Erin Abroad

Parado

2012-02-09T03:04:00.003+09:00

Visiting my old students in Mozambique during this last holiday season really opened my eyes more than ever to the wonderful opportunities I have had because I was born in the United States. My students are entering 12th grade this year and they are already thinking of what they will be able to do once they graduate from school. They all have dreams of becoming doctors, nurses, engineers or activists, but the question that constantly lingers in their minds is whether they and their families will be able to afford to go to university or a technical school. Some people say that this is the problem everywhere. But it is much worse and a much more complicated problem in Mozambique, where there are few jobs for high school graduates, few scholarships properly distributed and no such thing as a student loan.

Although many students have difficult stories and circumstances, one student really has my attention. Fabião is currently 20 years old and just graduated from high school in Monapo, the town in Nampula where I was a Peace Corps volunteer from 2008-2009. My roommate was his teacher but I grew close to him as he would come over to practice using my computer. The oldest of six siblings, Fabião is soft-spoken and always has a quick smile. I don’t think he has a mean bone in his body. He and his family are humble and kind.

In the two years after I left Monapo, his older brother passed away and as the next oldest son, he began working to help support his large family. During the 12th grade, he switched courses so that he could study at night. Studying at night in Mozambique isn’t always easy, because often, the level of instruction falls because teachers and students often don’t show up for classes. While going to school at night, he began working at a banana farm some 20 km away from Monapo during the day. Every morning, he woke up at 3:30 and got on a company truck to go collect bananas in the hot sun for 11-12 hours. He returned home at around 4 or 5 pm to bathe and have a short rest before going to school from 6:30 until 11:00 pm. After school, he would return home to get a little sleep before having to wake up early again to repeat the same process the next day.

He has graduated now, despite the struggle that stood in his way for getting his high school education, but like most others in town, he does not have the money or the opportunities to go to school. So he continues to work at the banana farm, collecting bananas every day and hoping to save enough money to one day be able to go to school in the city to study English. If he were to go to school, he would also leave Monapo, leaving his family without the income from his job on the banana farm.

Fabião is kind and intelligent and I have been thinking about him a lot. He deserves better opportunities than what he has in front of him, as do so many of our old students who have graduated from Monapo but now remain “parado” - stopped. He and the others students are why I want to go into development and education as a career. Time and time again, visiting with old students, the frustration of limited opportunities and resources was evident. Only a select few with money and connections are able to study when there is so much intelligence, creativity and potential in these young people.

Matando Saudades in Moz

2012-01-12T01:17:00.015+09:00

In Portuguese, to say that you miss or have a deep longing for something, you say "tenho saudades." Saudades is one of those foreign words that doesn't quite translate perfectly to English. Here are pictures of my trip to Mozambique from December 19th to January 7th, where I had a chance to "matar saudades" - kill my longings for Mozambique. Sounds dramatic, right? I visited Maputo City and Namaacha (along the Swaziland border) in the south and Nacala, Ilha and Monapo in the north. I had a wonderful time visiting old friends and students. I apologize in advance for these photos not being in any specific order.

The art market in Maputo. You can find some really great stuff here but bring your A-game in negotiating. The vendors used to be on the streets but the city moved them to this really nice park.

This woman made really cool dolls out of capulana material. I couldn't help but buy one.

Maputo city

Me, hanging out with me and my roommate's former students in Monapo

Me with Fabiao, possibly one of the kindest and soft-spoken people on the face of the earth

The sewing master at the back of the market in Monapo. He made me two dresses and a skirt during my stay in Monapo. He used to make clothes for the first volunteers in Monapo and still has old fashion magazines they gave him.

Some of the dress examples he has on the wall. He said that he has made every kind in the pictures.

The Monapo market during a busy time.

Chamussa, a dog left by Megan, the last health volunteer in Monapo, watching everyone play basketball in the local gym. I met him once and as I walked up to the house of the new volunteers in Monapo, he came sprinting up to me to be petted. He is much calmer than Timba ever was.

Playing basketball with kids in Monapo and the new volunteers, Leah and Ariel.

The fortaleza on Ilha de Mocambique. This used to be the capital of the country and was led by the Portuguese. This is also a point for the shipment of slaves from Mozambique to foreign countries.

Walking around the fortaleza. It is an eery and empty fort, full of history.

The view of the beach next to the fort.

Me at the fortaleza on Ilha de Mocambique.

These little girls assumed that I didn't understand any Macua. Au contraire, little girls. I understand you when you call me an ugly white person. I turned around and said "n'sheni?" - "what did you say?" I never got so much joy out of a shocked and ashamed expression on someone's face before.

Castro with Ismael. Ismael was one of my best students in Monapo. He hated when he earned a score any less than perfection. He can converse really well in English and I think that if given the right opportunities, he will have a very bright future. He is full of opinions and never afraid to give them.

Fermino, one of my roommate's really sweet students, grilling the chicken.

Me, sitting and chatting with Ismael and Líle.

Castro, Assane and Fermino as we hung out in Monapo, making dinner one night.

One of my best students, Raimundo, and his cousin in Nacala. He is incredibly intelligent and hopes to study science in Nampula after graduation.

A Nacala sunset.

Some of the best and cheapest food in Mozambique is bar food. This plate of fish with rice and a potato sauce only cost about $3! Nothing tastes better after a long day of walking around in the sun and the heat.

A child taking a break at the Monapo chapa stop to fix his toy car. Kids in Mozambique are incredibly creative in making toys for themselves.

Timba is alive! He's alive! And he's bigger and more muscular and probably would have ripped my hand off if I had stuck my hand there. He didn't remember me but that's okay because he is thriving at the house of Monapo's priests, except for the fact that he has penchant for biting priests rather than thieves. He has now bitten two different priests because they were bothering him.

Women carrying water in Monapo.

Assane, my roommate's former student, working as a volunteer at Monapo's local radio station.

A giant form of mancala being played in the market while vendors wait for customers.

Beautiful nampula. Rock formations that look like they have just dropped from the sky.

Me with Eulalia, one of my students during my time in Monapo in 2007-2009. She is now 17 years old and she is going to be entering 12th grade later this month. She wants to work in the health field after she graduates.

Ugh, hello chapa (the main, sardines-in-a-can, form of transportation in Mozambique). We meet again.

The beautiful new international terminal at the Maputo airport. The Chinese are helping renovate the entire airport and are currently working on the domestic terminal.

The outside of a chapa waiting to fill before it can leave.

Me and my host family. Since I stayed with them four years ago, they have had 5 more Peace Corps volunteers come to stay with them and my host father is a chefe with Peace Corps in Namaacha in helping coordinate the housing of trainees.

I ate a meal at three different houses on Christmas Day and the food was delicious. Preparation of food for special events is a loooong process.

Walking to see the infamous, beautiful mountains of Namaacha.

A funny woman who saw us walking past and wanted her picture taken with me.

Castro and I

Castro and the mountains. Waaaay out in the mountains behind him is the family's "machamba." A machamba is where people plant their vegetables and crops and it is often far away from the family home and requires a lot of work.

Visiting Dona Olimpia, the host mom of my Peace Corps friend, Angie.

Holding Becky, named after a Peace Corps volunteer, Castro's niece.

Castro picking lychees on his mother's kitchen roof, the most delicious fruit in the world.

I got to Namaacha at prime lychee time.

Making matapa - a large pilao for pounding the leaves.

Aninha making batatas fritas (french fries) over charcoal.

Celeste, my host mother's niece's foster daughter. It's a difficult family web to untangle sometimes. She is such a sweet and curious little girl.

Me and Aninha, one of my host sisters with a wonderful sense of humor. She is now 17 years old and will be studying 9th grade starting later this month. She wants to be a doctor one day. She is constantly singing and I told her that she will need to moonlight as a DJ as well once she becomes a doctor.

Me with Pedo, my young host brother and a neighbor and my other host sister with babies. Nelinha, on the left, is holding her niece, Jazy, and Atalia, my host sister, is holding my host mother's great niece, Joyce.

Maputo city, looking good.

End of the Year

2011-12-15T16:39:00.002+09:00

I have been horribly naughty with not updating this blog recently and I could inundate you with the million excuses, but whatever. It has been great here in Japan. I really feel like I have grown so comfortable here and I really enjoy working with my students. Especially in the junior high. The students are really funny and I am actually pretty impressed by their level of English. We have numerous conversations regarding Arnold Schwarzenegger, whether we would rather be beautiful and stupid or ugly and a genius, and what the ideal age is for getting married. One day I asked them who their heroes are and everyone mentioned someone on the island and when I asked why they are the student`s hero, they always either said the person is handsome or strong. I enjoy the conversation class because we can just chat and speak in a casual manner.

Tomorrow, the students in the high school and I are making christmas cookies. It was my favorite lesson last year and I doubt it will disappoint this year. I turn on Christmas music, put up some decorations and the whole home ec room smells of delicious chocolate chip cookies from a recipe my mom has always had in the cupboard. They really seem to enjoy the break from the monotony of their studies, even if they don't really celebrate Christmas.

In Japan, Christmas is more like Valentine`s Day with cake. It`s a day for boyfriends and girlfriends to go on dates and families will eat Christmas cake. Other than that, there is nothing religious about it. A lot of my students told me they get a couple of Christmas presents but the big holiday for kids in Japan is New Years because that is when family members give them lots of money. The older you are, the more money you receive, until you graduate from high school. A lot of my students say they don't receive an allowance so this is the money they use to buy things they want during the rest of the year. I suppose it`s good. It teaches them budgeting skills early on.

I know that I have grown quite attached to this little island because I think of how I am going to Mozambique for a few weeks on Sunday and I get sad thinking that I won`t see them for a few weeks. And I will have a whole lot of omiyage to bring back. Omiyage is gift-giving and it's huge in Japan. It is polite to always bring back some kind of edible treat or nick-nack for your colleageus at your job. I have no idea what I could bring them back from Mozambique that is edible and legal to bring into Japan. But I am up to the challenge. I wish you all a very merry Christmas or Hannukah or whatever holiday you celebrate and a Happy New Year!

Ball Juggling and Arachnophobia

2011-10-22T01:26:00.002+09:00

So I have been extremely MIA lately, but only because I have been juggling a lot of balls. I have a lot going on right now, which is a departure from before, when I could only focus on work. I have work, preparations for going to Mozambique in December (passport pages added + international driving permit = headache), and the grand kahuna - grad school applications. But I am doing everything piece by piece and I know that it will eventually get accomplished. I have this habit where when I want to procrastinate, I read the news. Maybe I am trying to kid myself and tell myself it doesn't feel like I am doing anything bad if I am informing myself on current events.

Hmmm, the latest news?

I killed the biggest spider I have ever seen this afternoon. I was returning from running errands after school when I saw a spider the size of my hand. My hand if I were doing jazz hands. Gigantic! And it was perched right above my door so I thought I could open and close the door fast enough to keep it outside. Au contraire. I was wrong. So it rushed inside and I gave chase. I feel like people who have severe paranoia about what's inside their shoes only live in countries with large insects. Before I ever put on my shoes, I shake them to make sure there aren't any spiders or centipedes in them. It's a valid concern as I now know two people who have been bitten by mukade centipedes in their shoes. (See below, probably the most informative video ever about mukades)

Anyhoosies, I eventually tracked the gigantic spider across my kitchen floor and vanquished it with my shoe. Super nasty. Kind of reminded me of the spider I killed in Moz that had babies inside it. It's a disturbing clean-up that often involves me looking away. I need to start considering living in places without spiders. Maybe antarctica.

I was going to go to the Yosakoi festival in Sasebo this weekend but the weather has turned out to be less than inviting, so I have decided to stay home. Nothing turns me off of a trip to the mainland like a rocking ferry and stomach. But Yosakoi is a dance festival that is held throughout Japan and is very entertaining to watch. Dance groups of up to 150 people parade through the streets, performing traditional and modern Japanese dances for crowds. They often wear costumes and have dramatic hair and make-up. Last year, it was pretty rad so I am disappointed that the weather isn't cooperating. Here is a video I found of a Yosakoi dance from 2009 (not from Sasebo, but from another part of Japan). The enthusiasm of the groups is very entertaining and I definitely recommend attending Yosakoi festivals.

Ken Burns' Prohibition

2011-09-30T13:48:00.002+09:00

I really wish I was in the U.S. on Sunday, just to watch this documentary on PBS. I have been watching interviews with Ken Burns on Rachel Maddow and the Daily Show about his new documentary called "Prohibition," that talks about...prohibition in America and it looks fascinating.

My Japanese Jillian Michaels

2011-09-30T13:19:00.002+09:00

It is finally getting colder here! I only sweat a little on the way to school but then I have to bundle up in a sweater when I am sitting at my desk at school. To some, this may seem like mundane news, but to those of us who have to deal with the extreme Japanese summer heat and humidity, it is a godsend. A fair part of my day is spent fielding "it`s hot, isn`t it?" or "it`s cold, isn`t it?" type comments.

I have been working with a student on her pronunciation of a text and then we recorded her reading the text when we felt like she was prepared. It is extremely difficult for the students here to understand the difference between "R" and "L." To them, those letters sound exactly the same. You could say "rock" and "lock" and they think you are saying "lock" every time. It`s because in Japanese, and also in many other languages, like Portuguese, there isn`t that hard "R" sound. Whenever I try to get the kids to make the R sound, I think they feel intimidated by how stupid they feel and kind of give up. It`s especially unfortunate when they think they are saying "I like to eat rice" and it sounds like "I like to eat lice." But this is definitely one of the things they struggle the most with.

The student I worked with never complained about having to give up part of her lunches to sit with me or about having to read the same text probably 200 times. What a trooper. And for only being 16 years old, I am very impressed with her level of English. Although I find that most of the students have a fair understanding of the English language, there are some real impressive ones mixed in every couple of years. She actually wants to study English in the future so I told her that I can sit and practice with her if she wants and she said yes and nodded. I hope she actually comes because I think that the best way for students to learn English won`t be with their books and studying grammar, but holding conversation with a native speaker.

I can`t believe October starts tomorrow! My second year in Ojika is already flying past. I still love this island. There is just something so peaceful about this place. I am still leading two adult English classes on Thursday nights. I am tired at the end of the day but I always enjoy working with the adults. They bring a whole different perspective to the table. We talk about the strangest things sometimes and it really spices up my teaching. We had an interesting conversation about plastic surgery last night. I asked an older lady if she would ever get plastic surgery and she automatically put her hands to her face and stretched her skin up and back and gave me the "ok" sign. I probably laugh more with these fun people than I do all week.

I was walking home from school on Monday when I saw the same woman getting on her moped to drive away on the main street. When she saw me, she got off her moped and went up to me and said "Erin, slim!" And pushed her cheeks in with her hands. I burst out laughing. I don't think she is even trying to be funny but she is. She cheers on my weight loss and has said the same thing several times to me now. I like to think of her as my own, personal, Japanese Jillian Michaels.

Out to the Ball Game

2011-09-15T10:16:00.003+09:00

So we won our softball game last night and it was quite the upset. The high school teachers played the middle school and elementary school teachers team (who brought in outside players). In the elementary and junior high, there are a lot of female teachers and not many of them are willing to play softball it seems. Or from what I can tell because few of them have played in last year's season and this season. The entire league is in good fun though. We all had to line up while some guy gave a speech and the trophies were set on the tables. The trophies are pure photo op material. No one actually gets to keep them. A picture is taken for the Ojika newspaper and then it is put back in its box and stowed on the office shelf at the public gym until the next round of games.

I played first. After one pitcher tried to pitch and failed, I tried and failed. I just can`t pitch slow pitch from men`s distance. It just isn`t going to work. So finally, on our third try, it turned out that the biology teacher was the best pitcher. The other team was beating us pretty bad but in the last inning, the bases were loaded and my fellow English teacher hit a homerun to win the game. It was quite an exciting ending to a night of unimpressive dropping of balls, walking batters and general awkwardness. Our teams aren`t super competitive from the schools but it`s when you start playing teams with t-shirts they had made, that`s when you get into the people who take it a little too seriously.

Right before we had to play, everyone was practicing throwing and warming up. The biology teacher told me to play catch and so I started to play catch with the gym teacher. I don`t think he was expecting me to have an arm so he wasn`t really prepared to catch my first ball. No, I don't throw like a girl, buddy. Softball is very much a man`s sport in Japan so they are a little surprised to have a woman on the island who knows how to play and did so for about 12 years. The men are fun to watch though. I watched the game before ours and it seemed like after every time the defense got three outs and came in to bat, half of the players reached for their cigarettes and lit one up. Must be really stressful out there.

In other news, I am going to be returning to nossa terra gloriosa in December. That`s right. Mozambique. I have been talking to a student through email and I am raring to go. I am extremely excited to see my students and how they have grown up. When I have talked to a couple of them on the phone, it`s startling to hear how deep their voices are. When I started teaching them, they were in 8th grade and when I get there, they will be finishing 11th and moving onto their final year of high school. I will see them before they all scatter to the wind in different directions and convince them to stop calling my parents in the middle of the night. Maybe give a mini-lesson on time zones.

Good Grief

2011-09-13T08:06:00.004+09:00

Wow, I really went AWOL. My apologies. Now that summer break is over, the students have been running around with the school sports festival. The sports festival isn`t actually about sports, just running and doing crazy games. The students in the high school and junior high are divided into three teams and they then battle it out for top honors. Each team has to plan a timed and choreographed dance, and they compete against each other in different categories throughout the day. Some of the students seem to take it very seriously, creating cheers and forcing team spirit with the reluctant junior high kids. When I was asked this week if we have sports day in America, they were surprised when I said no. I told them that if students don`t want to do something in America, they usually don`t have to. This was shocking. Here, there is definitely a "you say jump and I say how high" kind of mentality in schools. No questions asked.

Classes are going well. I find forcing conversation with the students to be the most enjoyable part of my job. They obviously never have to have conversations in English in their typical English classes so it obviously makes them extremely uncomfortable when I fix my sights on them. Their first reaction is "if I don`t look at her, she isn`t there." When they can no longer deny my existence, they look frantically around at their fellow students for a life raft. Then they look at the Japanese teacher, who puts her hands up and says "don`t look at me!" Finally, you start to see the cogs turning as they reconcile themselves to the fact that they will have to give a coherent response to "how was your summer vacation?" I feel like they really go through the stages of grief before they can answer my questions.

