Fuck this Week. I'm Buying Boots

All right, you all out there know that I am not normally a Debbie Downer. I am trying to capture the experience here as it truly is, and convey some part of it to you. This is, of course, yet another impossible task I have given myself. Whatever. 

I returned to school to find give a small test (with no grade) to my students in seventh grade. After six weeks on this unit of pure struggle, of writing on the board and insisting that they take notes, of repeating myself over and over and over...nothing. Even the best students in the class couldn't do the test. Every last one would have failed. 

So the English absorption level of my students is at about 20%. At best. At worst, they know absolutely nothing from the unit. Apparently my expectations need to slip another ten notches lower. 

But wait! There's more!

A student of mine, who I know is smart and understands English more than he lets on, has been causing problems in my class for a few weeks now (since the seventh and eighth graders collectively lost their hormonal minds over crushes). I asked him six times today to take his seat. He openly refused to even put his name on my test. He distracted other students. 

And then, the seventh time I told him to sit down...he reached out and hit one of the other students, one who has special needs and developmental problems. It made a huge noise and it was obvious that he had hit him hard. 

"All right, that's it. Get out! A fuera!" I told him. "Go to the office and tell them what you've done. I do not accept that kind of behavior in my class." The other students clapped.

They suspended him. 

The whole class turned on me in an instant. They called me evil. They told me that it was my fault that he got suspended. They swore at me and stole from me. They didn't do their work. 

Let's take a moment to remember that I actually paid to be here. I receive a small stipend from the United Nations Development Program (the check I cashed today actually had the UN logo on it!), but it is equivalent to about $8 a day. Minimum wage in Chile is 34,000 pesos a day (about $7.50 an hour, same as Colorado). Damn, my stipend sucks. I pay the difference in blood, sweat, and tears. 

The money isn't the issue, really. I wanted to help people, and teach, and make a difference. Change things. Be part of something bigger than myself. But what I am realizing is that one cannot help people who don't want the help...and no one wants to admit that they need help, and one cannot teach people to recieve help graciously. No one wants to admit that they could do better. 

The change has to come from within. Because my students and hosts and the town and Chile are not ready to change from within, everything that I do is moot. I cannot change the tide alone, and I apparently cannot convince even my best students that studying is important. And I wonder if it is only here in this school or this community, or if my life's mission to help people in whatever way I can in many places around the world is pointless. Impossible. 

In some cases like that of José who got suspended today, maybe things would have been better if I had never come here. In any case it seems on the whole that there would have been no difference if I had not, and I could have saved a bunch of people the inconvenience of having to fulfill a contract or host a foreigner or learn a simple phrase in English. My students can't even answer "How are you?" after nearly three months. I don't know what more I can do. 

So, what do you do when there is nothing more to do? When you have nothing more to give? When what you thought was the point of your life has been erroded by three months of floundering and you wonder what the point of trying is?

You tell the existential crisis bearing down on you to go fuck itself, and you spend the UN's money on some new boots and a coffee. Because sometimes you have to stop thinking for awhile and take care of yourself before you lose it completely. Tomorrow is a new day, and you have to face the crisis first thing in the morning. A little break never hurt anyone.

Halfway Through the Marathon

I'm going to kiss the dishwasher in my parents' kitchen when I get home. And the laundry machines. And the stove, and the pots and pans, and the bathtub, and my laptop. I'm going to go to the Boulder Farmer's Market and cry like a baby. I'm going to look at how our house doesn't have a lean to it and how all of our streets are paved and how ridiculously clear the picture is on our HDTV and wonder how I ever got along with something different. I am going to step inside a state-of-the-art hospital and feel uncomfortable that everything is so clean. 

In talking with a dear friend yesterday, I was reminded that all of this struggle and pain and frustration and disorganization and confusion all adding up to a big fat sense of futility is temporary. For me. It sounds like I'm homesick because I am, but it also alludes to a greater issue.

I feel guilty that this is temporary for me. Because it isn't for the people who live here.

