It's dark out. Kids are arriving slowly to school in clumps, bundled against the cold to the point that they can't even see. We can't turn the lights on in the school because they are saving energy (and yet the heat is on so high that I am sweating inside my coat). People look like shadows.
I am holding a shaking, dirty, hungry, terrified gray kitten in my hands. He threw himself toward me in the road on the way to school, crying loudly chest-deep in a puddle and climbing up my leg to escape an oncoming dog. I carried him two blocks to school and couldn't explain in Spanish why I needed to bring a kitten inside. He is meowing insistently.
People care about cats here, but they have a different mentality. A lost kitten is an everyay occurance. Even one small enough to fit in my hand.
They all think I am crazy. Also I am covered in cat pee.
After fifteen minutes the kitten is finally sleepy, and purring in my hands. The Inspector of the school brings me a box and we leave him in a closet, alone...and I can hear him crying out during the day. At lunch I beg the women in the kitchen for a cup of lentils to feed the kitten with. He eats hungrily and then stumbles off into the recesses of the closet.
EXTREMELY HAPPY UPDATE
I went back to school and found the kitten in the closet, meowing in the window. We put him in a box, and I remembered that I had found the only veterinary clinic in town the other day on a walk. I walked the ten blocks with the little kitten, excited that he hadn't been stolen. I looked down at him and it came to me.
"Your name is Moses." I found him in the puddle, alone and scared, about to be eaten by a dog...and now he has another chance. I left him with the veternarian, who had a puppy and three kittens already. Moses ran around demanding food because he was starving after his ordeal. They gave me the number for the clinic and told me it was ok to leave him there.
"He was very lucky..." said the man at the clinic.
I am finding that despite all the changes I have gone through to become an adult and how much my world view has changed over the years, some core aspects of myself remain the same. I was always the kid who cried about her balloon that flew away or wept over a lost rock. Helping a kitten is not an option for me. I had to do it.
To be able to actually accomplish something that seemed impossible this morning feels absolutely amazing. So happy I was persistent and swam against the tide!!
20 April 2011
19 April 2011
Nos Estamos Haciendo Una Pélicula...Oppure Ci Stiamo Facendo Un Film
I may be having the first in a series of existential crises brought on by the realization that reality is realative. Oofa, that was a lot of words containing "real" in one sentence...and yet that seems to fit. Here is my quandry:
Is reality perception or does some objective narrative exist? My narrative may say one thing, but I could be imagining things or making up a movie in my head (to borrow the phrases in castellano and italiano) of some series of events that didn't necessarily happen for anyone else. For example, my students may be deciding that I am a certain type of person based on how I act in class...but that is only part of me. Or my friends who have never seen me teach might know me another way, but be missing that critical part of the reality of my personality. And even if I've been present for all the events and all parts of my life...is my perspective reality?
Can we ever know for certain that a series of events happened the way we think that it did? Or can we only guesstimate based on a triangulation from sharing our stories with other witnesses and confirming of denying the specifics?
I have a feeling that philosophers have struggled with this odd and confusing question for a long time, and that none of them have likely found answers that satisfy them. I need bed more than I need to think at the moment. It will have to play out in dreams. A whole separate "reality" of their own.
Is reality perception or does some objective narrative exist? My narrative may say one thing, but I could be imagining things or making up a movie in my head (to borrow the phrases in castellano and italiano) of some series of events that didn't necessarily happen for anyone else. For example, my students may be deciding that I am a certain type of person based on how I act in class...but that is only part of me. Or my friends who have never seen me teach might know me another way, but be missing that critical part of the reality of my personality. And even if I've been present for all the events and all parts of my life...is my perspective reality?
Can we ever know for certain that a series of events happened the way we think that it did? Or can we only guesstimate based on a triangulation from sharing our stories with other witnesses and confirming of denying the specifics?
I have a feeling that philosophers have struggled with this odd and confusing question for a long time, and that none of them have likely found answers that satisfy them. I need bed more than I need to think at the moment. It will have to play out in dreams. A whole separate "reality" of their own.
17 April 2011
Back to the Big City
The weekend was amazing. Incredible company. Beautiful scenery. Handmade bread. Candlelit conversation for hours on end. Wood chopping. Starlight. Moonlight. An incredible amount of poo of from a wide range of species. Cold mornings and a hot shower. The immense quiet of the campo.
I want to live in Villa Renovald. It is a village of fewer than 15 houses about an hour from Puerto Natales. Everything feels so modern and loud and city-like now that I've returned...which is strange since Natales has fewer than 15,000 people who live in it. It might as well have a million inhabitants for how loud it now feels to me.
I used to think I wanted to live in a big city for a few years, but now I realize that I am not a city girl. I want to say Hi to my neighbors every day. I want to know I am safe walking alone. I want to be able to escape to the countryside without having it be a huge process to do so. I want to work hard with my hands and not have a machine for every little thing. Something about manual labor is calming to body, mind and spirit. Achievable tasks that require effort are so satifying.
I have this great sense of satisfaction from this weekend...like this is exactly how life is meant to be. I miss it already.
