Tough Stuff

For this week’s update, I thought I would share a bit about the challenges I’m facing; I must say these have been a rather long, and hot, and difficult few days. The middle school and high school students were in exams this week, which meant that the younger grades had to keep more quiet than usual. Well, my lovely fourth graders, all 18 of them, decide to be the LOUDEST possible the first few days of the week. After I nicely asked them to “practice their inside voices” a few times and noticed that that was certainly not going to work, I raised my own, raspy, injured voice and said that this week “silence was golden” and that they must all sit quietly in their seats even if they felt like wining, even if they were tired or even if they needed my attention to show me their newest “paper cell phone” or to tell me an “even funnier” joke. NOPE, that didn’t work either. “Okay, NO CANDY THIS WEEK”! That worked for all of two class periods and then oh there came the loud screeches and the “Miss, miss, miss, miss” calling with a wiggling hand high up in the air as if I were either 20 miles away, or as if I wasn’t wearing my thick glasses that day.

“Oh my goodness, what do I do?” I thought. I decided to ask the 8th grade teacher to come into my class and tell them that the whole school was very quiet but that the older students had complained about the fourth grade being so loud, that they couldn’t concentrate on their exams. It was a “Santo Remedio”! –translation: holy remedy-- All of a sudden, they were all so quiet I could hear the soft breeze outside the classroom window. Then I said, ‘my dear students, I am very sad about one thing. Even though you say “I love you, Miss Blue Jay” every day, and even though you write me beautiful, colorful letters saying “thank you for teaching us, please don’t leave”, you have to have another teacher come reprimand you about being too loud in order for you to listen, and you won’t listen to me.” All of them, with their tail between their legs, and their chins dropped about 45 degrees, proceeded to say, “I’m so, so sorry Miss Genvi”. This was Wednesday, by Thursday evening I had been handed about 14 “I’m sorry” notes with cute drawings on them, and luckily for the last two days they were all practically inaudible.

Another challenge that I have already been exposed to but I guess in smaller dosages are the recent and very continuous power outages. The transformer here blew up about two weeks ago and it has taken that long to fix it. The transformer generates energy for pumping water out of the wells, hence the correlation of power AND water outages simultaneously. There has been power for all of two hours per day, which means primarily that we have to read, and converse, and eat, and “wash up” using candles. Now I use the term ‘wash-up’ as opposed to “shower” because instead of your usual running water refreshingly splashing down your head, followed by the shampoo, conditioner, soap, and shaving cream process, we have had to get used to a bucket ‘half full ;)’ of water and a quick splash with soap on the 6 essential body points for cleansing. My vanilla body splash is almost gone. We do hope to get power by Monday but this experience has in a way not eliminated but certainly diminished the distance between this beautiful school and the many villages just outside the gates. The villagers there live on a candle per week and gutter water. What’s even more inimitable and almost makes me appreciate this occurrence is that it has served as a constant reminder that although these children are clean cut and well fed here; they do come from a life of candlelight and dirty water.

Finally, a discomfort that is out of anyone’s hands is CLIMATE! Remember how I talked about the perfect 75-degree weather? Yeah, well that has changed. The days are more like 95 degrees and the nights about 90. In combination with the ‘no power’ situation, the lack of fan ventilation in the room at night has made it difficult to sleep soundly. I think that the vegetables, lentil juice and rice diet along with the gallons of sweat perspired through out the day will both take part in the unplanned elimination of a few college pounds, which I cannot argue against :). Supposedly by mid-September it should get chilly which I’m looking forward to. It’s amazing how heat has such a significant effect on the children. Their attention spans shorten by HOURS and well I’ll be honest and say mine does too. I have been told by a few, that by 3 pm my eyes are glazed over and I have this distracted frown as if I just saw something very disturbing or unnatural…I am tired but to me that just means that my time and energy are being put to great use. I have grown a much stronger appreciation for all my past teachers. This is not easy work but regardless it is very rewarding when you see a child enjoying your class and applying what they learn; and what is even better knowing that they appreciate it and do not take it for granted.