All the things that were supposed to be one way and actually are totally different. All the systemic confusion and lack of responsibility on so many levels locally and nationally. All the corruption that seems to happen with deals like the recent HidroAysén fiasco here in Chile (if you don't know what I am referring to, check out this article http://matadornetwork.com/change/11-disgusting-facts-about-a-massive-dam-project-just-approved-in-chile/). All the struggle to change and develop and become a world player. All the unequal distribution of resources and opportunity.

I can and will leave at some point and go back to my cushy life in the States. Honestly, I have the resources to leave tomorrow morning if I wanted to. I could be sitting on my couch on the back porch in late spring with a pool to swim in within three days, instead of struggling yet again with my eighth graders on Friday, wondering why I am here if they don't want to learn and not one of the teachers in the school can control them. They know I am frustrated. The 8th graders keep telling me that I have no patience and the seventh graders ask me why I am not ashamed of my Spanish. 

I am beginning to hit some kind of a limit within me, which appears to be manifesting as anxious butterflies and a sincere desire to just leave the classroom and walk out of the school forever. My "boss" teacher didn't show up to school today, meaning that I had to throw everyone off by insisting that they fulfill the terms of their contract with the program and not force me to take a full class. People act like my presence is more of an inconvenience than anything else, whether it is in the school or at home or in Chile in general. I try so godamn hard every day to make everyone else's life easier and to give my time and work and sweat and money to help Chile, and some of it feels unappreciated on days like today.

I want to hope that this is just yet another "wall" like the ones that long-distance runners experience and that I just have to push through it...because make no mistake, my time in Chile is a marathon that is not getting any easier. Maybe this is just the feeling of the uphill section beginning after the first thirteen miles. 

But I don't want to leave. Not yet. Because I want to prove to myself that I can stick it out, that I am tough enough and flexible enough to stay even when I could easily cop out. Besides, only 34 days of teaching remain. Less than a third of the time I have left here in South America. The rest will be split between English Camps and traveling. 

At the very least, this time in my life gave me the perspective to truly appreciate the life I have lived up to this point...my education especially. And I now speak passable Chilean Spanish. And I have a lot of really beautiful photos. Maybe those three things are the whole point. Or maybe there isn't one. 

At this point it doesn't seem to matter too much. I'm halfway through the marathon. Only thirteen more miles (uphill) to go. 

It's Enough

Teaching. It's what I came here to do, right? Right?

Yes. I still feel called to be here, still called to be here for these kids. I still feel alone in my planning and like I am flying by the seat of my pants to learn as I go how to teach. Sometimes (yeah, let's be honest...every single day) I need to take a long walk with my ipod and go fast enough that the frustration finally cedes to my endorphins and the Patagonian wind, drifting off to return the following morning.

I have a reputation as a hard-ass amongst my students because I ask them to stay in their seats, not use cell phones, not hit each other, and copy a few lines every day in English. My new rule this week is that I am going to count how many times I have to say a simple instruction (for example, "Sit down"). If I have to say it more than ten times without a result, the class loses its sticker for the day...meaning that the may lose the inter-class sticker competition.

In a perfect world, this would be relatively easy and my students might be able to learn more.

In the real world, it takes forty minutes to write down five sentences. My students grab me by the hands and clothes to get my attention and run around the classroom throwing paper at each other. The girls take all of the ink from their pens and smear it all over themselves and their companions. My eighth graders hurl insults at me almost as hard as they hurl their chairs against the ground.

Not to sound melodramatic, but I often feel like I've been fighting in the trenches all day when I get out of school.

But each day is a new day. Occasionally my students surprise me and make it all worth it. One of my first graders today revealed that she can write as well or better than some of the fifth graders.

I'm not even concerned with breaking even anymore. I just want a little sprinkling of good surprises and minor victories to season the greater confusion, frustration, and lack of progress. It's enough.

Work work work work work wo...

I am slightly worried that the frustration I've felt over the last week might come out in this blog entry, but the hell with it. Reality is relative, and mine at the moment is one in which frustration is beginning to approach critical mass. 

I came to Chile to work. Let's get that clear. I had no illusions that I would be coasting during my time even if I was only teaching 25 hours  of class with another ten of planning outside it. I knew I would be learning a new language through immersion, which was one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life when I lived in Italy. I knew that teaching with no previous experience in pedagogy would be a challenge. 