I have been exercising still in Ojika and the little older ladies at the grocery store ask me about it and pretend to jog in place. Nothing escapes people`s attention here, particularly at lunch. I have been eating raw vegetables at lunch for a long time now. I make my lunches because it`s cheaper than buying the bento lunches at school every day. Japanese people don't really eat raw vegetables and so when they hear a giant "CRUNCH!" and see me gnawing on a carrot, they always look shocked. "Erin-sensei, you can EAT that?!" I have found that cucumbers, carrots and green peppers are extremely crunchy and attract a lot of unwanted attention in the quiet teacher`s room. The last time I brought an entire apple to the elementary school to eat in front of the kids at lunch, they all looked at me like I was trying to milk a dog. The bento lunches in Japan are mostly composed of rice and then pieces of meat carefully separated into separate cupcake tins. There aren`t really any vegetables, except maybe a random tomato. Dessert is usually a slice of an apple or a strawberry. Every time I have eaten a bento lunch at school, I feel comatose for the rest of the afternoon. And as for making my own bento, it seems like a lot of effort for some meat and rice. Some bentos are put together nicely and look very beautiful (because there is a focus on not only preparation but presentation in Japan with food) but it`s just not feasible with time. I am not waking up at 5 am to make my lunch for an hour.

Softball league with the teachers starts tomorrow evening and goes for a month. What joy is mine. Everyone is intent on me pitching but can't seem to understand what kind of damage I could do if I hit someone while pitching and they aren't wearing any protective gear.

RIP iPod

2011-08-10T14:14:00.003+09:00

My, my, my. Someone`s been negligent about their blog again! Time to make amends.

On Monday, I was walking to school and got caught in a downpour. I had my umbrella and thought it would be enough but I was quickly overpowered by the wrath of the torrential downpour. I had to keep walking to school because I didn`t have another method of getting to school. My clothes were getting soaked and I was walking as fast as I could. A co-worker at the high school drove straight past me, completely ignoring my plight. Then, as I was near the high school, a mother who was going to drop off her student, splashed me with her car. Just when I thought the day couldn`t get any worse, I found that my iPod had been soaked in my bag and the screen looked like a shoddy lava lamp, with the water swishing around inside.

I didn`t open my mouth to speak to anyone all morning because I knew that I would have a level 5 meltdown if I did. So I talked to my sister online, watched some cute puppy youtube videos and was talked me down from my anger. I also ordered a new iPod nano from a very friendly Apple rep in Japan. Nagai, wherever you are, you are awesome. But people just never realize how much they depend on something and how great it is until it`s gone though. I use that iPod ALL the time. Especially when I work out (I have officially lost 41 lbs.!!! woohoo!!!). And that iPod has been with me through thick and thin - through Peace Corps and through my first year in Japan. Sweet sorrow at this parting. The iPod had battle scars and scratches from love and a memorable inscription on the back from my sister, who had given it to me as a present. "You owe me! Smooches, Kara" So until I receive the iPod today or tomorrow, I am stuck alone with my own thoughts and the cicadas during my walks, jogs and stair climbings on the island.

A Woman's Worth

2011-07-22T09:17:00.004+09:00

I can't express just how much Japanese women hate getting any form of a tan because of their fear of aging. A colleague explained to me that during high school and university, it's more accepted for a girl's skin to be exposed to the sun. However, once you are 22 or older, it`s time to go Edward Cullen and avoid sunlight. Whenever we have to be outside for school activities, it's kind of funny to see the female teachers. Every inch of their body is covered with clothing in the high temperatures and humidity. If they are wearing a t-shirt, the rest of their arms are covered with long fingerless sleeves. And even then, they wear gloves. They wear pants, rather than shorts and long-brimmed bucket hats.

When you ask a guy if he cares about his skin becoming tan, he says no. And he doesn`t. You will be hard pressed to find a guy frantically rubbing on SPF 50 and searching for his wide brimmed bucket hat on an overcast day. As in most countries, it is okay for the men to age normally but women are expected to try to not age because there is this idea that as soon as she ages, her value somehow diminishes. In my opinion, you can`t fight it. I don`t mean we should all run around, slathering Crisco on our skin and sitting in the sun, surrounded by shiny tin foil, but I do think that there should be more acceptance of aging for women. I can't help but wonder if the women ever miss the feel of the sun on their skin and the vitamin D.

I, however, got burned at the softball tournament on Tuesday at the high school. I got to play with the male teachers against the boys and they seemed to have no problem with it. I think I surprised a lot of my students when I played first base and was able to smack a few hits up the middle. I didn`t play with the girls because although they are amazing at tennis and badminton, they play softball like sissies. Softball is a man`s sport in Japan, so women usually sit on the sidelines and cheer. At the end of every trimester, there is a sports competition of some sort. In the summer, it`s softball. In the winter, it`s basketball. And in the spring, it`s volleyball and soccer. I was a fast-pitch softball pitcher in high school and the teachers know this. So of course they wanted me to pitch at the tournament. They seemed disappointed when I said no because the catcher wasn't wearing any protection and the students don't wear helmets when they bat. The last thing I wanted to do was give a student a concussion from a stray pitch or render the catcher incapable of producing children.

The Summer of Unidentified Flying Objects

2011-07-15T11:35:00.002+09:00

Life has been good lately. It has finally stopped raining. Apparently it was just a June thing. But now every day is sunny! The bad part is that my bicycle is still broken. There is a puncture in my tire and I`m going with a friend to the bicycle and motorbike shop today after school to ask them if they are able to repair it. I have been told that they are only capable of fixing cheap bicycles and since mine is a mountain bike, it may be more difficult. I hope that it`s just the tire that`s the problem because that seems like a very reparable problem. Another ALT (assistant language teacher) came to visit Ojika and his tire exploded on the road and when he went to the shop, they couldn`t fix it because they said his bicycle was too nice. So my fingers are crossed. Plus, I woke up at 5:00 this morning to wheel it to school and then go for a run on the high school field/dirt track. I just found it too embarassing to wheel a bike with such an obviously flat tire to school, like normal. I didn`t want to deal with any captain obvious comments of "you have a flat tire."

Exercise has been far more enjoyable with the beautiful weather. With a bicycle, I would be able to get out to the beaches easier. Also, since it isn`t raining anymore, I don@t have to worry about my umbrellas turning inside out in the gusts of wind. Now, I am still using the gym, going on walks/jogs, and doing random things. There is this beautiful park called Bandake that has a dam with a walkway around it. I stole the idea from someone else to walk or jog around the dam and it`s perfect. It`s beautiful and secluded, so I don`t feel self-conscious with all my sweating and gasping.

School is going well. The kids have their summer vacation starting next week and going until the end of August. In Japan, they get about five weeks of summer vacation, in comparison with the U.S.`s three months. I told my fifth grade students in the elementary school that Americans get three months of no school and they all gasped with envy. I really wanted to say "don`t worry, you`re ahead of us in most school subjects." I had read about how some schools in the states are cutting summer school, school hours, and the days of the week down to four to save money on the budget. It seems like they have all their priorities wrong if that is what they are cutting to meet budget restrictions.

The weather is once again unbearably warm. I bought a personal desk fan and I have upped the number of required sweat rags to two while at school. The teacher's room has AC but that's the only room in the high school where they turn it on. The students have to stay in their rooms and roast. I always have to bring a church fan to the classroom so I don' perspire too bad. Along with the heat and the humidity, comes mold. I have been wiping down my tatami but I went to school one day and by the time I returned home, there was mold on my tatami! And no amount of scrubbing with vinegar and water seems to remove it. Very futile and frustrating. And that isn't the only other living organism that has reared it`s ugly head. Hello mosquitos, cockroaches and other large unidentified flying objects. As soon as I see a bug in my apartment, I`m like Xena Warrior Princess with my sandal. Now I just need to learn the battle cry and creep my neighbor out.

Beats Playing the Recorder

2011-07-04T10:54:00.004+09:00

So this school in Staten Island, New York has an amazing music teacher who has his chorus sing pop songs. When I was in elementary school, music class or chorus was NEVER this interesting. I remember being generally annoyed with choir in sixth grade and just walking up to the director and telling him I quit. But this guy has energy that shoots through the roof and you can tell he really cares about his students. If you look up this school, they do so many great songs! I am probably late in seeing this because I've been abroad. But wow, so good!

Beyonce and Mozambican Dance!

2011-07-03T15:07:00.002+09:00

Here is a youtube video that Beyonce did about her creation of her latest album, 4. At about 2 minutes in, she goes tobagganing down the Great Wall of China, which Kara and I did in April! Definitely one of the best parts of Beijing.

But another great part of this video is the preparation of the dancing in the video for her single Run the World (Girls). She uses dancers from Mozambique because she saw a video of them dancing on youtube. At around 7 minutes in, she talks about incorporating their style and eventually brings the Mozambicans over to teach her dancers the moves and they are also in her Run the World video (below), starting at about 50 seconds! They are the two guys who dance with her. Viva Moçambique!

Strange Encounters of Three Kinds

2011-07-03T14:35:00.003+09:00

I have had some interesting encounters with people lately. I was playing with the kids in the elementary school on Tuesday and I always have to play outside with them at recess. Since it is becoming ridiculously hot with the summer, I don't enjoy it as much. I think it confuses the kids when "Erin-Sensei" is always gravitating toward the shade of those pine trees rather than trying to save the "tag prisoners" at the jungle gym. The fourth graders are definitely the most scattered group to have recess with (and that is the grade with kancho girl). They rarely have any organized game planned and it usually involves just a lot of running around. So when their "game" had fallen apart for the last 10 minutes of recess, I was pushing some second graders on the swings and talking to a girl trying to walk on stilts. This little girl is super adorable and very intelligent. She saw that I was sweating and looked up at me and said "Are you okay?!" I was stunned. I don't even think that some high schools kids would be able to form that sentence. I heard that the little girl's mother makes her wake up at 5 in the morning every day to study. She is only seven years old so it makes me really sad to think how she is losing some of her childhood so quickly. Let her sleep longer or watch cartoons! Save the strict studying for high school.

I went to Sasebo on Saturday to go to a lady doctor appointment. I was really nervous because I don't know what it's like in Japan. I had been reading on the internet about different experiences and they ranged from the super invasive to "you feeling good? okay, great" types. Luckily, Sasebo is home to an American naval base so there is a doctor there who delivers about 5 American babies a month from the base. He speaks perfect English and his clinic is amazingly foreigner friendly. The staff spoke English and the inside was super swanky. There is a cafeteria and water aerobics for pregnant ladies. My sister and I were joking that people should just go do water aerobics there even if they aren't pregnant. ("Cannonball!") It turns out that this was the non-invasive type doctor visit. All I got was an ultrasound and the doctor said "your uterus looks very nice." It took every fiber of my being to not say "thank you." A friend of mine said I should have said "thank you, do you like the paint and new furniture?" And then that joke evolved into an idea for "Extreme Makeover: Uterus Edition." Sometimes, I just take it too far.

While waiting for the ferry to return to Ojika, I often sit and read or journal. I am just the journaling type. I like to document things and it's like a therapy for me. There is a guard who works at the ferry terminal and he enjoys approaching me and speaking to me in English. I don't mind speaking to people in English (because generally, that is what I do) but this guy drives me bonkers. I am obviously doing something and yet he forces his conversation on me. I never interrupt people if they look like they are vested in some other activity because I know how annoying it is. What does he do for the second time since I have been in Japan? He leaned over to try to read what I was writing! I was flabbergasted. He has little common sense obviously. At that point, I got up quickly and pretended that I needed to go somewhere with all my bags. I went outside and sat behind a pillar but he still found me. So maybe I am going to have to scope out bathroom stalls the next time I want to get some peace and quiet before sitting on a rocking ferry for two and a half hours.

Feeling Bearish

2011-06-30T08:39:00.001+09:00

There seems to be an energy initiative in Japan this year. The teachers are much more careful about turning off lights and general use of electricity. There is also something about plugging and unplugging our computers during the day. The part where this gets unbearable is that they haven`t turned the air conditioning on yet. It`s very sticky and humid, and often, during the summer, the only respite in a school is the teacher`s room since that is the only air conditioned room in the building. I am all for saving energy, but within reason. I already show up to school panting like a little dog and awkwardly sweating through a tank top and a shirt. I have been asked on several occasions while fanning myself at my desk to cool down if I am okay or not. Yes, please poke this bear with that stick.

Otherwise, everything is going well here on the small island. I have been much busier at the elementary school and junior high than I have been at the high school, even though that is my main school. After a day with the elementary school kids, I definitely always need a nap. Kancho girl has been at it again - showing off for her friends by picking on the foreigner. I was walking to the gym the other day after school and kancho girl and her friends were walking home. Of course, to make her friends laugh, she charged up after me with her umbrella and walked extremely close. I was not in a good mood so a good glare and a swift "DAME!" (stop!) seemed to do the trick, even though I could hear her mimicking me to her friends and saying "dame! dame!" I think that girl gets teased at school and has pent-up aggression. She is an overweight child and in a grade of 10 boys and 5 girls, she becomes quiet as a mouse anytime we are in class. But none of that is an excuse for her poor behavior. Every time I have told anyone about this child and her intention of making a mockery of me, they simply laugh. It`s driving me bonkers.

In Mozambique, I took a much more straightforward approach. When I saw a gang of children throwing rocks into our yard at my dog, I went to the elementary school next door, where they all fled into a classroom. Trapped in the classroom, the students had no way of fleeing me and I easily apprehended one of the future shotput olympians and took her screaming and crying to the school office. Of course, the school did nothing to punish her because of their lack of organization, but it drove the point home for the girl and the students who saw her being taken to the office. Maybe next time, they would think before they tried to stone my dog. I could easily do that in Mozambique because confrontation was more common there. Here, there is no confrontation. If someone makes you angry, you are usually expected to grin and bear it. You accept another person`s bad actions and horrible personality with a smile, rather than telling them directly that they are wrong. (That is one reason why I sometimes don`t like the phrase "ganbare," which is used often here and basically means "fight through it" - sometimes, you shouldn`t have to fight through it. You should verbally smack the person down like the hand of God.)

I was reading a book about marriage in Japan and an American woman who had married a Japanese man said that she was at the embassy in Tokyo once, trying to get her paperwork in order. While she was waiting to speak to someone, she saw an embassy worker yelling at a woman for not having the correct paperwork and it actually made her smile and become nostalgic for good ol` American confrontation. You really do begin to crave direct interactions with people who aren`t easily offended and that`s where having other foreigner friends or a long phone call home can really make all the difference.

Maternal and Infant Health in Mozambique

2011-06-28T09:04:00.004+09:00

My sister sent me this article from NPR about maternal and infant mortality in Mozambique. Written by Melissa Block, with NPR, the statistics are startling:

"In her lifetime, a Mozambican woman has a 1 in 37 chance of dying during pregnancy or within a short time after a pregnancy has ended. One in 10 children won't live past the first year. One in 7 dies before reaching the age of 5."

They talk about Monapo and Nacala, the area I used to live in while I was a teacher in Mozambique from 2007-2009. I went to the hospital in Monapo when I had a serious health problem. My throat was slowly swelling shut because of a bacterial abcess and a doctor and nurse took a look at me and just started laughing at the appearance of my abcess. The doctor then prescribed me a medicine I`m a allergic to. My experience was small peanuts in comparison to what these women must go through. I can`t even imagine what it must feel like to be a pregnant woman in such an environment.

The hospital is exactly how they describe it in the article. It seems like it`s forever stuck in the 1960`s or 70`s. There are mattresses on floors. Dirt is visible. The sanitation level is poor. Medical utensils and tools lay about. I remember sitting and waiting on a bench to see a doctor, and looking around, I saw an ancient rusted and unplugged refridgerator with an old label of "Blood Bank" written on it. It looked like it had been there when the Portuguese were still in Nampula - in 1974. There is no sense of urgency with staff. The pregnant women or women with babies seemed to sit for hours and hours, waiting for a doctor or nurse to speak with them.

There are not enough doctors to accomodate the population of Mozambique and many of them are overworked. If more nurses were trained in emergency surgical skills and techniques and there was more education about pregnancy and maternal health, the mortality rate would improve dramatically.

Here is also a documentary called Birth of a Surgeon, that follows a woman in the southern part of Mozambique as she struggles to help Mozambican women through midwifery and surgical skills.

Baby School

2011-06-23T14:37:00.003+09:00

I went to Oshima, a smaller island near Ojika, to teach a couple of lessons on Tuesday and it went well. I like to call it my Baby School. The smaller island has a population of 60 people and many of them are older, so one day, I imagine that Oshima will become deserted. Ojika, on the other hand, has just under 3,000 people - also, with many elderly people. There may only be four students in the Oshima school but it`s one of my favorite parts of my job. There is a 1st grade girl, a 3rd grade boy and two 6th grade boys. After the sixth graders graduate to the junior high in April, I am thinking that the school will cease to exist. Very sad, considering there used to be 50-60 students in the school. There are three classrooms, a big gymnasium, playground equipment and two teachers and a principal at the school. It`s such a peaceful little place, where everyone gets along. If there was such a thing as a Utopic school, this would be it.

The newest student is the first grader at the baby school, a little girl with her front teeth missing. Every time she giggles, she hunches her shoulders up to the bottom of her ears. Super adorable kid. We were going over greetings with her and the third grade boy. The teacher was asking the boy about greetings and he just had a blank on his face, when, from out of nowhere, the little 1st grade girl goes "good morning!" She totally whooped him on greetings and numbers, even though she is two years younger. It was awesome. And I never thought I would get so much enjoyment out of playing janken (paper scissors rock) for twenty minutes but it was actually a lot of fun. We ended up doing it at the dock while we waited for the ferry to take me back to Ojika.

I also finally had my first lesson of the school year with the first and second grade students in Ojika. Those classes have around 10-15 students in each. I never thought that in our first lesson, there would be tears, a bloody nose and an impromptu nap in the corner. A little girl in class was extremely nervous when I asked her "how are you?" and I could see the tears forming in her eyes. Later, during the hello song, she finally lost it and started crying - the teacher directed her to a corner, where she promptly fell asleep. And then another little girl started to have blood pour out of her nose onto her clothes and hands. It was a war zone in there.

Buggin` and Bugs

2011-06-08T12:02:00.004+09:00

I just had one of those mornings where you wake up on the wrong side of the bed - or in my case, wrong side of the floor (since that`s where I sleep). At 5:45, I was woken up by a loud television, 45 minutes before I usually wake up. So as my frustration spiraled into annoyed, homesick tears, I went online and my sister managed to cheer me up from misery. Living abroad, whether it`s fairly close or on the opposite ends of the earth, and for no matter how long or how much you enjoy your job, you still get stabs of homesickness every once in a while. You want people who understand you and what you are saying and why you react the way you do in situations. Sometimes, wouldn`t it be nice if we could all just escape for a couple of days back to our home country? Just a brief respite from being "different." For me, it helps talking to my sister and having her send me things like a link to Rep. Anthony Weiner`s apology written on the pictures of sad-looking dachsunds.