I want to live in Villa Renovald. It is a village of fewer than 15 houses about an hour from Puerto Natales. Everything feels so modern and loud and city-like now that I've returned...which is strange since Natales has fewer than 15,000 people who live in it. It might as well have a million inhabitants for how loud it now feels to me.
I used to think I wanted to live in a big city for a few years, but now I realize that I am not a city girl. I want to say Hi to my neighbors every day. I want to know I am safe walking alone. I want to be able to escape to the countryside without having it be a huge process to do so. I want to work hard with my hands and not have a machine for every little thing. Something about manual labor is calming to body, mind and spirit. Achievable tasks that require effort are so satifying.
I have this great sense of satisfaction from this weekend...like this is exactly how life is meant to be. I miss it already.
15 April 2011
The World is Pretty Cool Sometimes
For the information of those who may be in Turkey...this blog was apparently deemed unsuitable for comsumption by people within Turkish borders. Apparently I talk too much about life in a tiny town half the world away for thekr liking. Or swear too much. Or something.
First censorship ever! Great success!
"Tia, do you know the national anthem of thhe United States? Here's Chile's..."
My sixth graders launch into a rendition of the national anthem at once, complete with drumroll effects on the desks and standing on chairs. Every one of them knows the words by heart and sings with pride, even the ones who have learning disabilites and the ones with bad attitudes.
It appears to be a clever diversion to distract me from the lesson about healthy and unhealthy foods. It partly is. But I am amazed at how united they are, how proud.
They ask me to to sing my own national anthem (and by "ask" I mean "demand repeatedly").
I start it too high. Start again.
Oh, say can you see?
By the dawn's early light
For once, their attention is intensely focused on me alone. No cell pones, no pencils being sharpened to an unholy degree, no standing up and running around the classroom.
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight's last gleaming
Matías' eyes are glowing. "Oh yeah!! I've heard this before!"
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
Even Vahitea (I had to gently throw a marker at to get her attention ten minutes ago) has put away her hand mirror and is staring.
O'er the ramparts we watched
Were so galantly streaming
And the rockets red glare
Benjamin is giggling at my voice's strain to reach the note and gesticulating wildly like a conductor.
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there
Nearly lost it right here. Struggling to swallow a slight partiotic bubble in my throat so I can sing.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave?
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Cheers from the students. A brief attempt to explain why we have the song, and why our flag is really important to us.
I've spent a lot of time effacing my American-ness this trip, and in my general life. I often try to be as culturally and liguistically neutral as possible, and more than thrice since leaving the States I've been told that I don't look or act like an American. I normally take it as a compliment. But something about singing our national anthem 6,000 miles away from my homeland pulled forth a sense of American identity that I have not felt in a long time.
I could picture the flag waving in the breeze.
At the same time, the rendition of the Chilean anthem that my students gave was stirring. I realized that my country is pretty damn cool, and so is theirs. The impromptu appearance of patriotism on both sides makes me realize how cool the world is, and how wonderful it is that we all can come from different backgrounds and still end up in the same 10x20 ft classroom talking about foods.
The world is pretty cool sometimes.
First censorship ever! Great success!
"Tia, do you know the national anthem of thhe United States? Here's Chile's..."
My sixth graders launch into a rendition of the national anthem at once, complete with drumroll effects on the desks and standing on chairs. Every one of them knows the words by heart and sings with pride, even the ones who have learning disabilites and the ones with bad attitudes.
It appears to be a clever diversion to distract me from the lesson about healthy and unhealthy foods. It partly is. But I am amazed at how united they are, how proud.
They ask me to to sing my own national anthem (and by "ask" I mean "demand repeatedly").
I start it too high. Start again.
Oh, say can you see?
By the dawn's early light
For once, their attention is intensely focused on me alone. No cell pones, no pencils being sharpened to an unholy degree, no standing up and running around the classroom.
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight's last gleaming
Matías' eyes are glowing. "Oh yeah!! I've heard this before!"
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
Even Vahitea (I had to gently throw a marker at to get her attention ten minutes ago) has put away her hand mirror and is staring.
O'er the ramparts we watched
Were so galantly streaming
And the rockets red glare
Benjamin is giggling at my voice's strain to reach the note and gesticulating wildly like a conductor.
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there
Nearly lost it right here. Struggling to swallow a slight partiotic bubble in my throat so I can sing.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave?
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Cheers from the students. A brief attempt to explain why we have the song, and why our flag is really important to us.
I've spent a lot of time effacing my American-ness this trip, and in my general life. I often try to be as culturally and liguistically neutral as possible, and more than thrice since leaving the States I've been told that I don't look or act like an American. I normally take it as a compliment. But something about singing our national anthem 6,000 miles away from my homeland pulled forth a sense of American identity that I have not felt in a long time.
I could picture the flag waving in the breeze.
At the same time, the rendition of the Chilean anthem that my students gave was stirring. I realized that my country is pretty damn cool, and so is theirs. The impromptu appearance of patriotism on both sides makes me realize how cool the world is, and how wonderful it is that we all can come from different backgrounds and still end up in the same 10x20 ft classroom talking about foods.
The world is pretty cool sometimes.
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