I had no idea how hard I would be expected to work here, nor how hard I would have to push myself. 

At times it feels like there simply are not enough hours in the day to get everything done (or hours in the night to get some rest). I typically get up at about 7AM, quickly dress, and run downstairs to eat breakfast with minutes to spare. Coffee is a no longer an option. If I run out of time, I add some cold tap water to the mug and stand over the kitchen sink to chug it. 

Then I teach from 8AM to 2:15 or later, with only the fifteen-minute breaks between classes. I am expected to keep up with 27 contact hours and 5 planning/extra-cirricular hours, not counting the hour or more of planning required every night. More than that, the teachers I work with expect me to plan and execute my lessons independently. I am less of a volunteer and more of an unpaid actual teacher...with more hours in class than they typically have. 

I am also expected to be able to handle children with special needs on my own, despite my utter lack of experience in this and with lttle to no support from the school. I have a few students who have FAS, a couple with other developmental problems, some with some form of autism, and others who cannot yet read or write due to an unaddressed learning disorder. 

That would already be a lot to manage, but then comes my other work. Because our house is actually a pension, the work is never-ending. I joke that I am doing an apprenticeship in hospitality during my time here, but it's not really a joke. 

I wash dishes and help dry and put them away for about an hour after dinner at least five times a week...not to mention the dishes from the other three meals of the day. I often end up setting and clearing the tables for every meal but breakfast. I put out laundry to dry and iron as much as I can on weekends. I help serve dinner and lunch to our guests. 

I am not alone in all of this, since there are always several of us helping...but I am not being paid to work in the hostel. I wouldn't mind earning my keep, but I actually paid the program to house me here. We have two nanas here (cross between cook, cleaning lady, and laundress), plus my host mom and sister, plus the other volunteer who is my roommate...yet we still end up working. 

Today I hit my boundary of how much I am willing to work in the house. Some friends from the program came up to Natales to go to Torres del Paine and hang out for the weekend. I asked on Monday if it would be ok for them to stay here, and the answer was yes. By Friday, that answer had changed to "we'll see" and I was fully expecting to sleep on the floor of my bedroom under blankets nicked from the storeroom. 

Long story short, we had space. I served tea and dinner to the guests and we all tried our hardest to help with dishes and cleaning after all meals. We had an amazing time in the park on Saturday. 

Today my friends went home. At once, I thanked my host mother for allowing them to stay here. "I know it's not easy to have extra people in the house, so thank you thank you thank you." She made a scoffing sound. "Now we have to make up their room and change the sheets, and I have no nana today." She looked at me expectantly. Damnit, I thought. "I could do that..." I began. 

"Don't forget to run the vacum cleaner," she interupted. And back to her tea in silence. No mention of how to clean or where to get products or sheets or the damn vacum. 

So I cleaned the room, changed the sheets, ran the vacum, took out the trash, and washed the bathroom. I rolled up new towels and arranged them on the beds. When I came downstairs with the sheets from the beds, she didn't thank me. "Just leave them over there, nothing more," she said, gesturing to the laundry basket. And back to cooking in silence. 

I don't want to seem ungrateful, but really? Nowhere in the contract that I signed does it say that I am required to work as a nana. I help with the dishes and cleaning out of the goodness of my heart, and also selfishly because I want to keep tension to a minimum. I wouldn't have done the room at all if I hadn't been trying to clear the air after this weekend. 

I certainly don't think that I am somehow above cleaning or washing or working with my hands (because I actually enjoy manual labor sometimes...it's very calming), but I can't help but feeling like I am again being cajoled into taking some of the work from those who are actually paid to do these things. Like they are passing it off on me and expecting me to work unpaid just because I am here, whether I'm in school or at home. 

I think a lot about my ancestors these days, who worked so hard teaching or cleaning or farming. I don't want to stop working as hard as I am because I want to work hard, and I want to do all I can to squeeze every last drop of experience out of these months...but I also will not work as an unpaid nana. 

Next weekend I'm leaving town and it will just have to work somehow. You aren't paying me. Not my problem (until I get back and you are pissed at me).