But everything is all good now. Nothing cures sadness like giggly games and trying to teach high school students how to differentiate their pronunciation of L`s and R`s. Also, on my walk to school, the previously mentioned student who refused to get out of his mother`s car went sprinting past me up the hill on the way to school. The hill is not fun to walk up so I was impressed by his ambition. Suddenly, his mother`s car pulled up alongside him and he jumped in (like I imagine bank robbers do with getaway cars) and drove on to school. It was bizarre. So I imagine that there was some form of "You can just walk to school then!!!" and a "Fine!" and slamming doors in their house this morning.

Since it has grown hotter and more humid outside, the bugs are making a comeback. More cockroaches and spiders of all sizes. Cleaning the gym last week, I was the bug-toucher. I had to pick up a what-I-hope-was-just-a-beetle-and-not-a-cockroach as I was cleaning the windows. And also I had to free spiders into the "wild" with a broom because no one else wanted to literally touch the insects with a 10 foot pole. We were taking an unofficial break from cleaning the tatami mats in the gym and lying down and looking up, we could see dead spiders the size of coasters in the light fixtures. Pretty nasty to think of all the places those suckers are hidden in the buildings here.

Some of you may be wondering what tatami is. And if you aren`t, too bad. It`s a woven straw mat that`s used as the flooring in traditional Japanese rooms. You are supposed to go barefoot in the room when there is tatami (but you do take off your shoes anyways in every Japanese home). Tatami is also used as the flooring during Japanese martial arts, such as Judo, because it is softer to land on tatami than on a slab of cement. Surprise, surprise.

And here`s an interesting fact. If the mats aren`t kept clean, they attract insects called Dani that bite you. We have adult conversation classes in a room with this problem and those stabs of homesickness aren`t the only stabs you may be feeling.

The End of an Amazing School

2011-06-08T09:29:00.002+09:00

After having working with REDES (Raparigas em Desenvolvimento, Educacao e Saude - or Girls in Development, Education and Health) in Mozambique, I see even more how necessary this school in Michigan is. So many young pregnant girls around the world are often forced to or feel as though their only option is to drop out of school. They are made to feel ashamed or that their life is over. This school in Michigan has a program that teaches girls to be responsible for themselves and their child. The school offers childcare services to the young women, teaches them how to work on a farm and requires the application to financial aid and post-secondary education.

However, it has been decided that this school, along with many others, should be closed down, despite the obvious opportunities it provides the girls. Rachel Maddow talks about it here.

Merry Maids

2011-06-03T12:47:00.004+09:00

School cleaning often involves a lot of confusion for me. An interesting thing to note about Japanese schools - they don`t have janitors. The janitors are the students. Every day, at 3:10, after they have finished their classes for the day, the students are then given the task of cleaning the school. This often involves sweeping and dusting and a lot of looking busy (at least, that is what I would do if I were a student). I help out in the teachers` room, with three or four girls who come in to sweep every day while I change the garbages.

While our prefecture is having their sports event this weekend, the only two groups left on the island are the band kids and the baseball boys. Both clubs were given the two-hour task of cleaning the gym. You may think that a task that simple would not require two hours. But you would be wrong. The following are some interesting methods of cleaning I have observed.

The gym floor - washed by hand, the students are required to line up and, holding the cloth down with their hands, they run to the other end of the gym in a straight line. I am pretty sure I have seen something comparable and just as torturous during the last chance workout on the Biggest Loser. I asked if there was a mop - but I got a blank look in return.

The windows - they are washed, then wiped dry...and then rubbed with newspaper. I asked what the purpose of the newspaper was and no one could give me an answer. It seemed to be a "that`s just how we do things" kind of answer with a shrug.

But hey, it could have been worse. We could have been with the baseball club members, who were sitting outside...picking grass off the field.

Ode to Eikaiwa

2011-06-02T22:51:00.002+09:00

I would just like to dedicate a post to my wonderful eikaiwa groups. Eikaiwa is a conversation class in Japan. I have both beginners and advanced eikaiwa groups that meet on Thursday nights at the city hall. My beginners group has a solid five people and my advanced has around seven or eight, depending on the availability of the members. My beginners group has a few housewives, an older woman with impressive English skills and a man who is also a member of my advanced group (he is extremely helpful with explaining English to the others when they are confused). The women have no problem laying down the law and telling someone when it is their turn to Go Fish. My advanced group has a few housewives, a nursery school teacher and a couple of shop owners - all with varying levels of English.

After a long day at school, when I feel tired and drained, I still go to eikaiwa and I find these people to be the most enjoyable company out of anyone I know on the island. Their sense of humor and their natural curiosity for learning is inspiring. I am constantly being asked questions like "what does 'I have a bun in the oven' mean?" Their comprehension is so good and they are dedicated to practicing the language so they don't lose it after they studied, traveled or worked abroad years ago. A few of them are the parents of my students as well, so it's fun to hear about the funny things their children say.

I was at my friend's clothing shop on Monday (I had to drop off my frozen burritos to put in her freezer because of a pesky fried circuit breaker - that's a whole 'nuther story) and the second grade students in the elementary school were told to walk around the main street area of Ojika to look at shops and ask the shop owners questions. So they all trudged around with clipboards hanging around their necks, like miniature mall surveyors. You know, the ones you avoid eye contact with. My friend's son is in the second grade and he came into the store while I was talking to his mother. After greeting us, the students in his group immediately began to write down on their clipboards what the shop sells. Apparently, having lived behind the shop his entire seven years, he found the topic boring and instead of writing "I went to the shop and saw socks, pants, shirts, shoes, etc.", he decided to only write "I went to my shop and I saw Erin-sensei." Concise and to the point.

Kancho

2011-06-01T09:12:00.002+09:00

From Wikipedia : "Kancho (カンチョー, kanchō?)[1] is a prank often played in Japan; it is performed by clasping the hands together so the index fingers are pointing out and attempting to insert them sharply into someone's anal region when the victim is not looking.[2][3] It is similar to the wedgie or a goosing, although, as compared to kancho, the former mentioned acts do not involve physical contact which is quite as intimate or direct. A Kancho is often executed simultaneously as the offending party loudly emphasizes the second syllable of "Kan-CHO!".

I have seen both children and adults doing this to each other and I just don`t get it. In the United States, this would be seen as an assault. It`s not funny and why anyone would want to put their fingers in someone else`s private parts is completely beyond me. I had resolved that if anyone ever attempts to do that to me, they will have their fingers quickly and painfully broken.

Yesterday, I was outside playing soccer with the third and fourth grade students. There is one female student who is always loud and obnoxious toward me, which I can`t seem to figure out. But as we were playing the game, I noticed that she was walking closely behind me and her friends were laughing. I turned around quickly and realized that she was miming "kancho-ing" me. Remembering my sworn personal oath, I did what any sane, well-balanced adult would do in the same situation. I chased her around the playground until she was breathless and had learned her lesson. She is no marathon runner, so she was saying uncle by the time we neared the jungle gym.

I just find the whole idea of kancho bizarre and disgusting. Here is a Kancho survival guide.

I want it NOW!

2011-05-19T13:06:00.004+09:00

I was witness to an interesting event this week. A student in the junior high refused to get out of his mother`s car to go to school. She and a group of teachers stood outside the car and appeared to strategize on how to extract the kid - acting as though the jaws of death couldn`t pry that adolescent from the grips of his seatbelt. Like the same feeling I have about petting the dog down the street - I`m fairly certain I`d pull back a bloody stump if I ever tried to pet the poorly socialized little feller. This kid is 13 years old and quite intelligent (he rocks at English), but obviously used to getting his way. When I asked others about it, they shook their heads and immediately claimed that it was a mental problem. After discussing it with another foreign friend, she astutely labeled it "a brat problem." So often, bad behavior is excused as a mental issue here. You live, you learn. When I was younger, there was never a question of whether or not I was going to school. I am convinced that my mother would have pulled me kicking and screaming from the vehicle, letting me land on the sidewalk and drive ahead to work. There were two litmus tests - have you thrown up? Or do you have a fever? No? Get your backpack. Sometimes (stress on sometimes) horrible colds and the flu were negotiable. Not that my mother is a cold human being or intent on opening the pandora`s box of runny noses - she is just not a push-over. I feel like 13 years old is a little ridiculous to be throwing a tantrum and being able to walk all over your parents - that should be reserved for younger ages, when you are well-prepared to throw yourself on the floor of the grocery store and scream for strawberry Twizzlers. You know, the worthy causes.

Ah-ha! Moment

2011-05-17T08:41:00.007+09:00

It has been a slow start to the school year thus far. Between the sweat and the occasional four-hour long work party, it has yet to pick up the pace. When I am not at school, I can usually be found sitting on the floor of my apartment, watching enough episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians to deplete my brain power by half or going to the gym and making the men very uncomfortable. When I was there on Saturday, I checked the log you have to sign in to when you begin. A guy had only been there ten minutes when I got there and he left shortly after. I am super selfish though in the gym and love having the machines to myself. Especially the treadmill, which is quickly becoming my favorite now that I have figured out how to turn it on.

I went running yesterday morning really early and as I slowed down for my cooldown walk and was breathing like a pug with blocked nasal cavities, an old man was walking to his field to look at his crops. He stopped me and asked me two specific questions. How old are you? Do you run here everyday? It took me a moment to respond - partially because I had to catch my breath and also because I was shocked. I understood what he was asking. I had a glorious moment in time where I understood everything a person was asking me in Japanese and responded in kind. My Oprah ah-ha moment. It took me a moment to respond because of the breathing and the shock, but also because, always the morbid skeptic, my initial thought was "Why do you want to know? Are you going to be hiding in that brush pile with a knife?"

It`s the Gosh Darn Humidity

2011-05-11T13:36:00.003+09:00

Let me start by saying that yes, I did just reference Da Turdy Point Buck. I like to keep it classy. If you didn`t have the privilege of growing up in the upper midwest or being there during deer hunting season, this special song can be heard on the radio about once an hour. Thankfully, the point to which I refer is within the first 15 seconds.

The humidity has officially slammed into Japan. At least, on my island it has. Apparently it is worse here than on the mainland because it`s an island - i.e. it`s surrounded by water. On Sunday, when I had to work, I was walking to work and suddenly realized how much sweat I was producing. And so it begins. Walking to work and the rest of my co-workers driving -> me showing up dripping in sweat and having to change my shirt before school starts and them, foreheads dry, asking me if I`m okay. "No, I`m not having a heart attack. Thank you for the concern." My apartment has constant moisture in the air so I am looking into getting a dehumidifier to fight the damp. I will have to check out the place my sister refers to as Ojika`s Best Buy. You`d have to see the place to see how ridiculous that reference is.

I was teaching my sixth grade students yesterday and I turned to write some numbers on the board and they all went "WOW! SUGOI!" Sugoi means like "amazing!" or to express amazement. It didn`t take me long to realize they were talking about my sweat-covered back. I sweat through two layers. What!? I can`t help it! Later in the day, I walked to the gym to work out and my umbrella was pretty flimsy and turned itself inside out a few times with all the wind. After I was finished, I walked home drenched from my workout and the air was misty from the rain. I was checking out with my items and the owner of the shop said "don`t you have an umbrella?!" I wasn`t about to tell her "oh no, that`s just sweat," so I just told her my umbrella was super small.

My co-worker says they are predicting a hotter, stickier summer for Japan this year in comparison with the last. I`m going to need to save my yen to hire a personal attendant to fan me all day long.

I'm not ASKING you who's on second!

2011-05-03T18:16:00.004+09:00

I am in Osaka right now, taking in some sightseeing during Golden Week. Golden Week in Japan is when there are three consecutive holidays in the middle of a week so you can pretty much call the entire week a bust in regard to work. So I took advantage of the opportunity to come to Osaka. So far, I have gone to the Osaka Aquarium, rode the giant ferris wheel and visited Osaka Castle. The Aquarium was okay but super crowded with too many small children. Note to fellow travelers - don't go during GW. Also, while they had the expected fish, sharks and dolphins, it was still kind of depressing seeing their captivity. If you have seen The Cove, you will know what I am talking about. It made me question where those dolphins came from. I still think that Cape Town had the nicest aquarium I have ever been to - barring my dislike for animal captivity. It was impossible to enjoy it when you are trying not to get elbowed. They even spaced out the tourists so that the traffic would flow better but that didn't seem to help much. And parents, note to you: do not put your child up on your shoulders so they can see better!!! You are cutting off the views of the people behind you! When you have that mob mentality, it's survival of the fittest tourism and I prefer the laid back version.

The ferris wheel was fine and did everything it promised to do - that is, turn in a big circle and allow for a few photo ops. And then I headed to the castle, which is pretty but would probably be even more amazing during cherry blossom season, which just passed a few weeks ago.

I saw a Subway for lunch and became super excited for a healthy American-style lunch. I was in for a rude awakening. I ordered the #3 sandwich - a chicken and cheese 6 in. sub with the works on it. It was when I was about to pay, I realized that they had prepared three sandwiches for me! And the resulting conversation was like a bi-lingual version of Abbot and Costello's Who's on First?

Me: Sorry! Just one sandwich.
Sandwich Artist: You wanted three?
Me: No, I wanted one #3.
Sandwich Artist: So, you wanted three.
Me: No, I wanted one.
Sandwich Artist: One?
Me: Yes, I wanted one #3, the chicken and cheese.
Sandwich Artist: You want three?
Me: No, I want one.
Sandwich Artist: One?
Me: (Giving up on life) One.

I am sure that they thought I was an idiot. It is apparent that Japanese Subway shops do not pay attention to the numbers of sandwiches like its American brethren. But then again, why would they think I want three sandwiches? And why do they put a cheese paste on their subs rather than the real deal? So many unanswered questions.

If You Lift It, They Will Come...With Cake

2011-04-27T12:58:00.002+09:00

I went to the public gym yesterday and was lifting weights. The only other person in the weight room was the only girl on the track and field team, an 11th grader. She is an amazing runner. This is the same girl whose grandmother commented that her skin is too dark because she is always outside running. The girl obliterates her competition when she runs. We worked out in silence after greeting each other. The girl is strong - it`s impressive. I am convinced that if she was on the track for university, she could win a scholarship. I think she was pleased that there was another woman in there lifting weights. I imagine it can get lonely being the only girl on the track and field team.

Today at lunchtime, I was sitting at my desk, eating lunch when she came in with an apron on. She came bearing banana cake and tea for me she had made in home ec! Such a sweet thing to do. What a kind girl! She said "This is banana cake and this is tea! Here you are!" The kids on the island are conscientious, respectful and kind. A total anomaly in this day and age.

Head Nods

2011-04-26T14:31:00.003+09:00

It seems like I am constantly tripping and falling on this island. I usually trip in front of other people or in front of cars driving past. And the first thing I do as I can feel gravity doing me wrong, is put my hands out and fling any precious items in my hands to the side (kindle, iPod). I don`t want to ruin them with my always-less-than-graceful landings. The second thing is to check my pants to make sure I didn`t rip them. The last thing usually involves a lot of swearing and muttering under my breath.

Classes are going well. I think I still intimidate some of the kids but you know you are making strides when they come to collect you for lunch by themselves in the junior high, rather than like a herd of gazelles - safety in numbers. Don`t worry, kids. I got my vampire teeth pulled out in the 4th grade before I got braces. I don`t bite. I am working with the junior class preparing to go to university in the high school. It involves a lot of reading texts and then going over vocabulary and comprehension. It`s a bit of a yawn factory but that`s what I have been asked to do and more interesting changes in activities to the lesson plan have been deemed unnecessary. So far, since I am unable to change the content of the lessons, the only thing that seems to keep their attention is me using my outdoor voice inside. Just talk like you`re enthusiastic and they`ll pay more attention. I know that reading about the fermentation of tea leaves hasn`t felt inspiring - although I did learn that all teas are actually made from the same tree. Fascinating. I really want to push the students but I am told that they can`t handle being pushed in their English skills. I am convinced that if they focus hard enough, they could hold a conversation with me or answer questions. If you start off a lesson by telling students it`s probably too difficult for them, they aren`t going to give it their all.

The weather in Ojika has been fabulous. It is the perfect temperature. It`s between the bone-chilling and windy cold and the dripping sweat stages. There are flowers in bloom all over the island and farmers have planted their rice and other vegetables. I am really looking forward to the summer! In the early mornings and late afternoons, of course. I will be too busy wallowing in my own sweat at all other times of the day. I`m hoping that getting into shape will cut down on misery come July.

When I go for my walks on the island, one thing that seems a bit much is all the nodding people expect you to do. A lot of drivers going past will nod and while I understand this as a courtesy in Japan, I also find it highly unnecessary. I get it. You are being respectful by acknowledging me - but I don`t need to be acknowledged. Just like I don`t need you to acknowledge that I fell back there on the sidewalk. I need to listen to my "Super Sassy Workout Mix" iTunes playlist and think about what I`m making for dinner or about my ten-year plan. I like to zone out during my walks and worrying about offending someone by not bowing with my head seems too much to bear. I have noticed that women are far more courteous toward me in car-bowing. The bus driver and the lone taxi driver in Ojika, however, are always willing to give a wave. It`s all very Mr. Roger`s neighborhood sometimes. I should do some kind of study on this.

Weighty Issues

2011-04-21T08:56:00.002+09:00

I went to the gym the other day and I am going to go back again today. The gym in Ojika is definitely an interesting place. It costs 100 yen to work out and it`s usually pretty quiet, unless there are games or tournaments. For equipment, it kind of feels like you are stepping back twenty years. There are old-fashioned stair climbers and a stationary bike that have lost their resistance, one treadmill (where the belt seems unattached), and a rodeo seat. I don`t really understand the rodeo seat. Obviously the intention is that it`s like you are on a bucking bull, but it just makes grown men look ridiculous, sitting on this small seat that just seems to vibrate. I have yet to figure out the health benefits of the rodeo seat. Other than the machines that are seemingly worthless, there are some free weights and some other machines I`m a big fan of. Of course, there are never any women in there working with weights. Whenever I have asked men if women lift weights, they shake their heads and start laughing. The standard for Japanese women is to be slim - no muscles. Well, they are about to get schooled.

I have friends who have problems with the idea of female perfection here in Japan - getting comments on their size and skin color. I agree with them. While I find Japanese people on my island to be extremely polite and wonderful people, there are other cases where people are rude and passive aggressive to me because I am bigger than Japanese women. Living in Mozambique taught me to love my body no matter what I look like because every culture has a different perspective. In Mozambique, it was great to be a bigger person with hips and curves because that means you are healthy and successful. In Japan, curves are anything but the rage. So far, I have found Korea, China and Japan to be similar in their views on women and weight. There`s a lot of woman-against-woman criticism. Women are supposed to be slim, with white skin and people are quick to point out each others` "flaws." But I think that if you worry about everyone else`s opinions all the time, you will go crazy. It`s all in the confidence. Rock what you got.

