Is the moral of the story here in Chile that everything is just in constant flux?
Much of today was not very good. Classes were tough and I was totally thrown off by a mean old bastard who threw rocks at and tried to stomp to death a kitten I had been playing with. There is a limit to which I can give cultural leeway, and trying to murder an innocent is one. I yelled at him. He grunted at me. I have to walk past his house every day on the way to school.
Bring it, old man. Next time you try to stomp a kitten to death in front of me, a fat rock is going through your kitchen window. Fair warning.
Maybe it was because I felt the need to rid myself of the bad juju that had been following me around since Saturday night that I washed and washed and washed tonight. Almost all the dishes. Didn't really bother me, especially since the warm water felt good on my hands. Gave me time to think.
Eventually my host mom said, "For the love of God, Coleen! That's enough washing! Go rest!" Seems like a complete turnaround from yesterday, right? That would be because it is. I'm beginning to let go of my need to understand and just abide in the contradictions of daily life here. Maybe I am leanring to be zen?
I feel a lot better. And the clothes I washed in the shower last night are nearly dry. Tomorrow is another day.
11 April 2011
10 April 2011
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).
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).
05 April 2011
Déjà Vu Meets Codeswitching
There is always a moment when traveling where the real begins to blend with the surreal seamlessly. It could be that I've been reading too much Allende and that her magical realism is manifesting in my daily life, or it could be that the truly remarkable is beginning to happen here in Chile.
I have been having spells of Déjà Vu like never before in my life. Under normal circumstances these moments last anywhere from one to thirty seconds. Here in Patagonia, I've been cast adrift for hours at a time. Literally. The other night we had a dinner for the retirement of the school's former director and I was floating through the senstation of having always been here for over two hours.
Déjà Vu should be a bit of a rarity, yes? This is weird.
Last night we met a Japanese man who is working with the people who fish for and process sea urchins for export here in Puerto Natales. He bizzarely speaks perfect Peruvian Spanish, and pretty good English too. We sat around eating fresh, raw sea urchins and drinking mochilatas (beers with lemon juice and salt) having a conversation in three languages (my roommate speaks Japanese, too).
About halfway through, I mentioned that I might eventaully go for a PhD in Linguistics. He called a friend of his in Tokyo right that very second to introduce us, since she is doing exactly that. It was a sudden and mildly awkward networking moment, and at that point the triple-sided conversation picked up e pace to breakneck codeswitching (sometimes switching from English to Japanese or Spanish mid-sentence and then back again). It all devolved into language mush again.
And in that moment, the Déjà Vu showed up again. Making for multiple times in a day all weekend.
I wonder what it all means.
I have been having spells of Déjà Vu like never before in my life. Under normal circumstances these moments last anywhere from one to thirty seconds. Here in Patagonia, I've been cast adrift for hours at a time. Literally. The other night we had a dinner for the retirement of the school's former director and I was floating through the senstation of having always been here for over two hours.
Déjà Vu should be a bit of a rarity, yes? This is weird.
Last night we met a Japanese man who is working with the people who fish for and process sea urchins for export here in Puerto Natales. He bizzarely speaks perfect Peruvian Spanish, and pretty good English too. We sat around eating fresh, raw sea urchins and drinking mochilatas (beers with lemon juice and salt) having a conversation in three languages (my roommate speaks Japanese, too).
About halfway through, I mentioned that I might eventaully go for a PhD in Linguistics. He called a friend of his in Tokyo right that very second to introduce us, since she is doing exactly that. It was a sudden and mildly awkward networking moment, and at that point the triple-sided conversation picked up e pace to breakneck codeswitching (sometimes switching from English to Japanese or Spanish mid-sentence and then back again). It all devolved into language mush again.
And in that moment, the Déjà Vu showed up again. Making for multiple times in a day all weekend.
I wonder what it all means.
01 April 2011
Harden by Softening
Walking to school this morning, I realized that the mud in the unpaved street of Puerto Natales is the exact same color as my coffee. Or rather that my coffee is the same color as the mud in the streets. Delicious, delicious mud coffee.
Every day in Puerto Natales, I walk down to the shore and along the waterfront. Every day is different, with a constantly changing view and shifting clouds above. One second there is strong sunlight...the next the wind picks up and blasts against my jacket. In the last few days, the mountains around town have pulled up their blankets of snow for the winter. The mountains are snow-capped now, and I am just waiting for a clear day to allow me a glimpse of them in their full splendor.
It is starting to be cold, but I am happy. This weather makes me feel at home, and it feels good to live in a place that toughens a person while softening them. What do I mean by that?
The weather, certain aspects of school, some experiences with people in town, and the landscape here in Patagonia are slowly polishing and scrubbing me until I am stronger. At the same time, most people are so friendly, my students are the sweetest, and the warmth of wood fires serve to soft my heart and warm it up. Stronger and weaker...toughen and softer simultaneously.
Every day in Puerto Natales, I walk down to the shore and along the waterfront. Every day is different, with a constantly changing view and shifting clouds above. One second there is strong sunlight...the next the wind picks up and blasts against my jacket. In the last few days, the mountains around town have pulled up their blankets of snow for the winter. The mountains are snow-capped now, and I am just waiting for a clear day to allow me a glimpse of them in their full splendor.
It is starting to be cold, but I am happy. This weather makes me feel at home, and it feels good to live in a place that toughens a person while softening them. What do I mean by that?
The weather, certain aspects of school, some experiences with people in town, and the landscape here in Patagonia are slowly polishing and scrubbing me until I am stronger. At the same time, most people are so friendly, my students are the sweetest, and the warmth of wood fires serve to soft my heart and warm it up. Stronger and weaker...toughen and softer simultaneously.
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