Hump Day

I arrived at school at my normal time, which was the only thing normal about my arrival. Everyone (the teachers, the night watchman, and the students) stopped in his or her tracks. They were so excited to see me. It was incredible, only uncomprehendable! I am just a white girl with a black dog. There is nothing amazing about me. I go to class and teach just like the rest of the teachers. I might act like a clown (climbing on desks, screaming song lyrics at the top of my lungs to get their attention, and dancing for my students like no one is watching), but I am not special. I’m me. I do what it takes to drive home points (whether it be calculating the area of irregular polygons or solubility) and I fight for causes I deem worthy.

Miraculously, despite being gone for a week there simply was not a lot of work for me to do on this particular day so I took the time to talk to my teachers. Generally I am pretty honest with them, not as honest as I was this day. One of my teachers wanted to know why I was here. I told him pointblank I wanted to go on an adventure but that lately I was unsure if I made the right decision.

This lead into a lengthy discussion on the wonders of America. It makes no sense for me to quit and go home, besides pure laziness. I have nothing to go home to. Trust me, I would kill to see friends and family, but there will always family and friends. And unless things get really bad I do not think chips and salsa are going anywhere. When I say I have nothing to go home to I mean I have not been accepted to grad school and I do not have a job lined up. I filled my teachers in on how much nannies, maids, and fast food workers make in America. I dropped a lot of American knowledge on them. We had quite an insightful discussion comparing and contrasting our countries.

Taking time to truly engage in conversation with my teachers made me realize I am trying to do too much. I literally teach and grade notebooks all day, even during my one-hour lunch break. I spend about an average of four minutes interacting with the teachers each day. A lot of times they get on my nerves because I feel like they have so much potential but are inhibited by their bad attitudes. Day after day I am there offering assistance, serving as a role model, observing their classes and N-O-T-H-I-N-G changes. I might only bond four minutes as day with my teachers on an average but I have good relationships with most of them (thanks to staff meetings, sports, and field trips) for four months in. I realize I have said this over and over on my blog but I am going to have to keep digging. Keep learning Sesotho, keep teaching English, crack them open, force them to think (and act on those thoughts) if I want anything to change.

I have spent hours, countless hours learning the names of each of my eight grade students, along with the number of children in their families, their favorite sport, and what village they are from (my school serves 50 plus villages, holy complicated names). This is time spent outside the classroom. I can definitely see the difference it has made in motivating my students, gaining their respect, and the overall performance in class. Wednesday continued to be an above average day because two of my three classes went well. I was warned the impact I made here I might never see. I did not think it would bother me until it was fraction of the tornado that hit me hard this week. A good number of days I still feel like I am filling a position and that is tough. One breath at a time, I’ll make it. On the outside looking in it might look like I am here to save the world, on the inside looking out it is a bumpy emotional voyage.