I was in the teacher`s room last week when I was approached by an office staff, with a co-worker reluctantly translating, asking if I wanted to take leave for a mental exam. I said no and he kept insisting, saying that he recommended it. That made me question why he would ask me. Do I exude mental imbalance? Do I look like a fruit loop? He apparently didn`t ask everyone (just a few teachers) and I am super curious as to why he would think I need a mental exam. I consider myself a pretty happy, emotionally stable person. I guess in Japan it isn`t considered rude to tell people that you think it`s a good idea for them to be psychologically examined. I can see why my co-worker didn`t want to translate.

Brass Band Blitz

2011-04-18T10:14:00.002+09:00

Just when I thought I was scot-free from brass band, I got roped in again, unwillingly. Last week, the students had an assembly for all the clubs and sports to talk about themselves to convince the new 10th graders to join. A student came to the teacher`s room to ask if I would play the trumpet with them. I turned to my co-worker and said that I was trying to think of a nice way to say no. She nodded and turned to speak with the student. The student nodded and left and then I asked her what she told the girl. "I told her you had some kind of appointment, so you should probably show up a little late." So I waited and waited, and when I thought it was safe, I went to the gym to catch a few of the presentations. Everyone stood up and talked about their groups and the badminton team even did a demonstration, which roped in a whopping new 5 members! Which is pretty considerable, considering they only had 4 before. But finally, it was the band`s turn and I was sitting on the ground, expecting just to listen when a teacher who works with the band comes running up to me seconds before with a trumpet in her hand. "Let`s play!" This was in front of the entire school so I couldn`t say no so I went up and pretended to play for the entire song. No more! Uncle!

You`re So Clever

2011-04-11T12:55:00.008+09:00

My vacation went well for the most part. Be prepared for a super long post - so...you`re welcome. Kara and I hung around my island for a few days, resulting in an untimely spraining of her ankle walking down the steps of an island cemetery. That`s what you get for trying to photograph the dead. I am still convinced she was pushed. She also got a bad cold from the plane, making me want to spray everything down with lysol. After expressing my concern for her well-being, of course. In Ojika, we had my co-workers car to drive around in and hit up all the hot spots - the pot hole, the schools, the museum, etc., and luckily, we had perfect weather.

After Ojika, we took a ferry to the mainland and hopped on a shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. The bullet train is pretty amazing. It only took about 3 hours to get to Kyoto from Fukuoka. Mind you that that is covering half of the entire nation of Japan in 3 hours. Kyoto was beautiful, even though the cherry blossoms hadn`t opened yet. We saw several temples and ate our way through Japanese cuisine. Okonomiyaki, ramen (not the crappy 49 cent kind), kaiten sushi (or conveyor belt sushi), sashimi, domburi, and the list goes on. Japan really does have some of the most amazing food and fresh fish. You rarely have to worry about food poisoning.

In Kyoto, one of the neatest experiences was sitting at a small local bar, drinking a beer (Kara had a water since she was heavily medicated) and watching the cook make okonomiyaki right in front of us at the bar. Okonomiyaki is like a delicious vegetable pancake. Also, on the outskirts of Kyoto is a place called Arashiyama Monkey Park and you climb this steep mountain and when you get to the top, you get to feed monkeys! It was super cool to put pieces of apple into their grubby little hands - they felt like little human hands. They also had a presentation where they played can-can music and fed the monkeys peanuts.

After Kyoto, we headed to Hiroshima for a somber look at the Peace Park in commemoration of the atomic bomb. It was really interesting and sad wrapped into one. Amazingly, there are still two buildings standing from the bombing and we even went in one of them. After much debate, Hiroshima decided to keep the buildings standing as a reminder of the events. In fact, the most amazing building is a public exhibition hall that the bomb was dropped directly over. You can still see a twisted spiral stair case and you can see the cracks in the wall where the city has fought the building from crumbling.

Interestingly enough, Kara and I were sitting in the park after going to the museum when we were approached by two women who conversed with us a bit. I should have been suspicious because Japanese people don`t tend to approach strangers to chat. In fact, as soon as they said "have you heard the good news?" any normal person would have felt that light bulb go off. But we instead said "no, what news?" They were missionaries of some kind, spreading the word of god. After we had our Oprah ah-ha moment and politely declined, the women gave up on converting the only white people in the park to whatever form of evangelicalism to which she subscribes. Kara turned to me and declared "that`s terrible news."

After Hiroshima, we returned to Fukuoka for a night and did some laundry and cherry blossom-viewing and boarded a morning flight to Beijing. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Beijing, you could definitely tell the air quality was far poorer. After settling in at the hostel and a night`s rest, we booked a trip that took us around to the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and the Summer Palace. Note: never go on a planned tour to those places during a four-day public holiday unless you enjoy being pushed, crowded and just generally annoyed with the world. The Forbidden City was cool but it would have been more enjoyable had the crowd been smaller and less pushy.

The next day, we headed out to do some shopping. There was a gigantic computer center to get not-so-legit-but-probably-of-the-same-quality goods. They had everything and anything electronic in there and would call out as we walked past. "iPad?! Computer?!" They throw it out there expecting to get shut down so it was fun to see the looks on their faces when their calls actually caused us to turn into their stalls.

There is also a market called the Alien Street Market. When you enter, all the vendors are Chinese but almost all the customers are Russians. It`s strange to hear the Russian language at every turn. Russians make purchases in China, apparently, and then take the goods back to Russia to sell for a profit. Another market is the Silk Market, one of my favorite parts of the trip. At the Silk Market, they have everything - clothes, shoes, jewelry, and bags. We haggled and bargained with shop owners in the different stalls for a few hours - finding everything from "pearls" to odd-shaped cigarette lighters for friends (one was shaped like a chocolate bar, the other like a pack of marlboros).

I have a system when I bargain. I set the bar low, work up maybe a little and then when they don`t agree to my price, I act like that`s my final offer and pretend like I`m leaving. They then become desperate, grab my arm and beg me not to leave, giving it to me for my price. A girl was practically skiing across the floor as she held onto my arm to keep me from leaving. It really brought me back to the market in Mozambique and haggling over the used clothing markets and street jewelry. The workers were working hard at their trade, buttering up customers "OOOH! You`re so clever!" Kara, however, was horrible at bargaining. This was the discussion I overheard.

Silk Scarf Seller: I will give you for 1500 yuan.
Kara: That`s too much.
Silk Scarf Seller: Not too much.
Kara: That`s half my mortgage.
Silk Scarf Seller: (blank, confused face and pause) How much you want for?
Kara: Well, I would pay like 500 but I know that`s just way too low for you.

It was hard to keep myself from physically shaking my head in disappointment. It`s also hard to signal to another person what to do when the sellers speak such good English. I am convinced that some of those market sellers could get a much better job with the high level of English they have learned from hawking badminton birdie cigarette lighters in the Silk Market. But the women in the market were a lot of fun to talk to, bringing up their families and talking about their lives. Although they quote really high prices, I have a lot of respect for people with those jobs because they know how to turn on the charm. And Kara did slowly begin to improve her bargaining skills.

We also climbed on the Great Wall. Even the best workout video of Billy Blanks or Jillian doing upper cuts and high kicks couldn`t match the burn and sweat that results from walking along the Great Wall at Mutianyu. It was incredibly beautiful (minus the pollution-laden haze that settled above the mountains). The best part, besides pretending to be Jaden Smith in the Karate Kid in pictures, was tobaganing down from the hill. Yes, you get to ride a tobagan down! Best ride ever. I loved it so much I was willing to overlook getting a mouthful of a dirty "slow down!" flag hanging above the track in my mouth. And we also met a nice South African girl and discussed our love of various reality TV shows for an hour or so.

The next day was, by far, the most depressing part of Beijing. We went to Tiananmen Square. Setting aside the massacre of pro-democracy protestors there, as soon as you step into Tiananmen, you can feel the weight of communism - particularly as you are barked at to check your bags at the locker building across the street. You see old men wearing similar older navy blue clothes and hats buying flowers to set at the memorial of Mao. There are numerous security checks, regular and plain clothed police men and giant TV screens promoting the splendor of China　like a Disney Epcot video.　We went to see Mao mostly out of a desire to see the macabre display of his embalmed body in a glass case in a glass room with armed guards. His body is covered except for his face, which had a bright orange light shining on it. The man has been re-embalmed and re-made up every year since his death in 1976, resulting in a plastic looking exterior. And once in the memorial, in front of Mao, you are not allowed to talk or take pictures. It was one of the most bizarre experiences I have ever had.

Later in the day, we headed to the Olympic Stadium to look inside the Birds Nest and the Water Cube, even though I didn`t catch a minute of the 2008 Beijing Olympics because I was in Mozambique at the time. I don`t personally care much for the Olympics but Kara was excited to see it all.

We went to see the Aquarium and pandas at the Beijing Zoo. Now, mind you, the zoo itself is pretty depressing. The conditions of the animals is less than clean and spacious. The animals look miserable. The Aquarium is well-built and organized but they also appear to never clean their dolphin tanks or create the space needed for the animals to swim around. After the zoo and Kara bought her panda umbrella, we headed to a spa to get a facials and a foot rub. It was nice to be in a pleasant, clean space, getting my pores cleansed. I have never done it before and was suprised by the painful part where they dig into your skin so much that your face begins to feel like swiss cheese.

Chinese food in China is, surprisingly, not that impressive. A lot of peppers but not a lot of taste. What we ate is something you could easily find at a Chinese buffet anywhere in Wisconsin. We had given up on the food for intestinal and taste bud reasons, so after an excellent dinner of Belgian food, we headed to an acrobats show to see Chinese youth contorting their bodies and flipping in ways Americans could never accomplish. It was definitely worth the ticket to watch the performance despite the poor access to taxi cabs.

And now I am home again! It feels great to be back in quiet Ojika, with the new school year just starting. On Friday, all the students and teachers on the island are going on a hike - hopefully there are no stairs involved.

Earplugs

2011-03-24T13:16:00.003+09:00

The school year has officially ended today. We had a ceremony this morning that involved a lot of bowing and speeches made by teachers who are leaving Ojika. I just can`t get over the resemblance of Ojika school assemblies to church. And then I have to fight the urge to fall asleep because when I think of standing up, sitting down, bowing, I start to feel that same bored-to-death feeling I would get in church. The best part of church was hearing the tone-deaf lady in the front pew try to wail away at Amazing Grace, silently judging people`s fashion choices and mishaps with holy water (a kid put his gum in it, a lady dropped her purse in it, etc.)

My parents decided they were going to postpone their trip to Japan until later because of the disaster in Japan but my sister (who had a nonrefundable ticket and isn`t going through Tokyo) is going to arrive in Ojika tomorrow night. I am going to Sasebo to pick her up and make sure she was able to get from Fukuoka all right. It`s pretty much fool-proof but one can never be too certain. So I am basically spending 6 hours round trip on a ferry to go get her. But it will be nice to see her and hear about the family and actually be able to speak to someone in fast English again (Lynum fast). I went to Uku island to the north for a band concert a couple of weekends ago and I was talking with the ALT on the island and it felt so good to speak so fast with an American. I am probably going to make my sister wish she had brought ear plugs.

I am brass banded out! I can`t possibly attend or play in any more concerts. I have already played in three in the past couple of weeks and I`m finished. No more. Zero. Zilch. Zip. It`s always the same story – get there seven hours early to practice. We had a concert on Sunday that people were supposed to arrive to by 7 in the morning and we didn`t play until 2 pm. I, however, slept in and said a little white lie of being busy with an appointment – so I got to stall until 11.

Tonight is an enkai to say goodbye to the staff who are leaving the high school next week. There are five of them and we will be getting five new people the week after that. So everything will be kind of up in the air. It`s a stressful time for people working in education in Japan because chances are that their lives will be uprooted and they will be moved to a new school. I`m sad to see them go – especially the music teacher because she has an awesome sense of humor and she`s a great neighbor. But she`s going to the southern-most Goto island in the chain of islands so I am sure that she will be back to visit.

I am really looking forward to my vacation from school. I have two weeks off and I will be returning for the first day of school. My sister and I will be in Ojika for a few days and we`ll drive around the island and she can meet my friends here. After that, we are headed to Kyoto and Hiroshima for the rest of the week. And next, we will go to China! Beijing! I am excited to see the sites there and try different food! Mostly I will be glad to be getting out a bit. I am starting to feel kind of restless on the island! The sun is starting to come out though (cue the Annie music) so it`s nice to finally feel the sun on my face again.

Tsunami and Earthquake to the North

2011-03-14T09:27:00.005+09:00

I was sitting at my desk on Friday when a group of teachers called me over to the TV in the teachers` room. That was when I saw the tsunami washing over Japan up north. We watched as people drove along the roads, completely oblivious to the water closing in on them. Cars were swept away. People were abandoning their cars and sprinting for overpasses. People were huddled on the roof of an airport. There were balls of fire sweeping along with the water where there had been explosions. A news reporter wore a hard hat just in case another earthquake struck. The teachers all stood there, amazed and said “it`s like a movie.” And it was like a movie, reminding me of the movie 2012. They immediately began to make a mental list of former students who had moved to the eastern coast of Japan and made phone calls to make sure that the students and their own friends and family in the area were safe.

Here is a video of some of the news footage.

I am lucky because I couldn`t be further from where the devastation has occurred and is still taking place. I live here. We simply had a tsunami warning and the water levels that could have approached our island were first 50 cm and then a possible 2 meters, but our island remained unaffected, thankfully. There are reports that in the devastated areas, the tsunami reached a height of seven meters. Now, there is the possibility of a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima prefecture at a nuclear power plant.

Rachel Maddow did a great report on the possibility of a nuclear meltdown in Japan. Check it out.

Please consider donating to the Red Cross to help with the earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. You can donate here.

Half the Sky

2011-03-11T12:59:00.003+09:00

So I just re-read this book written by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn and I still feel like I can`t get enough of it. So as International Women`s Day has just passed, I felt like I would post about this amazing book and movement. The book is about the inequalities facing women in the world and how, if and when given the opportunities to grow and learn, these women make an incredibly positive impact on their communities across the world. The book talks about three different areas that impact women and those are maternal mortality, gender-based violence, and sex trafficking and prostitution. A must-read for anyone interested in women`s issues and the consequences of inequality. Below, I have posted an interview in two parts by Al Jazeera with the authors.

And here is the website for the movement spawned by the book.

Hello! See you!

2011-03-09T08:51:00.004+09:00

I have vastly differing ideas as to when it is appropriate or necessary to turn on the gigantic kerosene heaters in the teacher`s room. When you turn them on or off, they let off noxious fumes and you have to open the windows in order to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. For safety reasons, I doubt these would ever be allowed within 10 feet of an American school. Being from Wisconsin, I can handle cold. If it`s not below freezing, I will be okay. Today it is a balmy 48 degrees outside and the sun is shining so it feels even warmer in the sunlight. For me, this is great. But the other teachers seem to think that this is still frozen tundra weather, judging by the way they swarm to the heater like mosquitos to a zapper in the summer time. Our body chemistries but be fine tuned to different levels because they are too cold in the winter and I am maybe a little chilled. But in the summer, when I roll up looking like I just dumped a gallon of water over my head, they arrive at school, dry as the Sahara (provided, they all drive to school).

The popular post-graduation activity in Japan seems to be to dye your hair once you are released from the clutches of secondary education. After having spent 18 years in an educational system that doesn`t allow makeup, dyed hair or any major variation in physical appearance that makes you stick out, these kids scream for rebellion - even if that rebellion is them all using the exact same color of hair dye. Rebels! No, you won`t see too many tongue rings or tattoos, since the latter is associated with gang activity. But the students do finally feel the freedom to change it up a bit with their black, close-cropped hair. I just find it humorous and ironic that everyone associates freedom with that same box of brownish-red Loreal hair dye. Some former students of the high school have come to the school to visit teachers since I arrived here and almost all the boys have tried to change their hair and colored it.

Here is how the Japanese education system is set up:
- Elementary - Grades 1-6
- Junior High - Grades 7-9
- High School - Grades 10-12

The new school year starts April 11th. That`s when the 9th graders move up to the high school, the 6th graders move to the junior high and I get to teach a whole new batch of first graders in the elementary who are moving up from the nursery school. The first graders are my favorite, despite one saying he thought I was 40 years old to the teacher - oh, from the mouths of babes. The teacher couldn`t stop laughing at that one. I`ll let it slide. I was walking home yesterday and I was passing the park and it seemed like the entire first grade posse was there and screamed my name as I walked past - even though they only know how to say "I am great!", "Hello!" and "See you!" It`s funny because as I`m approaching the park, I hear "HELLO!" and then as I continue passing the park, they yell "SEE YOU!" They give very fleeting greetings. "HELLO!...,,,SEE YOU!" And it`s hilarious every time.

This summer they are going to tear down the elementary school and begin construction on a new one because the building is in such rough shape. You can see mold on the ceiling, the floorboards are questionable and there was one time that I found unidentifiable animal scat on the floor by the English room. I don`t even use the English room anymore because it smells like something curled up in the walls and died. All of the elementary kids are going to be in the junior high school with the junior high kids so it will be a fuller school with a higher noise level. They are already kid-proofing the junior high, putting up barriers so students can`t slide down the stairway banisters and slip through the railings to fall to their deaths. Below, that is one banister I wouldn`t want to ride.

The junior high kids were in the high school yesterday taking the "entrance exam" for the high school. In Japan, all third year junior high school students take entrance exams to enter high school. While it may make more of an impact on the mainland, where the number of schools and options is greater, in all reality, these students won`t be denied entrance to the high school because it`s the only high school on the island, with a student population of less than 80. But they go through the motions anyway. I am looking forward to teaching those kids in the high school. They have a lot of energy and are surprisingly good at responding to my questions. Sometimes I question the high school students and their lack of enthusiasm/inability to respond to something as simple as "how are you?" I am definitely going to start challenging them more to use language without staring at the Japanese teacher for the answer. One of my JTEs (Japanese Teacher of English) always puts her hands up when they look at her to block their faces and says "don`t look at me!"

The teachers will be finding out by the middle of this month if they are staying or if they are leaving. Normally, a teacher is required to teach on the Goto Islands for five years so most of the teachers have an idea of what instructions they will get from the prefecture. The prefecture is the ultimate decision-maker in the placement of teachers and teachers have little influence over where they are placed - so there seems like there is a continuous uncertainty. I will be sad to see teachers leave. They have been a lot of fun and you can tell that they really care about the students. The new teachers will arrive at the end of this month, right before the new school year starts.

