of how my kids end up applying what I teach them. U.S. language textbooks and their focus on the vocabulary of toursim, of exchange rates and ordering in restaurants and asking for directions, would be almost entirely useless here-- unless you invert all the dialogues and train your students to wait tables and answer guests' complaints, and even that assumes that these kids will leave subsistence farming, and maybe implies that they should. Ultimately I have to fall back on the realization that they choose to come to us, that I'm offering something they decide if they want or not. The subject is only part of the bargain. The difference between our casual, multi-approach classrooms and the strict copy culture of the government schools, the chance we emphasize to learn that the teacher is not the ultimate authority and that your peers make excellent resources, the time to play football (soccer, whatever-- I'm getting used to it) or jacks or to arm wrestle with your teachers (I took on and beat two wiry fourteen year olds the other day, one arm after the other, and am still rather proud) are the side benefits of the program that might ultimately be more important than the subject matter we convey. Yeah. Because despite my theoretical doubts, I feel pretty good doing what I'm doing. Teaching is sor of like flashing the possibility of other worlds at your students, murmuring that the knowledge we offer can change the way they look at the world or live their lives, giving them a sense that there's a lot in the world to know, and if it seems cruel to plant the seed of a longing that might never be fulfilled, what else has education ever really done for any of us, at least the ones who like it? I don't think ignorance of what we're missing has ever made us happier, really. I dunno. I am sure there is plenty more where these ramblings come from, and I'll probably scribble more of them down eventually. Til then....

Seño Leslie Strikes Again

Teaching is frightening. Standing in front of a room full of people who have no particular obligation to listen to you or to need what you offer, holding forth on topics whose importance you believe in but acknowledge is subject to debate, prodding and snuffling about to find the most palatable way of presenting a language so that it seems useful, rewarding, and worthy of effort, all the while listening to your own internal monologue and realizing intimately how underqualified you are... It is humbling, to say the least. That said, this week had a decidedly upward trend. On Wednesday I had my first observed teaching session, in which Neil, my mentor (and the brilliant inducer of Scottish-Guatemalan accents in all our students), watched to give me some feedback. I was terrified. I had little or no appetite, I obsessively checked and rechecked my lesson plan in every spare moment of the day, and as I began I sunk my teeth into the tears that approached and instructed them firmly to STAY PUT until the lesson was over. They did, but barely. It was raining, which is dreadful in any class but worse in a wall-less classroom with a tin roof, as it sounds a bit like falling through a steel drum being flicked with rubber balls. And of course my lesson plan was largely speaking-based, involving a lot of drilling and some conversation, and I could hardly hear the kids in the front row, let alone the back. I stumbled through, rotating from table to table and doing essentially minilessons with each group, thanking the teacherly powers that be that I had two assistants to try some dialogues with the tables I couldn't reach. When they left I hunkered down in the corner and ushered out the tears that had so considerately waited til then. I spent the night wondering what I was doing here, whether every day would inspire such deep panic, whether I could even maintain two months worth of such frustration and uncertainty. Neil had reassured me, told me I'd handled the rain well and, when he saw how shaken I was, said my nerves hadn't shown, but I couldn't argue with the adrenaline crash that sent me to sleep at nine that night.

Then Thursday came. I was to teach another afternoon class, this one on telling the time. Now, telling the time and I are not traditionally friends. Telling the time gave me more trouble in elementary school than multiplication tables and the difference between right and left combined. Telling the time still eludes me despite three years of wearing an analog watch. And yet. This lesson was a dream. I could see problems as they come, I could joke with the kids and still regain their attention, I could give instructions they more or less understood, and even when I made mistakes (which I did, amply) I didn't freeze or melt but stayed more or less in my usual demisolid state of matter and came up with solutions. I was GIDDY afterwards.

And now I'm cutting myself painfully short, without telling you about climbing the volcano Pacaya and touching lava with a stick yesterday, or talking for two hours with a friendly gentleman in a cafe this morning, or about seventeen other stories well worth telling. I must scurry off to join the day's adventure (the nature of which is still a mystery), thereby perpetuating my writable experiences. Secretly, my dearly beloved friends, I do these things for you.

Ish.

chapter three: in which things take shape

There are seven spidery plants in pots in front of me, sticking out tendrils to explore the thick stone windowsill. It seems odd to have a computer with internet between me and the plants-- I'm already getting used to life incommunicado, and all these avenues for communication are quite overwhelming. This last week... was a week. 