Tick Tock

2011-03-07T09:58:00.006+09:00

I`m just going to continue putting it out there - it`s killing me not having a computer at my apartment. Although I am averaging a book a day and I`ve finally started to hunker down to re-study all that high school math that will be on the GRE, I am going bonkers. It`s so quiet! And I yearn to google and wikipedia things (I know, I know - don`t trust everything you wikipedia). The other day, I thought "I wonder if Japanese restaurants boil their fish to get it to taste so tender and juicy" and then sadly remembered that the answer was not at my fingertips. "I wonder what was on the Friday episode of the Rachel Maddow show?!" "What is happening in my home state with the Wisconsin protests and that power-hungry, union-busting governor, Scott Walker?" These were all pressing questions that had to wait until today when I could access my computer at work.

I love finding out that students passed major English exams. I worked with a 10th grader for a week, studying for an exam where he had to answer questions about a picture and then answer open-ended opinion questions. It was difficult at first but then he began to improve and he passed! Sadly, he is moving to Fukuoka next year so his family can be near his sister as she begins beauty school. He`s the best in his English class so I will miss having him as a student. A senior I have worked with several times who already has pretty amazing English wants to go to university to become an English teacher and she just passed her exams. I don`t know why she is at school again today. She appears to be the only senior at school studying. Give it a rest! Go enjoy the last days of your childhood and go on a road trip before university begins. The island is like 8 km around but hey, it you take every road and do a few laps, that could constitute a road trip. I can`t help but think about a bunch of kids in a really small car, listening to mixed tapes and whipping donuts in the parking lot of either the city hall or the public gym - the only two parking lots on the island conceivably large enough for whipping donuts.

I had a meeting at the elementary school last week, according to the schedule I received from them at the beginning of the term. Once I got there, I was waiting at the table to have lesson planning meetings with teachers and no one showed up intitially. A very kind woman who speaks English and works at the school approached me and asked me who I was waiting to meet. After I told her, she went and checked and then returned to inform me that the meeting was actually the next week. I said "oh, okay," slightly put out that I hadn`t been made aware of this but it wasn`t life altering. So I began to pack my things and stood up. She apologized and just stood there, looking at me. I find this happening a lot. I say something and people just stare at me awkwardly. I just chalk it up to Americans and Japanese having different ideas of conversation fillers and awkward silences. In the states, when a misunderstanding of a meeting time happens, we sincerely apologize and then drop it. We don`t wallow in the awkwardness. People on the island are super polite though and any misunderstandings of meetings or events is apologized for to the extent of beating a dead horse. I once received a profuse apology and a present of chocolates from a teacher because she forgot to show up to a lesson planning meeting.

I have been roped into joining the brass band for their string of end of the year concerts. One on the 12th, 13th and 19th each. One is on Uku island, the island just to the north of Ojika. I wasn`t going to do it because as I have expressed before, I have never actually enjoyed playing the trumpet. I started playing in the 3rd grade and I just kept doing it because A) my parents had purchased me a trumpet, B) it was my only social activity the two years I didn`t have friends after switching from Catholic school to public school and it only made sense to continue it because my friends were in it in high school and C) my senior year we were going to DisneyWorld. I would be lying if I said C wasn`t the main reason. I am doing it because I like the music teacher, she is my neighbor and she took the time to translate a letter to me in English, asking me to play with them. And signed it "my best regards." I can`t say no to that much effort. I was talking to my English teacher co-worker about band. She plays in the brass band when they ask her and she was a total band geek growing up - evidenced by her ability to play several songs on her flute without reading sheet music. When asked to play in a badminton tournament or any sports competition, you can see a part of her dying inside. She lacks what many would call athletic talent. I, however, have always enjoyed sports and the competition, and I would rather play tennis with the tennis club. So I had to describe to her that her badminton is like my brass band - the krytonite to our supermen. I think that really drove home my point of disliking band. I think the kids in it are great kids but I just can`t match their level of dedication. It`s like a part time job for them, logging at least 28 hours a week in practice.

For example, I was told that band practice would begin at nine o`clock on Saturday. So, despite having attended an enkai the night before, I peeled myself out of bed the morning of and went to practice. I got there a little before nine and realized that I had been Bat Girled. You may ask yourself what Bat Girl is. The Bat Girls was a softball team I occasionally played with during summers and winters in high school. It was this group of extremely dedicated softball players. And by dedicated, I mean, these girls were required to show up two hours before games to begin warm-up. It was borderline obsession and while I do credit the Bat Girls with keeping my pitching arm intact during the off-season, I felt a special kind of resentment to my teenage days of winter and summer freedom being eaten up by hours of batting practice and fielding grounders. I remember faking being sick one time so I could spend a lovely Sunday at home. Sorry, Mom. No matter how much I denied it, I was , in fact, faking it. I felt a tiny twinge of guilt about lying. However, as I sat back watching Meet the Press and reading the Sunday comics in my pajamas, much like the cheerios in my cereal bowl, the guilt faded.

But back to band practice, it turns out that nine o`clock is actually the time that everyone gets there to begin warming up but the actual rehearsal begins at 11. Two hours to warm up! You can imagine my dismay. I had been Bat Girled (two hours early to warm-up). I sat on the gym floor, reading my kindle, while people came and went and practiced their french horns and clarinets to the beat of metronomes. It sounded like that place with all the stashed clocks in the movie Hook (so Captain Hook wouldn`t be driven crazy by all the incessant ticking) when people took breathers. I stayed for practice and then when it was time for lunch, I hightailed it to the high school to use the internet. After lunch time, I went to the baseball game, just outside the gym. I was surprised to see that while a game was going on between the high school and junior high students, the french horn player was outside, still practicing! Her french horn was so loud but she seemed completely oblivious to the baseball game people were trying to focus on. I turned to a parent who is also a member of my adult English language group and asked her if people didn`t find that french horn annoying. She just started laughing and said "Maybe, yes." I know that in the states, we would have asked her to shut up but the people at the baseball game were too polite to ask for peace and quiet.

So I am destined to spend my after school time for the next week practicing with the band, waiting in the constant purgatory of wondering if the band director said "D" or "E" when saying where she wanted us to practice playing on the sheet music. It is great to see how much the kids enjoy band though and how it is their time to socialize with friends and goof around. But after band, I can`t help but looking forward to going home, enjoying my kindle while eating some chicken nuggets, and then re-maneuvering my way through those damn fractions.

Happy 50th

2011-03-03T14:16:00.003+09:00

I am seriously enkai-ed out. I don`t think I can possibly commit another evening to going out and stuffing myself full of food and beer. There have been two in a row this week to celebrate graduation and it has been a good time but I need my beauty rest. Graduation went well. Apparently, graduations in Japan are more like funerals. Everyone wears suits, except for the mothers who wear traditional kimonos. By the end of the ceremony, all of the students were sobbing as they shook hands with each of the teachers. I have only been teaching these kids for 7 months but I found myself crying. Some people question the water works at other graduation ceremonies in Japan, where there are many students graduating at once. In Ojika, there are 28 of them and I think it`s different for them as island kids. Everyone knows everybody and they are sad that they are leaving their childhood behind and entering the adult world. The school is definitely much quieter now that an entire grade is missing. And now some of them have acquired drivers licenses in the city, so I have been cautioned to take heed while walking or riding in a car on the island until they leave for the mainland because their driving skills are still less than exemplary.

I have been averaging a book every couple of days now that my computer died. It`s driving me bonkers! I love reading and I do it a lot even with computers but I miss reading the news and chatting online. My main mode of communication at home has been cut off. I received a shipment yesterday of candy for student prizes from a COSTCO store and it had been shipped internationally from Hawaii. I saw that they had used a local Honolulu newspaper to stuff the box and I never felt so happy to read the news in English. It was quite pathetic but I enjoyed reading about a bank robbery and a father returning home from military deployment.

At the end of the graduation ceremony on Tuesday, the kids had a going away celebration for the seniors and they had different students come forward and say congratulations in different ways. One of the students did this horrible beatbox impression and then said “yo yo yo” and then congratulations. It was absolutely horrendous, but it gave me an idea. I am doing pronunciation with the 10th graders and I may just incorporate the sounds that beatboxers make into my attention-getter for tomorrow. If anything, I may look like a fool but hey, it`s worth a shot.

And finally, in other news, happy 50th anniversary to the Peace Corps! Here is an awesome video that Lauren, a dedicated PCV from my group of volunteers (Moz 12) in Mozambique made in celebration of the 50th anniversary.

Church Giggles

2011-02-28T11:28:00.005+09:00

Tis the season for those tax forms to make an appearance. When I was in the Peace Corps, my income was never very complicated. I was paid by the U.S. government and I made a pittance as a volunteer. Now that I am in Japan, it`s a whole different ballgame trying to figure out which forms to fill out and which extensions to file. Ah, the agony of growing older and having to take responsibility for your finances.

My home computer had been having some issues lately and it finally went dead. I haven`t purchased a new computer since 2002. That`s nine years and I`d say that`s a pretty good run. I never buy electronics just because I feel like it but because the previous ones have lived their full lives. I left my very first computer purchase in Monapo with a student and hopefully it`s not being used as just a paperweight now. Without a computer, my apartment seems so quiet and empty. I read a lot and I kind of feel like I am back in the Peace Corps. However, I ordered a Macbook Pro online today and can`t wait to get my paws on it. It will be my first mac and it has a hot pink cover! I am happy to join the ranks of mac users because macs are less susceptible to viruses and they have a solid reputation. Plus, I bought the protection plan that is good for parts and service for three years around the world.

Today is the practice for the graduation. In the morning, we had a ceremony with all the elementary, junior high and high school students in the gymnasium. After practicing standing up and sitting down for about ten minutes and holding a bow for three counts(ichi, ni, san...no joke), we finally did the ceremony. Watching a Japanese official ceremony is kind of like being in church. You stand up and sit. You bow. The speakers bow before they approach the microphone. It is a very religious experience but with a bonzai tree on the stage. Also, I have no idea what they are saying half the time so one could argue that the experiences are one in the same. All I need now is my mother to pinch my leg if I fall asleep or to play paper, scissors, rock with my sister. I still remember when I was younger and I was wearing umbro shorts to church in the middle of summer. When I tried to stand up, my shorts had suctioned themselves to the pew and made the most obnoxious noise. I remember thinking that was hilarious and giggling with my sister and Lord knows, once you get the giggles in church, you are done for. Particularly when it`s during confession and there is complete silence.

When I was in middle school, we had a couple of mice in our basement and my mother set out sticky traps to catch them. Sticky traps are those traps that once they catch a spider`s leg or a mouse`s foot, the adhesive is so strong that you need the jaws of life to detach you. My mom set one out in the kitchen and we went to bed. In the morning, my mother, sister and I went to church and in the middle of the service, my mom got a serious case of the church giggles. For the life of me, I couldn`t figure out why she was laughing so hard. After church, she finally told us that in the middle of the night, my dad had gone into the kitchen and hadn`t turned on the light. He had forgotten about the mouse trap and had stepped right onto the sticky trap. I remember him saying "I thought, oh God, there had better not be a mouse on this trap." So he turned on the light and there it was - a comrade who had also fallen prey to the trap - a mouse stuck to the sticky trap.

There are so many awesome church stories. Walking around, unknowingly, with powdered sugar all over my black jeans during a church social. A child sticking his gum in the holy water. That time at Easter Vigil when everyone was blessed by the priest by the spray of holy water with a palm leave. But instead of just a sprinkling, it was a downpour. People were taking off their glasses and wiping them down. The Knights of Columbus at church and their pirate costumes. Okay, they weren`t supposed to look like pirates but they did. They even had swords. My confirmation ceremony with my sister as my sponsor and accidentally dumping money out of the collection plate rather than putting it in. I remember studying abroad in Ireland and going to Easter mass and having a man ask me to say the rosary out loud. I just shook my head no. How was he to know that I wasn`t that devout of a Catholic.

But back to the graduation ceremony. The gym is decorated like a big candy cane for graduation - red and white draped against every wall. It kind of looks like an American election is about to take place. When they were setting up for the ceremony, they actually measure the distance between the chairs! That`s right. They pulled out a measuring tape. I was astounded. Now that`s thorough. On the stage, they have the flags for Japan and Nagasaki prefecture. And in front of the lecturn, they have rows of potted flowers. I was told that there is a plan on how to set up, measured out completely, and they follow those same instructions every year.

There are more ceremonies this afternoon and a graduation run-through practice. Tomorrow is the big day when the students and their families come to graduation. Three of the students haven`t found out yet if they have passed their exams and they won`t find out until March 6th - which I`m sure to them feels like a lifetime away. And if they don`t pass that, they have to take another examination a week later (at least from what I understand from talking to a co-worker). But they are definitely more relaxed now than they have been all year and it`s nice to see that they can now enjoy themselves.

I am sad to see the 12th graders go but there is always the next batch of kids. After talking with a co-worker, it seems that they want me to lead more classes only in English next year and I think that will be great. So many English classes are led in Japanese right now and speaking in English will make more of an impact on their English comprehension. Maybe I can get rid of that deer in the headlights, oh-my-god-the-foreigner-is-talking-to-me look I get every time I speak to some of them.

10,000 Girls Project

2011-02-27T10:50:00.003+09:00

This project is amazing! It`s called the 10,000 Girls project. It was started by an American woman in Senegal to help give girls an education, real life skills (sewing, cooking, etc.) and business lessons. So often, in the developing world, girls and women are forced to leave school early in order to care for their families, because there is no money or for other reasons. The goal is for the school to be self-sufficient by their entrepreneurship program, not counting on foreign aid or charity. Take a look!

In Praise of Libraries and Japanese Food

2011-02-26T14:53:00.006+09:00

I would just like to take a moment to sing the praises of one of my most treasured valuables: my Kindle. What an amazing electronic! No matter where you are or what time of day, you have access to a library of books. Mind you, the books aren't free but some are, including classics. Long gone are the days when if you wanted to travel abroad with books, half of your luggage space was taken up. I will acknowledge that sometimes it's nice to hold a book in your hands and be able to dog-ear and smell those pages but for convenience's sake, the kindle is a go-to for travelers and anyone who has no access to an English library.

After Mozambique, I really realized how much I took libraries for granted in the states. You get to read or order any book you want...for free! Well, kind of for free since you are paying taxes for the luxury. But in many countries of the world, this system is nonexistent, therefore it's something we should never take for granted. A system like that would never work in Mozambique, for example, because of the sad but true likelihood that the books would be stolen and/or ruined. In Monapo's high school library, students couldn't take the books out and on the occasions in the past when they had, the books were then stolen and sold for a profit. An example of the few ruining it for the majority but out of desperation for money.

So I say that Americans are pretty lucky to have that convenient access to knowledge. There are libraries in Japan of course but I have only ever frequented our island library to read to the kids in English, which I haven't done for a few months. All of the books are in English except for a small section of English children's books. But the library is very quiet and organized and it seems like a great place to bring your children on the island. Often, after school I see the students from the elementary school and junior high stopping at the library on their way home. Half of them are actually going behind the library to run around and tackle each other but the other half actually go in the library and check out books. One of my adult language group members has a son in the first grade and when I visited their house recently I saw that there was a huge bag of library books on the floor. I remember being young and being excited to take out books from the library and even when I returned from the Peace Corps, I made biweekly trips to the library to check out books and movies.

My nostalgia spilleth over for libraries right now just because I think they are amazing. And the closest thing I have to a library now is my kindle, a Christmas present for which I am forever grateful. The Japanese, while the king of the electronics industry, has yet to come out with an equivalent as far as I know for the Japanese people. Every time someone sees my Kindle, they ask if it's a computer. I imagine it won't be too long until they do. Most of my students here enjoy reading Manga, Anime and comic books - books that have colored illustrations.

On a different note, we lost our game last night in the badminton tournament but I had a wonderful time at an enkai afterward. There was some great food and beer. The food included, baby squid in soy sauce dressing, fried chicken, fried what I think were sardines, kimchi (which I actually like more than the stuff I ate in the country that prides itself on its creation of kimchi - sorry Korea!), sashimi (raw fish - see picture below), battered and fried pork and cheese with ketchup, and cabbage with a mayo dressing. Before I came to Japan, so many people commented on how they thought the food in Japan isn't very good but it's delicious! And not always healthy, judging by all the fried foods on that list, but it is yet another reason why I love my island and living in Japan.

Tumbleweeds and Trips

2011-02-25T12:14:00.003+09:00

I have this habit of agreeing to things that I decide I didn`t want to do in the first place – but then once I go to it, it`s actually a lot of fun. If that makes any sense. My latest example is my second island badminton tournament. I am playing with the biology teacher again, so we will probably win just because he`s the best player on the island. I was watching him play with another one of our teammates, an office worker, while sitting and talking with my co-worker, another English teacher. This biology can bob and weave and can pretty much dominate the court on his own. The office worker, on the other hand, was flailing around like a dead fish with a badminton racquet and shrieking. My co-worker said “it`s like he is playing against three opponents” – he being the biology teacher. The tournament prize is Kleenex and beer again. And they pull out an old trophy from a box, your team takes a picture with it for the island newspaper and then they pack it away again. It kind of reminds me of those old western style photographs you can take with your family at amusement parks.

The weather has been gorgeous this week in Ojika. I think that Japan is making up for the rainy, dreary weather that we were subjected to last week. The sun is out and it actually smells like spring again! I love the smell of the sea!

I am gearing up for the family to come to Ojika. It should be a good time and I look forward to showing them the sites. On the list are the pothole (a decidedly underwhelming sea-made stone ball), Madara Island (a smaller, beautiful island connected to Ojika by a bridge) and maybe Nozaki Island. Nozaki Island is an island close to Ojika and used to have quite the population. However, everyone eventually left the island in or around the 1970`s or 80`s when fishing declined and now there is no one there but old buildings, deer and a maintenance man. You can go camping on the island in the old school and go hiking. There is the only church in Ojika on Nozaki but it`s no longer used except for special occasions. Now that I write it, it kind of sounds like something straight out of a horror movie - isolated island with a ghost town and no one but a caretaker living there. I doubt there are tumbleweeds.

Graduation is on Tuesday. So everyone has to work on Sunday and Monday to prepare for it. As far as I can see, the preparations involve practicing the school song and maybe setting up chairs? I don`t really know but I am intrigued by this graduation ceremony. I have heard it`s pretty serious, formal occasion – a far cry from my graduating class and people doing cartwheels on the stage and handing the principal a roll of toilet paper in commemoration of some of the members of our class being the best at TPing the school. I remember graduating from high school and arguing with my mother over which shoes I should wear with my graduation robe. A lot of the people I have graduated with now have children and/or spouses but I still feel like I am light years away from that stage in my life. I get varied reactions with that – some people talk up the joys of marriage and having children and how they wouldn`t have it any other way and I have other friends who are also single and focusing on their careers or school. I like having that balance of friends.

Some people in my graduating class could choose to remain in the same city and that`s a difference between Japan and the states. In Japan, when you are going straight from high school into a job, everything is prepared for you and you go straight to your new life and job directly from your childhood. In the states, you have the freedom of choosing your job and if you want to stay in your area, you can choose to do so. That umbilical cord isn`t cut as swiftly. I don`t know of many students even staying in Kyushu – the lowest of the four islands that compose Japan and the one where Ojika rests off the coast. They are all relocating to the central region of the country and starting fresh with completely new friends and responsibilities. I think that it would be scarier to be a Japanese graduate because your ties are almost entirely cut with your community and family, except for phone calls and the occasional holiday visit home. I have gotten to see the students going to university relax now that they are finished studying – which is nice because for the past several months I have seen them walking around with worried expressions and wearing masks so as to avoid getting sick. I honestly didn`t recognize their faces at badminton when they played in the tournament last night.

I just signed up to take the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) in Osaka in May. I am extremely excited and nervous to begin the process of taking the exam and begin applying to graduate schools. So begins the next step to continuing my education! And I am also thrilled to get to travel to Osaka and look around a bit on my own. My sister has advised me that Anthony Bourdain had a good time in Osaka, so clearly I will too.

My Vulcan Death Grip

2011-02-18T08:48:00.003+09:00

So I turn 27 on Sunday! My, how time flies. It feels like just yesterday I was graduating from high school or college. I still feel like the same person and I have yet to find a gray hair. That`s the bonus of having what my mother jokingly refers to as "mousy brown" hair. I believe another phrase is "dishwater blonde." I have yet to hear a lot of positive terms for my hair color. Anyways, I will spend my birthday in Ojika, relaxing and having lunch with some friends. I never do anything crazy on my birthday and when I was in Wisconsin, it feels like I was always sick for my birthday. I remember my junior year of university when I studied abroad in Ireland. I had a bad cold AND I was turning 21, a typically exciting birthday in America, in a country where the legal drinking age is 18. Very anti-climatic. My best birthday in recent memory would have to be the one I had my second year in Mozambique, sleeping on the beach with friends, sand fleas and a bottle of wine.

Life in Ojika is running on as normal. I have spent most of my time this week at the elementary school and those kids have been endlessly entertaining. Every time I am walking to school, I pass the window of the first grade students. As soon as they see me, they all run to the window and scream "Erin-sensei!" and wave to me. They are adorable and have been some of my favorite students based on their enthusiasm. They aren`t shy like some of the older students. When we sing the hello song and bounce around the room, I have to shake hands with them to introduce myself. There is always a student who rushes up to me to shake hands with me. It`s totally different with the third graders. I practically have to tackle them with a vulcan death grip to get them to shake my hand.

I was in the fourth grade classroom yesterday and in the middle of class, a boy plugging his nose said "Erin-sensei! Gas-u!" and pointed at the boy in front of him. Now one would think that someone who is about to turn 27 wouldn`t find flatulence humorous but the kids were dying in that corner of the room so I couldn`t stop laughing. It was pretty pungent. Finally, he who dealt it got up and fanned out that sector of the room, trying to push it out the classroom door like he was exorcising a demon. The student who did it is so loud to begin with that he completely owned up to it and didn`t seem embarassed. It`s difficult to continue on as normal with a lesson after that.

One area that I vow to improve in at the high school is cleaning time. Japanese schools don`t have janitors. They have the students clean all the rooms except for the bathrooms. Every day for about 20 minutes, the students have a scheduled time to clean a designated space in the school. My space is the teachers room and I always feel like I don`t know what I`m supposed to do. We remove the garbage and cardboard and sweep or wash the floor almost every day. I do this with the first year students in the high school and I just feel like I am in the way more than anything. Also, washing the floor down every day on your hands and knees seems a bit excessive to me. Students asked me "do you clean your high schools in America?" and I said there were jobs for that. They said "America is rich." That was the same reaction I got when I said that Americans heat their classrooms in the winter. You call it rich, I call it sane. I prefer to not feel like I`m practicing present continuous in a workhouse in a Charles Dickens novel.

On another note, I have been helping a student practice for an oral exam he has this weekend. One of the questions I asked him was "some people say that Japanese students don`t study enough. What do you think about that?" He agreed and said that Japanese students don`t study enough. I almost guffawed out loud. In my opinion, Japanese students study extremely hard - at least in their senior year of high school if they are planning to go to university. After our practice time yesterday, we were walking down the hall and my co-worker pointed out an article on the window that said how Chinese students are very intelligent, study hard and get the highest test scores. Japan and China are too competitive. I guess that from my point of view, the time and stress put into high test scores and bragging rights don`t necessarily equal happiness.

In the Gutter

2011-02-15T23:45:00.004+09:00

Last night I had an enkai (party) for work that lasted for a few hours. If you know me at all, you know that I have a limit when it comes to sitting on the floor with nothing to lean against for an extended period of time. I hail from a chair-loving culture. The enkai was on a Monday night so there was obviously work the next day. I barely drank anything but I was super tired today from a night that varied from my normal routine.

I had a fairly good start to the day, mustering up the energy and enthusiasm to teach rowdy classes of first, second and third graders. Half of them have masks on so I cringe every time I have to shake hands with any of the plague-makers during the Hello Song. It was between four and 4:30 this afternoon that it all came to a screeching, half humorous, half mortifying head.

I was walking to the elementary school for a meeting and the sidewalks here are uneven because they are made of brick. So of course, when I am walking near two high school students and five elementary school students, I trip and fall. This wasn't a "fall on your knees" kind of graceful fall. This was a slow-mo, books go flying, sprawled out over the gutter kind of fall. I hate it when you can feel it happening and can do nothing to stop it. Resistance is futile. So I laid there for a few seconds and laughed like a crazy person. My hands were stinging from grinding into the gravel in a failed attempt to save my money-maker from hitting the pavement. The students helped me pick my books up and I continued on my way while feeling their eyes burning into my back. I just feel fortunate that nothing ripped.

Once I made it to the elementary school, I meet with teachers to go over lesson plans and prepare for the next few classes. The teachers are always a little late because they send kids on their way at the end of the school day. It's okay because I sit there and look at lesson plans or at the schedule until they come. Today, during a meeting, a teacher was trying to make small-talk with me and asked the one super insulting question that one should never ask another human being - I don't care what country or culture you are from or what language you speak. "Oh, you got your hair cut. Did you cut it yourself?" Zing. It was a completely innocent question and I know they weren't trying to be insulting but I automatically added up my great gutter fall of 2011 with the hair cut comment, counted my losses and then headed home after school for some secluded American R&R - watching Modern Family and Glee and eating tacos.

The Skin You`re In

2011-02-14T14:00:00.009+09:00

I went to Sasebo on Friday morning and the ferry ride wasn`t too horrible. Everyone and their brother was leaving Ojika for the extended weekend. I helped a kid with his English homework on the trip so one would call the trip productive. I had to create a cereal box barrier with my bags while I slept though because the family next to me had a first grade student and her little brother and he kept staring at me. I can`t fall asleep with people watching me. It`s just too much pressure and I`m afraid that my mouth will fall open and I will start to snore - becoming a part of the latest tidal wave of gossip on a tiny island.

I got to Sasebo and sat at a Seattle`s Best coffee shop and read Three Cups of Tea (highly recommend it!) until my appointment. My stomach was in knots over this hair appointment. I`m usually only ever this nervous for certain doctor`s appointments. Anyway, I showed up at the hair place and immediately knocked over the umbrella stand with my backpack. The receptionist, who also ended up being my hairdresser, was also a bit awkward so we were a match made in beautician heaven. He was super nice though and he spoke a fair amount of English. Turns out they get a lot of Navy wives there since there is a U.S. naval base in the city.

One thing I love about living and traveling in other countries is how blatantly honest people are. They are naturally curious about you as much as you are about them and you can strike up some great conversations. Another woman came over and started speaking to me in English that was pretty impressive. She had a bit of an American accent and said that when she isn`t working at the salon, she is studying English. As they were blowdrying my hair, she asked me if I knew about karate. I said I know what it is and she pointed to my hairdresser and said that he used to be a champion at karate. When I asked if he does karate now, she shook her head and said "oh no!" And then she blew out her cheeks like a blowfish and pointed at her stomach.

I am considered huge in Japan. Women in Japan are super tiny - which is surprising considering how many carbs and fried foods are consumed here. But people are obsessed with losing weight and staying tiny. You can often see ads for weight loss pills or doo-dads that will make you lose weight or give the illusion that you have lost weight. A male student came into the teacher`s room and some teachers were giving him a hard time about having gained weight. I don`t blame him. All the kid does and is expected to do is study. You aren`t exactly doing wind sprints when studying calculus or English irregular verbs so I said "you look fine. Don`t worry." That seemed to get a shocked look from one of the teachers. In my opinion, the kid has enough to worry about without people picking on his physical appearance.

Some kind of weight loss belt.

A weight loss bath....mhmmmm. It appears that you take a bath in a plastic bag.

There I go, off on a tangent. The hair cut ended up going quite well. I will probably return for my next cut. After that, I wandered around and bought some things I needed for the apartment and I went and sat and read at Starbucks. That`s right. I hit up all the western coffee shops in Sasebo in the span of four hours. It`s just relaxing to sit there and drink a latte while reading my kindle. I bought a few other things - stickers for my students, a hairdryer, and moisturizing cream. Now normally I don`t care to mention something as small as moisturizing cream on my blog but I just want to point out something about creams in Japan. Most facial moisturizers in Japan have a whitening agent added to them because women are obsessed with having "pure" white complexions. In the summer, you will be the only woman wearing a tank top. It could be over 100 degrees and you will still see women wearing long sleeve shirts and pants, wearing hats that are the closest relatives to the sombrero they can find.

No one seems to buy into the idea that your skin color is beautiful the way it is. So every time you buy a cream in Japan, you have to be careful that you don`t buy the skin moisturizing equivalent of Crest White Strips. Unless you enjoy looking like a mime in order to achieve someone else`s idea of beauty and lining the pockets of beauty product companies forever telling you that you aren`t good enough until you are buying what they`re selling. I remember in Mozambique, some women wanted to have lighter skin because they thought it was more beautiful. Some of the most beautiful women in the world were willing to bleach (and sometimes irreparably damage) their gorgeous, dark skin to meet other people`s warped definition of beauty. So sad.

I had such a difficult time picking out creams because A) it`s all in Japanese and B) it seems like there are even more choices in facial products in Japan. I thought America was thorough enough in their skin care until I watched a Japanese friend go through her beauty regimen before bed one night when I was visiting her. It was more complicated than and took about as long as a ProActiv infomercial. It took about twenty minutes, from cleansing and scrubbing, to applying syrum, and a special formula to treat the T-zone and then moisturizing. Long gone are the days of rubbing some Irish Spring soap on and splashing it off before bedtime.

I was at an enkai (party) last week and was sitting next to an older woman. Toward the end of the evening, she held her arm up next to mine and seemed disappointed that my skin was whiter than hers - not taking into account that genetically, I should be lighter than her. This was the same woman who laments over her athletic granddaughter`s skin being "too brown." Hopefully, this idea of desirable skin color being only white changes in the next generation or two.

Snip, Puncture, Marinate

2011-02-10T09:28:00.009+09:00

I have a three day weekend and my only plan so far is just to get my hair cut in the city. I am tired of looking like I just descended from a three month Everest expedition. I have to go to my haircut prepared though with everything but pie charts and graphs. I am going to ask my co-worker if she can write in Japanese my instructions for my haircut and how I want it to look. Either way, I guess it doesn`t matter too much because it`s hair and it will eventually grow back.

The three day weekend is attributed to "National Foundation Day" tomorrow. I didn`t really know what it is until I googled it and discovered that it is celebrating the founding of Japan. In other words, I am going to sleep a lot and relax. Japan has a lot of holidays that mesh into three day weekends it seems - that is not a complaint. That`s a deeply rooted appreciation on my part.

School has been far more quiet now that most of the senior boys are gone until graduation day. They are all on the mainland getting their driver`s licenses. I now assistant teach two less classes a week since their classes ended. They graduate at the beginning of March and then they head off to their jobs across Japan. Many of them are moving to big cities, which I think will be a sort of shock to their small island systems. I was talking to a teacher about them leaving and she said "They all go to the ferry terminal. Say goodbye. Many tears." If I grew up sheltered on a very traditional, country island, I wouldn`t know how to behave in the cramped city of Tokyo or other large cities in Japan. My senior class basically took an exam and got offered jobs while the other seniors are still studying for their exams. The university kids will be at school all weekend, living and breathing the fear of university exams.

I have started to wake up early to go running/dragging myself around the high school sports field. I am sure that if you happened upon my running in the dark, you would be frightened by all the wheezing and gagging. I go four laps or about one mile and then walk the rest. I don`t want to overdo myself right away. Last year I experienced the scorching, sticky summer that is Japan and want to be more comfortable this time around, rather than rolling up to school drenched in my sweat and out of shape. You could water a ficus with all the sweat I would produce in one day. Plus, in April, I am climbing the Great Wall in Beijing. I hear there are a lot of stairs.

My bicycle has a punctured tire still and I haven`t ridden it in a while. I will take care of it eventually but getting it fixed requires walking it to school and then taking it to the mechanics after school to try to communicate with them. People are constantly asking about my bicycle and why I don`t ride it to school. I try to explain that walking up that hill to school isn`t easy either way so I might as well just walk. Otherwise, I am just heaving a bicycle up a hill. I am the only teacher who walks to school - even though it only takes about 10-15 minutes to get there by foot from most points in the town part of Ojika where the teachers live.

One thing that is driving me bonkers is nervous giggling. I will be trying to talk to some people and they just start giggling for no good reason. They are simply just nervous with my presence and speaking English. I know someone who can`t go a full sentence without giggling and putting her hand over her mouth. It`s super awkward because I obviously am just waiting for her to respond and she catches a serious case of the giggles.

Her: Do you (giggle, giggle) like (giggle, giggle) Ojika(giggle, giggle)?
Me: Yes, I love Ojika. Have you traveled outside Japan?
Her: I (giggle, giggle) visited (giggle, giggle) California (giggle, giggle) for three or four months (giggle, giggle).

In the junior high, the teacher has me ask the students questions and they are visibly relieved once they finish answering my questions and can sit down. I also eat lunch with the kids and I will ask them a question and they will immediately turn to someone for a translation with a deer in the headlights look. You can`t phone a friend in a conversation, kiddos. You just have to let it marinate in an uncomfortable silence.

Keep Your Rice and Nuts to Yourself

2011-02-03T14:47:00.000+09:00

So apparently today is the celebration of Setsubun in the schools on the island. At least in the elementary school. At first I was extremely confused to have students throw peanuts at me but it kinda sorta made sense after the teacher explained why. Setsubun is a Japanese tradition on the first day of spring when you throw beans or nuts at each other as a way of chasing away bad luck. Apparently people shout "get out demons!" and "come in happiness!" while throwing the beans or nuts at each other. I thought it was an interesting tradition. The kids were super excited to get to eat their peanuts at lunch, occasionally stealing some from a classmate`s desk. In my opinion, the pilfering of peanuts completely negated the good luck they were supposed to instill.

Image from: http://madsilence.wordpress.com

I am generally against throwing small objects at people. Who knows what could happen. I remember when I was in Girl Scouts and we were learning about Juliette Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts. And in her story, at her wedding, as people were throwing rice, a grain of it got lodged in her ear and when it was removed, her ear drum was punctured and got infected. She lost hearing in that ear for the rest of her life. Now that is what could go horribly wrong. That may be the only thing I learned in Girl Scouts but let it be a warning to us all. Keep your rice and nuts to yourself.

Image from: http://www.themoralliberal.com/tag/juliette-low/

I have one student in that class who whispers everything. Everything. I have never heard this kid raise his voice above a whisper. His name actually means "quiet." I don`t understand if he`s taking his name super literally or what. But he seems to have taken a vow of making it difficult for people to hear him. Every time he talks, I have to pull my hair back and lean in. And he is always wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Seriously? Your mother can make you an intricate bento lunch with specially formed eggs, hot dogs and rice but she can`t make you wear pants to school when it`s a crisp 30 degrees outside?

Every time I go to the elementary school to teach, I eat lunch with the kids and then am assigned a class to play with at recess. I used to be such a recess person when I was little - playing four square and kickball. Now it seems more like a chore and I watch the outside clock as it slowly works its way around to 1:45. The kids just have so much energy and seven times out of ten, the game involves being chased around the playground. It can get pretty tiresome, so by the time 1:30 rolls around, I am usually hiding peacefully behind a tree or disguising myself behind a jungle gym somewhere and just letting the time run out for the last fifteen minutes.

It looks like I am officially re-contracted and I`m looking forward to my second year on the island. I turned in my paperwork the other week and I received my "tentative reappointment notification" today. So there is plenty of time still to throw peanuts at people and learn how to properly camoflauge myself with leaves, mud and other natural earth materials during recess.

Image from: http://securityitems.guidestobuy.com/paintball-ghillie-suit

Give Me a High C, This Time with Mittens

2011-02-02T14:01:00.000+09:00

First of all, I would like to offer my sincere apologies for being MIA. It has been cold and almost miserable, weather-wise. And when the sun isn`t shining, I have little desire to leave my little heater and venture out of my apartment. In fact, after school every day, I have been going home and planting myself in front of the heater while studying for the GRE. I agreed to play with the brass band in March but I`m feeling reluctant to go practice because spending two hours in a freezing band room, playing the trumpet, isn`t my definition of a good time. One should never be able to see their own breath in a classroom. And something tells me it would be difficult to play the trumpet with mittens on.

All of the teachers continue to be in charge of their extra-curriculars at the end of the work day: tennis, badminton, baseball, track and field and brass band. They stay at school often until 8 o`clock doing this but I feel like that is highly unnecessary. No one should stay at a job for a full 12 hours. You can stay for 20 hours if you want, but time isn`t always an indicator of quality work or dedication. That`s just my opinion. In Japan, people spend hours upon extra hours in their jobs in order to create a favorable impression. As an American, I guess I see more importance in showing that you can use your time wisely during the regular work day, rather than missing out on time with your family or friends in the evening or on the weekends. How can you learn how to bother the crap out of each other if you are never home!?!

I was talking to someone who said that during their first year at a job, they wouldn`t take vacation days. I asked why not and they said that it`s because it`s their first year and that it looks bad to take a vacation. When I said that Americans take their vacations because it gives them time to relax or spend time with their families, he seemed surprised. I tried to explain that often, when people are given this time to relax, it makes them better workers because they are less stressed.