On Monday I made my first appearance in Itzapa, one of two towns where I'm teaching. I climbed up on the roof where the laundry and the corn dry out with Neil, my mentor-figure and near-twelve-hour-a-day companion during the week, so he could smoke a cigarette and get me oriented. I greeted the cows to the left of our classroom, the volcanoes dominating the horizon, the other part of the school across the street swarming with kids in a mix of traditional woven skirts and t-shirts, jeans and embroidered blouses, rain boots and leather sandals. Our first class was (is) a group of moody teenagers, Lester (the death-metal son of Doña Elena, whose house hosts a bit less than half the school) and his friends and a trio of almost silent girls. And now this is tempting me to give you a profile of each of my classes, which would be a truly daunting undertaking, since we teach different kids in the mornings and the afternoons and from day to day-- ultimately we have about eight classes worth, six of which meet twice a week and two of which meet once a week. They're grouped by ability rather than age-- one class varies from 14-20.  The most basic class is starting with 'Good afternoon. My name's Leslie. What's your name?' 'My name's Mayra. Nice to meet you.' 'Nice to meet you too.' The most difficult class is currently circling, since it might be receiving new members soon. We've talked about sentences, about housework, about colors and birthdays and clothing and classroom supplies, and all my concerns about the imperialism of teaching English to an already-impressively-bilingual population melt before the double blast of the practical concerns of passing school and getting a job and the instant affection and enthusiasm these kids show me. Half the girls in my afternoon class in Santa Maria were giving me hugs before they knew my name. The littler kids, the ones taking math and spanish literacy and learning that verbs are to be conjugated, will lean on me and coerce me into playing sharks and minnows and ask me to read them stories and offer me maracas for wee musical interludes.

And now I'm realizing I really should have selected some sort of organizing principle before I started writing today, because the flurry of things I want to record will not take turns. I think I'll have to leave it sketchy for the moment. 

As for the ten million dollar question (How long will Leslie stay in Guatemala?) the answer is a minutely changing thing. Teaching scares me still. There's a constant lining of anxiety in my belly, a thin uncertain sense that I'm a fraud sliding by on Spanish speaking and some degree of rapport with kids that will vanish when they realize I have no idea what I'm doing. There are also moments when I feel like I'm doing the perfect thing, that I love these kids instinctively and fiercely, that I could, if teaching comes to fit, stay here for a long long time. We shall see.

someday i'll have to stop using ocean images, since i'm inland now...

chorus:

brújula pa ya

brújula no va

brújula no guia

por rumbo perdido voy

compass that way

compass doesn't go

compass doesn't guide

i travel a lost path

soñando por el camino

ay con la tierra de mi destino

viajando en mi submarino voy

a mas de 1600 pies

buscando entre los mares

puerto seguro yo llegaré

dreaming along the road

oh, with the land of my destiny

i go traveling in my submarine

at more than 1600 feet

looking between the seas

i'll arrive in a safe port

chorus

guardandome en la memoria

palabras de mi querer

viajando en mi submarino voy

20,000 leguas yo andaré

hilando cada pasito

un sueño, oye, yo bailaré

guarding in my memory

words of my loves

i go traveling in my submarine

i will walk 20,000 leagues

spinning in each step

a dream, listen, i will dance

oye yo te digo

cada sueño tiene su camino

oye yo te digo

que si to lo sueñe te viene en seguido

listen to what i tell you

each dream has its path

listen to what i tell you

that if you dream it, it will come soon enough

chorus

Against the Tide I'll Rise

Well, I am here. Thus far I have watched wide-eyed and yawnily as Marvin, my impressive driver, navigated capital city traffic, eaten pie and tiramisu with Celeste (the lovely sly friend who just happened to be traveling in Guate when I was to come) while chatting vigorously about the last bundle of months of our lives, conversed heatedly about U.S. politics and wood engraving tools and Jarabe de Palo with Kenny, a local musician sort and friend of Celeste's, gotten gently lost on my way back to the Casa de Maco (my home of one night before I meet my host family tomorrow), and now I'm plopped in my room plotting dinner. I have no sweeping conclusions yet, only sly pleasure in the center fountain who spouts water from her breasts and reverence for a sunset as varied and bright as any Walla Walla had to offer and gratitide that my instinct for walking with my eyes satellite-sensing treacherous sidewalk drops and low-hanging balconies and absorbing as much loveliness as possible all at once and an exhaustion held at bay by the scramble of traffic and the nori-wrapped rice crackers that my mom sent as part of my picnic lunch. 

During the layover in Houston, I tackled a very rough translation of the song that grants this blog its title. Seeing as how not everyone I want to read this darn thing speaks Spanish, I'll pass the translation along, hopefully at the bottom of this page. Its relevance is clear: I don't know what exactly I'm doing here (though I know I will start teaching on Monday, which is dizzyingly soon), I don't know how long I'm staying, and I don't really know where I'm going next. Good places, I trust. The optimism of arrival has set in.

Maiden Voyage

Thus it begins. In twelve hours and twenty nine minutes, my flight will lose contact with Californian soil, and the rather hazy next phase of my life will start to do its thing. Am I ready? Ish. And six minutes ago, I started a blog. Am I ready? Ish. Hopefully both will turn out to be worthy endeavors.