Stress is such a problem in Japan when there really is no need for it. People work extremely hard - even more than many Americans. But at what cost? There is a lot of pressure to succeed, less family bonding, and a higher rate of suicide. Japanese people, like Americans, have so much to be thankful for. They have jobs, their physical health and a comfortable lifestyle. But in terms of happiness, they seem far less happy than people I knew in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Related to stress is this website, entitled "The 25 Most Ridiculous Stress Relief Products." I don`t doubt for a second that people actually use these.

But there are obviously many good things about Japan as well. A good point is that I am working in the junior high more now. I really enjoy going there. My students are all so respectful and enjoy having fun (I can`t generalize on that because according to other teachers, the island kids are totally different than mainland kids). The junior high students are at that perfect in-between stage where they aren`t super immature children but not bored and jaded high schoolers. They are always happy to see me and excited when I sit down to have lunch with them at school. I had a lesson with them yesterday and we played a game at the end where they were up and moving around. I talked to the home ec teacher later and she said she taught them after me and she asked them "why are you so happy?" and they said "because of English." Awww. I also like teaching with the junior high teacher. He is a good teacher and you can tell the students are comfortable around him. I also appreciate the fact that he uses the phrase "that sucks."

We are doing this thing during class where I ask them questions and they have to figure out what I`m asking. It puts each student on the spot. Some of them freeze, nervous to be spoken to by a foreigner, but some of them thrive under the pressure. One student who is going to be in high school next year is amazing at his English. And extremely formal. He bows after giving every response. I feel like I should curtsy or something to level the playing field.

In other news, my parents and my sister are coming to Japan next month! (Side note: shout out to my sister who will be taking the bar exam toward the end of February and will be in desperate need of a vacation. She just graduated from William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul and I`m so proud of her for all her hard work!) First, I will show them Ojika and then we will head back to the mainland to visit Hiroshima (to see the atomic bomb memorial) and Kyoto (for cherry blossom viewing and the traditional fanfare). It should be a good time and I look forward to seeing my family after what will be eight months apart. My parents are staying for a week and then my sister and I are traveling to Beijing for an extra week. I am super excited to see the Great Wall and Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City. It is obvious that I cherish my days off and will happily use them all. Carpe diem, people.

I spoke with my mom and she told me all the Japanese she is learning. Apparently her and my dad have been practicing eating food with chopsticks. So far, that list of food includes scrambled eggs and tuna helper. Oh, if only the dogs had opposable thumbs to take a picture of that for me.

A Messy Return

2011-01-05T21:46:00.000+09:00

I'm back in Ojika after a week in South Korea and I had a blast. I spent about five days in Seoul and about a day and a half in Busan. In Seoul, I traveled with a friend from here and her sister, who is a teacher in South Korea. We did a lot of eating, shopping, eating, walking, eating, sightseeing and eating. Turns out, Seoul has a lot of foreign food and Korean food itself is delicious, so I was in heaven because I had grown tired of the same old grub I make every day on the island. In Seoul, I ate this really cold North Korean dish (I guess that's how the North Koreans do their food) and a lot of Subway sandwiches. Busan was where I got to try Korean barbecue (the Japanese have something similar where you can grill your meat at the table) and bibimbap. Bibimbap is a layer of rice and then topped with separated portions of vegetables, maybe some meat and an egg. You then mix it all together with this paste and eat it straight up. It was so good that I had to replicate it when I got home. Of course, mine kind of ended up looking like dog food but it was still good.

Travel in South Korea was incredibly easy. I know I am making a broad generalization here but people in Seoul speak English quite well. I was impressed. I know that outside of the capital is probably a different story, but still. I took a train to and from Busan and I had no problems with my flights to and from Seoul back to Japan. Although transportation in Korea was pretty flawless, it was great to return to Japan, where I understand more of the language. When necessary, I can make myself understood. However, it was when I returned to Japan that I hit a rough patch. From Fukuoka (the closest Japanese city to Korea), I had to take an evening express train at 9:30. There was a family sitting in front of me and about 30 minutes into the train ride, their 12-year old daughter voms on the train. She must have shown no warning signs because it was definitely not an organized sickness, with a plastic bag or some kind of receptacle. This was one of those where the mother is on her hands and knees, trying to scrub the mess with napkins and paper towels while the father looks on. They ended up just moving the family to different seats - unlike the rest of us trapped in the car. I kept praying that my iPod battery wouldn`t die so that I wouldn`t have to sit in silence with the smell. There was also a crazy lady to my right who kept doing a bunch of strange things with her hands and I couldn`t help but think of the Canadian greyhound bus where one passenger murdered and dismembered another random passenger. I scooted over in my seat and created a cereal-box buffer wall with my backpack.

After I arrived in Sasebo city with my life and body parts intact, I stayed at a hotel and woke up in the morning to catch the ferry back to the island. New Years is huge in Japan. It`s their Christmas. Everyone and their brother were trying to go to the islands to return home or to visit their family so the ferry was packed to capacity. Once you sat down, you couldn`t change your position because it was too crowded. There were people sitting in the halls and luggage was in the walkways. Organized chaos. Apparently, that ferry was going to Ojika come hell or high water because the ferry trip included both of those. I have never been on a ship that rocked so much in my life. I was leaning against my bag and the ship was lurching so much from the high waves that my body and stomach kept involuntarily rolling over. Among the passengers, you have several who don`t usually ride ferries since they live on the mainland. So, just an hour into the trip, a guy starts making continuous trips to the bathroom to throw up loudly, in the bathroom sink. Now, I`m no vomit expert, but I have seen a few people throwing up in bathrooms in Japan so far and I have seen none of them go to throw up in toilets - only in sinks. That seems highly unsanitary to me for a nation that insists on having a different pair of shoes for everything to maintain cleanliness. It also makes me want to carry a miniature bottle of Windex and paper towels with me whenever I use a public sink. I was overjoyed when we docked in Ojika and I had to fight the urge to elbow the elderly and children out of my way to get off the ferry first. As I stepped off the ferry, that was the first time I had ever seen it snowing/hailing in Ojika. The ground was white! I was so annoyed and felt so nauseous that I couldn`t appreciate the snow/hail, since I had to trudge uphill from the ferry terminal to my apartment with all my luggage strapped to my back.

Okay, like everyone else, I am going to make a breakable New Years resolution. My resolution for 2011 is to learn more Japanese. I'm terrible and it`s a reachable goal. I have been picking up more and more phrases that people say, so that has to be some kind of a sign. It's not an easy language to learn. You run into other foreign English teachers who studied abroad in Japan, studied Japanese in college and speak it well and they talk about how important it is to learn the language. I agree. I don't walk up to everyone and get upset when they can't understand my poor Japanese (although I have had a couple of frustrating encounters where I just had to walk away). But I also envy the structure in which these other English teachers learned the language. I'm doing this on my own, with help from a few friends along the way. Also, my goal for January is to not eat any chocolate. I`m just doing that to test my willpower. I`m on my 6th day and having serious withdrawal symptoms. Someone get this girl a Snickers.

A South Korean Christmas

2010-12-20T22:00:00.000+09:00

Merry Christmas everyone! I thought I would write a preemptive blog, since I will be traveling for the holiday. Tomorrow, I am heading to Fukuoka, the biggest city in Kyushu (the southern most island of Japan's four), and then Wednesday evening, I fly to Seoul with a friend who is a teacher in Nagasaki City. So, a South Korean Christmas it is. I can't wait, despite North Korea's threats. I will be in South Korea for a week, hitting up the Seoul area for 5 days and then 2 days in Busan. Two of my friends from Peace Corps Mozambique live around the Seoul area and I am beyond excited to see a couple of familiar faces at Christmas. Our Peace Corps group of about 64 people is a pretty tight-knit group and there is a planned New Years party in Florida that I will obviously be unable to attend, so it will be great to connect with a couple and have our own mini, Asian version of a reunion. After Seoul, I will travel by train to Busan to visit with a friend from high school. She and I have taken similar post-university paths. She did Peace Corps Morocco and is now a teacher in Busan. She has a great blog and you can check it out at http://rawsquid.blogspot.com.

The worst part about a trip is planning for the trip and packing. I am trying to pack like Japanese people do. If you are on a ferry or any other public transportation, you look around and wonder where everyone's luggage is. But a handbag is usually all they need. I am going to be walking around one of Japan's biggest cities for a few hours so I would rather not be wheeling a gigantic Sampsonite suitcase behind me and knocking things over. It's way too bull in a china shop for my liking. Tonight is like the season finale of American idol in my apartment - which articles of clothing has what it takes to make the cut. I also gave my fish (Chikamaru-kun) to a friend to fishsit while I am gone. In order to do so, I had carry my fish tank through the streets of Ojika to her shop. That was no easy feat, seeing as it was all downhill on uneven cobblestone streets. I had to dump out about a third of the water in his/her tank while I was walking (on purpose and not). Chikamaru-kun, you are going on a diet when I get home. I am pretty sure that seven people now think I'm crazy. Like the lady riding her moped who called out "What is it? A goldfish" over traffic. Always excited to understand anything anyone says, I shouted "HAI!" back with fish water dripping from my sweatshirt cuffs.

I did my Christmas lesson as a baking party for three of my high school classes. We made chocolate chip cookies and it was by far, one of my most enjoyable/hectic classes thus far. I wanted to make it fail-proof so I prepped, labeled and pre-measured all of the ingredients, besides handing them each a recipe in English. It basically went like this: "OKAY! (shouting) BUTTER, SUGAR, BROWN SUGAR! (dumping motion with my hands) MIX MIX MIX!" It got the point across and there were zero burned cookies. All the kids sat on the floor to watch the cookies bake and they got to divide them up and keep a plateful to take home. I even decorated the home ec room where we baked in a Christmas winter wonderland theme. Snowflakes on the windows and cool table settings. Sandra Lee from Semi-Homemade on the Food Network would have been proud.

I have noticed that the kids love it when I blaspheme. I almost burned myself on a cookie sheet and said "Jesus!" and the kids burst out laughing. "Erin-sensei, what is Jesus?" I just shrugged and brushed off the deep question that most Christians spend their lives trying to figure out. It's like "Oh no!" Around Halloween, the senior boys made a haunted house and they told me to go through a tunnel on a test run and then proceeded to drop a swinging decapitated head and I yelled "Oh my god!" and all of the undead in the haunted house were laughing. I know my mother is frowning at this paragraph. Sorry, Mom. It just slips out.

I did what felt like about a billion Christmas parties in the elementary school. And nothing says Christmas like a forced Christmas card to the teacher. The entire 4th grade class presented me with colored Christmas cards. I was pretty impressed by some. The kids had written to me in Romaji, which I appreciated. Romaji is the romanization of Japanese characters - so it's all spelled out, rather than written in characters. A few were unenthusiastic, run-of-the-mill Santas but the rest were pretty vibrant, complete with an extra portrait of myself wearing a Santa hat or of anime or cartoons. I passed out candy later and the ones who drew me skinny got the best flavor.

Christmas is never easy away from my family but it's not as sad when I have friends to celebrate with. I hope that wherever you are in this crazy world, you have a wonderful Christmas!

Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman

2010-12-09T22:57:00.000+09:00

The other day I went to the post office to mail Christmas presents to my family. I thought it would be a fairly simple transaction but I made the mistake of asking the question of what the price and delivery time differences were between express and regular. And by question, I mean, one word at a time in Japanese with a vocal question mark. “Price?” (making the money sign, rubbing my fingers together – still not entirely sure if that’s a legitimate hand gesture in Japan) “How long?” (pointing at my wrist like a watch). Sometimes my life just seems like a giant game of charades. But my questions sent the post office into a frenzy. The clerk hurried around, looking for a book and uttering “America, America, America” like a crazy. Another came to the cash register and spent about 10 minutes trying to find it in the system. And another clerk came over to serve as a spectator and to occasionally gesture back at me. It was like we were battling; a gesture-off, if you will. It all eventually worked out.

Then just the other day, I received a notice in the mail from my internet company. Of course, it’s all in Japanese. So I took it to school and my wonderful co-worker told me that it was a bill and that I hadn’t paid my internet in the last two months and the deadline is tomorrow. You can imagine my horror at the possibility of having my internet cut off. I have also always been one of those people who is careful about paying bills on time. My co-worker explained to me how to pay the bill at the post office. You can do so much at the post offices and convenience stores here, just at their ATMs. I took the bill to the post office and put on my lost puppy face and a friendly clerk helped show me how to pay bills through the ATM. It’s magical. You just slide the bill in and there is a barcode that gets scanned and you insert your cash. Voila, paid. I was relieved to take care of that and I am sure the post office workers were relieved to learn that I wasn’t there to send any more packages.

My next hurdle is figuring out the hours at the post office. There are few things I hate more than receiving an “undeliverable package” notice (i.e., I wasn’t home to receive it) and spending the evening knowing that something wonderful from home is only a block away and I have to wait until the next day to receive it. But anyways, apparently you can’t pay for more than one bill at a time (?) at the ATM and have to pay more in the actual post office. And when I wanted to do that, they said that the post office doesn’t do bill transactions after 4, yet they are open until 5. I had a Mozambique moment where I felt exasperated by the whole system. I had so many tantrums/meltdowns at the bank in Monapo. I hate things that don’t make sense. And the clerk just laughed nervously as he explained it and then slowly stepped away while facing me, like I was a Grizzly bear he didn’t want to agitate. So I had to walk there today during my 45 minute lunch to do so. It takes 15 minutes to walk there from school so the whole thing ate up half an hour. Then I had to shove my lunch down and go to class. Needless to say, it was exhausting. Especially since there were hills involved with the walking.

I am teaching three classes of 10th graders this week and they are a lot of fun. There are 27 of them and it’s an oral communications class. Oral communications class = just have fun. I am totally down with that. Today we played the Lifeboat game, where you pretend like everyone has to get on a “lifeboat.” When I would shout “five people in a lifeboat!” students had to find four other people to link arms with to make their lifeboat. Whoever didn’t find four other people, died a terrible death and was out of the game. It got pretty rowdy with shouting and flailing on the floor. It was funny because the boys and the girls refuse to create lifeboats together until absolutely necessary. People were grabbing each other and trying to force them onto their lifeboat. Tomorrow, we are playing the “mustache game.” I made mustaches out of colorful origami paper and wrote the names of famous people or cartoons on them. Each student, without seeing the name of the person or cartoon, has their mustache taped on and has to ask everyone questions to find out who they are. It should be pretty ridiculous. Can’t wait. I did a similar game with the 11th graders and one student had a really hard time guessing Beyonce. My co-worker even sang part of a Beyonce song to him (complete with jazz hands) and he still couldn’t figure it out. Once he finally did, I ordered him to look her up on youtube. It’s always a sad day when someone doesn’t know who she is.

My adult English classes are going great. I have two groups: beginners and advanced. It’s fun sometimes to just sit there and chat. As the “teacher,” sometimes it takes a bit to keep the conversation running. Plus, if I don’t, then they will all sit and stare at me. Sometimes I feel like a nervous date who has written talking points down so I don’t run out of them or like Sarah Palin and her hand during interviews. My English groups have great senses of humor. I asked one student, a housewife and shop owner in her 60s, “what do you say when your husband doesn’t like your cooking?” She thought about it for a moment and then turned to me. “Shut up.” She’s the same one who had to finish the sentence “I am…” and she said “I am a beautiful madam.” I gave her applause for originality and sassiness. She also brought a catalog to my house today so I could look at heaters her shop sells. Anyone who can offer relief from the cold and a small shipping and handling fee is my new best friend.

One thing that has been irking me lately has been some of the students in the elementary school and their fascination with poking me in the stomach. Now, I’m no Barbie but I don’t have a ridiculously large stomach. Some of them seem to have taken to me like their personal Pillsbury dough girl and it’s driving me up the wall. I am just generally against random people touching me (borderline mild obsessive compulsive), so when I greet a student in the hall with a wave and they walk up behind me and grab at my stomach, I start to feel a little bitter. The next time it happens, I am going to give them a serious “stop it” in Japanese. Sometimes when class begins and I am greeting the students, the teacher has me shake every kid’s hand as I ask them how they are. I’d like to keep the colds or flus to a minimum this winter season and I haven’t counted out carrying a latex glove with me each time I visit. Or maybe whipping out a bottle of Purell after each handshake would send the right message.

Everyone Could Use a Good Outburst

2010-12-06T10:00:00.000+09:00

Let`s see. What`s new? Thanksgiving was good but uneventful. I　didn`t do much. In fact, it was like any other day. I was going to　make a one-person thanksgiving dinner but then decided it was too much　work when I got home from school and just made a chicken stir-fry.　Living in Mozambique for two years kind of dulled the ache I feel for　American holidays. I do love both Thanksgiving and Christmas, but if　you aren`t reminded of family get-togethers and all the jazz that　comes along with the holidays, you tend to treat those days like any other.

In good news, I bought my ticket to fly to South Korea for Christmas.　I am planning to spend a week there, splitting my time between Seoul　and Busan. I am traveling with a friend from here and I`m hoping to　visit some Peace Corps friends and a high school classmate while I`m there. I am hoping that the whole situation with North Korea calms down beforehand. It`s really bad timing. It`s like the time in college when I was days from my trip to Italy and the pope died. True story. People flocked to Rome and it resulted in ridiculously long lines. Somehow, I think that I would be facing the opposite problem in South Korea.

School is going well. It feels like I am constantly at the elementary school - which might explain how I caught a horrible cold. It wasn’t your typical “ah-choo” cold. It was one of those long, drawn-out colds with night sweats, fever, sore throat and other unseemly issues. All those children and their germs. I wore a sars mask for the first time at school and it was pretty magical. People wear masks here when they are sick or are afraid they are going to get sick. No one could see my face. Of course, everyone asked "you have a cold?" And then they wanted to know my symptoms and told me I should go to the hospital. Japanese people, much like Mozambicans, go to the hospital for the smallest cold. So they seemed kind of shocked when I said no to their recommendation and said I didn`t need to visit the hospital. It would be a waste of time, in my opinion, when I could just self-diagnose. And it would just cause extra stress because I don`t speak Japanese well and when I am sick, I lose my ambition to mime with my hands.

In sad news, one of the tires on my bike is punctured and I have to walk everywhere. I don`t mind this so much as it gives me exercise, but it`s definitely more time-consuming. I get my cardio in on the way to the gym rather than at the gym, I suppose. Glass half full. I visited Ojika`s public gym for the first time once last week and it is actually a cute little gym. Some of the equipment is outdated and may have been proven at some point to be ineffective in the quality of exercise it offers. I half expected to see that slimming belt machine that women stood there, wearing around their hips in the 1950`s, thinking it was providing a workout with the smallest contribution of standing there on their part. But I used the weights. I do this because I am a wuss. I`m not a wuss because I lifted the weights at the gym. It`s because I could lift weights for free at the high school but there are always students and a couple of male teachers in there and women don`t lift weights in Japan. At least not on my island. I would rather not get gawked at and no one uses the public gym weight room that often. So, I am planning to go a couple times a week probably. I bought a more powerful flashlight if I have to walk home in the dark. I was pretty excited about that flashlight when I bought it at the 100 yen shop. Maybe it`s because I like to put batteries in things. It gives me a sense of accomplishment.

So I have decided that I am going to write about a couple of things that drive me bonkers. First and most importantly, there is no insulation in Japanese housing. If you want heat, you have to buy a space heater, a heated blanket, a kotatsu table (a table with a built-in heater) or start packing. I have none of those and so far, wearing a hat, socks three shirts, a pair of pants and a long dress over all of that to bed has been working for me. But it will get colder so I imagine I will have to break down eventually and buy a space heater that I will become paranoid about whether I turned it off or not once I am school. It`s like my bad relationship with curling irons in high school. I probably put several miles on my old Dodge Shadow turning around to run home quick before school to make sure I had unplugged the curling iron – a paranoia that eventually expanded to the toaster and oven burners. One might have called it mild obsessive compulsive. But it`s not like I had to switch the light on and off an even amount of times before leaving the house.

Next, formality. I know. I know. I am not really that surprised by how formal everyone is in Japan, especially after coming from Moz and having to call everyone “o excellisimo senhor director, etc., etc.” But people in Moz were also far more blunt. If they didn’t like something, they would tell you. In the states, we obviously don’t have a problem with expressing our opinions either. But in Japan, what is said always errs on the side of politeness rather than the truth. In some ways this is good because people avoid confrontation and angry outbursts. But I am of the opinion that confrontation and outbursts are sometimes exactly what the doctor ordered. Who hasn`t screamed into a pillow at least once in their life, right?

And sometimes, I realize that I should put my foot in my mouth after the matter. For example, I have learned not to ask people if they went on a vacation. I asked a person this after being gone for several days and it was extremely awkward. To me, as an American, going on a vacation is great and everyone should use their vacation time to travel, have some much-needed fun and relax a couple times a year. Asking about how a trip went is just a polite courtesy. In Japan, there is this inclination to always appear busy and to work yourself into the ground. People will often spend 14 hour days at the office and this seriously impacts their family relationships and home lives. Much of the time, it is men working the long hours, leaving women to be the main caretakers of the children. I have been reading articles on Japanese society and the effects of such long days at the office. People are marrying and having fewer children at an older age. Some people can`t cope with the demanding work and withdraw from society to become “hikikomori” or people who don`t leave their homes and isolate themselves from society. And many younger people, referred to as “parasite singles,” live with their parents into their late 20`s or early 30`s because it is just easier and more comfortable. In my opinion, a healthier balance needs to be found between work and home.

Next, I still get flustered whenever people stare. I grew used to it while I was in the Peace Corps but it still can get bothersome. I always walk up a hill to school and there is always a group of guys standing outside in front of what appears to be a burning barrel, having a morning meeting before they all get in their trucks to go fishing or whatever their profession is. They always see me coming up the road and then stare when I am not that far from them. I guess I could say that innocent curiosity is fine when a person stares but when you have seen me before and realize that I probably won`t be gnashing my teeth and speaking in tongues anytime soon, it becomes rude to stare and it makes me fight the urge to go all Portuguese Erin on them.

One thing I have noticed with languages is that I am a totally different person in each. In Japanese, I am far more reserved and quiet because I can`t speak or understand the language that well yet. Portuguese Erin is a totally different story. She`s kind of a Sasha Fierce. This was the Erin that wouldn’t think twice about insulting someone if they were being rude. I never realized how aggressive I was until my sister came to visit me in Moz and a guy was being rude near the market and I made fun of his stutter right to his face. It just came out and I don`t know where it comes from. All I remember was my sister pausing and saying “did you just make fun of that man`s stutter?” I think that may be my survival of the fittest language. English is my normal self – a reasonable portion of everything. And I can crack jokes. I miss having someone around who has a similar sense of humor and finds the funny in the same things I do. I am definitely excited for my family to come visit in the spring.

Christmas is in a few weeks! My only decoration is a red and green tablecloth that some other ALT left behind in Ojika. I don`t really see a point in making or buying a bunch of decorations if the only person who is there to appreciate it is me. I am just fine with keeping the decorations at a minimum and randomly listening to the five Christmas songs I have on my iPod. I might make Christmas cookies. Key word there is might. A lot of these kids have grown up with ALTs telling them about Christmas, so I think that shoving it down their throats anymore would be tiresome. I will try to do some kind of activity or game with them at school. Last week, I had 4th, 5th and 6th grade and we all played Christmas bingo. Tomorrow, I have 1st, 2nd and 3rd and take one guess as to what game the Japanese teachers want us to play. I curse the invention of the game.

Sewing Machine Snatching, Wannabe Rapping

2010-11-01T23:00:00.000+09:00

The school festival was a lot of fun, but a long day. We started at 8:45 and finished around 5 pm. The kids put a lot of work into the festival though and I was impressed. All the grades made videos that were funny and creative. The tenth graders (everyone calls them the “first graders” – which makes me laugh every time. Kind of like how an elementary school teacher writes “crap your hands” instead of “clap your hands” on lesson plans) made a video where the boys impersonated the male teachers at the high school. They were spot on! The female teachers must be either off-limits for mockery or lack mock-able qualities. The students also sang, gave speeches, played in rock bands, made udon (noodles) and created games and activities.

Each classroom made a theme for their room. There was the flea market, the haunted house, an art room, a giant board game and a “soda-can castle.” I think the “first graders” just walked around in Halloween hats and black clothes to sell soda and have people play “paper, scissors, rock” for candy. Once again, paper, scissors, rock reigns supreme in Japan. I have paper, scissors, rock tournaments with the second graders and it gets pretty crazy. Anyways, they had to take the can castle down at the end of the day and they filled up the entire back of a pick-up truck. The haunted house was super messy as well, filling up bags and bags of straw and cardboard. But it was a hit. There was a line up and down the hall, waiting to enter. While eating my lunch in the parking lot, I could hear screams coming from the third floor. About 20 students played in the rock bands. The last rock band to play was by the senior boys and after one of the songs, a singer made an announcement, addressing another student who was emotional because he couldn’t play with the band because he had to study for the college entrance exam, saying “pass the exam and then we will play in the band together.” If that’s not adorable, I don’t know what is.

After the festival, the teachers had an enkai at a local restaurant. The lady who owns the restaurant gave me a persimmon to eat at the beginning of the week when I ate there with a co-worker and I pretended to like it so as not to offend her. Well, now she thinks I love persimmons and gave me another one. I am going to have to figure out a way to smuggle it into my purse in the future. After the enkai, we went to karaoke, where I sang a couple of songs to be a dork, one of them being "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. After I finished, the school nurse told me "Erin, you are good at rapping!" The words Spice Girls and rapping really should never belong in the same sentence.

Speaking of adorable, the Halloween parade with the pre-school kids was just that. There was a Winnie the Pooh, a dinosaur, several princesses, pumpkins and random Halloween garb. It was incredible. I think this island understands the concept of Halloween and the organizer told me that it’s getting bigger and bigger every year. There were probably about 25 kids there with their parents and we walked down the main street and the shop owners came out and handed out candy. The kids couldn’t even fit all their candy in their bags. I should tell them about using pillowcases for next year. A guy walked beside the kids with a stereo on a cart playing songs like “It’s a Small World After All” and the Mickey Mouse song. So, Ojika amazes and astounds once again.

A sore point with me the past couple days has been finding out through a student in the town where I was a volunteer in Mozambique that the two sewing machines I managed to get for my girls group were stolen from a volunteer’s home. I cried when I heard that. It makes me so sad and angry to know how some people are stunting the development of that beautiful country for personal gain. The thieves had to have known that the machines were used for girls to learn how to sew. I put hours and hours of work into writing a grant, obtaining the materials and planning for the group to learn how to sew on those machines. But it’s not my own effort that bothers me so much as the fact that a successful, unified group that once had 14 members has been reduced to two. The girls were a tight group and could chat and have their own space and time to just be girls and have fun. Now, that has fallen apart. Something I have learned is that you can give people knowledge and resources, but you can’t guide them the whole way. They have to have the motivation and courage, despite obstacles, to keep creating that path that separates them from poverty - the whole leading the horse to water concept. I can only hope they gained something from the time we spent together.

Give me your finest bowl cut.

2010-10-29T09:19:00.001+09:00

The school festival is on Sunday. I am still not entirely sure what that entails. I know that students sing and perform, prepare skits and decorate their classrooms, there is a flea market, we eat noodles, and there is a big teacher enkai that night. The brass band has been practicing every day after school and I have been going. I still just pretend to play half the time. The one trumpet player is very serious about her role in the band and I feel like she is judging me whenever I don`t hit a note. I saw her getting reamed out by a teacher in the teacher`s room because she failed an exam. Apparently, there are serious consequences to failing an exam as a band member - i.e. your practice time is cut down because you are forced to study more. It was strange to me to be in the same room as a teacher yelling at a crying student. Like I was witnessing an emotional flogging.

But anyway, we are going to play five songs. The first song begins with all the brass band members in their seats in the audience and then standing up and playing their way to the front. I don`t play during that song so I will just stand there like an awkward panda. One song involves wearing anime masks and another song involves standing up and dancing. I am really only going to seriously play two of the songs. Otherwise, I am totally pretending and they are okay with that. There are about 12 members in the band but they make a pretty powerful noise. They are pretty accomplished musicians because that is their sport and hobby. Many of the students even play two instruments to make up for the lack of members in the band. The seniors in the band who aren`t going to college technically "retired" after the first trimester, so they don`t normally play with the band anymore, but they are allowed during the school festival.

I`m impressed because one of the boys in the senior class of students not going to university is going to hair design school. He plays in the band and I made a point of asking him about it and it turns out, his English is pretty good. The students are constantly surprising the Japanese English teachers when I ask them a question and they understand and respond without a problem. I told him that he has nice hair and he said "you too!" and then I said that he should cut my hair one day and he said "yes!" I only trust hair stylists with nice hair and he has the most stylish hair out of all the students, even the girls. I am getting nervous because I do need to get my hair trimmed eventually and I`m scared of the language barrier. Because maybe "please use scissors" will be mistakenly translated to "razor blade." "A light trim" to "give me your finest bowl cut."

But anyways, the seniors who are studying to take the university entrance exams don`t get to participate too much in the festival. It`s kind of sad because they are still teenagers but all they do is study. One student speaks amazing English, but she is very timid and too modest. If you compliment a lot of Japanese people, they will often say "oh no, no, no!" Good god, just accept my compliment! She was watching a video of herself speaking English and she was literally rocking back and forth in what looked like physical pain because she was embarassed to be watching herself on the television. She went to the elementary school yesterday and we taught the second grade students movements together, like jump, clap, nod, turn... We then played a game of Simon Says and teaching with her made me realize just how loud I am and how loud and outgoing you have to be in order to teach elementary school students. Maybe that`s why I am exhausted after three classes in the elementary school. I have no problem yelling/borderline screaming "okay! are you ready! simon says jump!..." When I handed the reins over to the high school student, her voice was so timid that I could barely hear her over the dull roar of the second graders. You could see all the second graders leaning forward to be able to hear her. Super cute.

I played badminton last night with an english and biology teacher in a tournament. There are about 15 badminton teams of three players each. Most of the teams consist of men but there are a few teams with women on them from the junior and senior highs. We won all three games. I would like to say that it was because we are good but it is really because the biology teacher is amazing. He is the head coach for the girls badminton team and he has been the coordinator for the prefectural high school badminton championships. This guy is like lightning on that court. You think he won`t make the shot but you are wrong about 90% of the time. It amazes me that someone can have that fast of reflexes. So the games mostly consist of me and the other English teacher hitting what we can and then just getting the hell out of the way to let him take care of the rest. I hear that he is the best badminton player on the island and there is an expectation that we will win. Maybe us English teachers were meant to be his handicap to bring him down to the level of fellow islanders. If so, I am okay with that. We have our last games tonight and then we are going out for dinner and drinks.

It is fun to see all the islanders get together for events though. There was the island sports festival, where all the neighborhoods competed against each other for beer. There are buddhist festivals. And there are small sports tournaments, like softball and badminton. It`s a pretty united little island, with events and celebrations all the time. And the teachers usually participate and have such a good vibe together. I am pretty lucky to be at this school because everyone likes each other and there are always teacher parties. I`m averaging about one dinner or party every week - which is great because that is how you get to know your co-workers and learn some Japanese. There are some ALTs (assistant language teachers) who have upwards of seven or eight schools to visit so they never really get to know their teachers and co-workers at their base schools because they aren`t there very often.

When we first got to Japan, we were fed the typical culture shock graph. We got the same thing when I studied abroad in Ireland and when I entered the Peace Corps. When you first get here, you are supposed to go through a "honeymoon" period, where everything is new and fresh and you love it. Then you are supposed to enter a stage where you absolutely hate it and are frustrated. And then you start to adjust and "integrate." I feel like I have gone from honeymoon straight into adjustment. Maybe after Mozambique, I see nothing to hate. Sure, there are some frustrating aspects of life but there are no overwhelming hardships that feel impossible to overcome. I definitely went through a bitter, annoyed period in Mozambique, but life was more stressful and it was my first time having a job in a foreign, underdeveloped country. I find myself comparing Japan to Mozambique and I need to stop because they are both so different and awesome in their own ways. It`s strange because I find myself comparing Mozambique with Japan more than I compare the U.S. with Japan. If I get frustrated now, I usually just go home, make dinner and watch Weeds or Dexter.

All right, I need to get some work and studying done. By study, I mean studying Japanese characters and phrases. I have managed to memorize all of the katakana symbols! That`s exciting. I have stayed fairly disciplined, studying by myself. Once in a while, I have a question and another English teacher helps me. I can now write my name in Katakana! Now I just have to memorize hiragana and about a billion Kanji symbols. One step at a time though. I was super excited on Tuesday because I recognized "Africa" in Katakana. A-fu-ri-ka! What a fitting first word!

Okay, I need to pick up the feathers from my orange and black boas from my elementary school Halloween parties off my desk and floor space. It looks like backstage in Vegas up in here. Everyone have a happy and safe Halloween! I won`t be wearing a costume but as usual, I will be enkai-ing it up that night. Kanpai to Halloween!

Kickball - Not for the Weak of Heart or Skills

2010-10-25T09:30:00.000+09:00

This is where I try to make up for being a horrible blogger over the past month.

I went to Sasebo this weekend for the Yosakoi dance festival. It`s this festival where dance groups come from all over the country to participate and dance in the streets. Step Up 4: Yosakoi. It was pretty neat. The groups can get pretty large. I saw one that probably had about 100 people in it. But there were also smaller groups as well. They dress up in costumes and face paint and crazy hair and dance the crap out of music. It was a lot of fun to watch and I will make sure to post some pictures on here soon. I shot a few videos too. They had so much energy when they danced. It was like a far better version of the DisneyWorld block party.

I also did some shopping. You know you are getting older when you get excited about buying new curtains. The old curtains I had were an ugly yellow and I was always paranoid that you could see through them at night when I had the light on and was getting changed. So I sprang for the black curtains that were on sale. Thankfully, they fit my window. I never measured and just winged it, based on my own height. They make my living room really dark but they look a lot nicer. The yellow ones are already in the trash. Good riddance. And speaking of curtains, I was sitting at my computer in my living room the other night and a cat started to walk through my balcony doors and into my living room. I freaked out and hissed at it. I am not sure if that was the appropriate response but it did the trick and ran off. The last thing I need is a cat traipsing through my living room when I am allergic.

I also bought a lot, and I mean a lot, of Halloween stuff in the city. In Japan, they have these 100 yen shops - where amazingly, everything in the shop costs 100 yen. It`s like the dollar store. But I guess with the exchange rate, you could call these $1.20 stores. But you can get anything at these shops. There are cleaning supplies, food, tupperware...yadda yadda yadda. There is one 100 yen shop that`s my favorite. It has TWO floors to it. I still don`t know exactly what I am going to do with everything I bought at the store. I don`t really have a set plan for a Halloween celebration.

October 31st is not only Halloween but also my school`s school festival - which means I have to be on the island on Sunday. There is a Halloween party on the 30th on the mainland with other ALTs (assistant language teachers) but I won`t be able to go because of the ferry schedule. It`s kind of a bummer but there is also an enkai (party) for the teachers that night so that should be fun. I am considering making candy bags for everyone in the spirit of Halloween. As for the students, I am not sure what`s going to happen. I might just give out candy. We`ll see what happens. I would like to see what kind of costumes they can come up with.

On Thursday and Friday this week, I agreed to play badmitton with the teachers for a couple of games. I haven`t played badmitton since I was little and played barefoot against my sister and parents in the yard. I wouldn`t call these games a league because it`s only for two days and I wouldn`t call it a tournament because I doubt anyone cares that much. But I was put on a team with the badmitton coach (who is REALLY good at badmitton) and the other female English teacher. I like that he paired me with her because she and I are friends and crack jokes and she has been super helpful at explaining and translating things when necessary. She said she can`t hit the birdie. I think he may regret putting the two of us with him on a team.

That same English teacher will also be going with me to the Nagasaki city mid-year conference in a couple of weeks. That should be fun. I am going out to dinner with her one night and another night with an ALT I know in the city. I am looking forward to going to Nagasaki again. It`s a nice city and this time, I want to hit up the peace park memorial for the atomic bomb. Plus, there is a supermarket that sells Peter Pan crunchy peanut butter! It`s kind of sad that I`m excited about that peanut butter but the quality is much better than this brand with Snoopy on the jar, that I`m fairly certain is some form of copyright infringement, here on the island.

I got to witness a Mariah Carey-like diva meltdown by fourth graders while playing kickball. There is this one student who insists on being loud and obnoxious. I would ask a question in class and he literally would shoot his hand in the air and yell "me! me! me! me!" And he always shouts. He never just talks. Well, I was on his team for kickball and we were getting schooled and he went off the deep-end. He was yelling at his teammates, stomping his feet and I think I saw tears. This was recess kickball, mind you. Another student gets frustrated and upset easily and the obnoxious kid was yelling at him, resulting in two total meltdowns. He stood there with his head down, tears in his eyes, body tense and his fists balled. These kids need to take a chill pill and relax when it comes to recess leisure sports. I will refuse to play dodgeball with the fourth graders if ever invited.

The second graders, on the other hand, are super chill and really enjoy playing rolling dodgeball. It was super easy with one ball but two balls gets trickier. I totally let myself get hit so I could just go stand on the outside of the circle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I`m lazy. The second graders kept poking me and I made the mistake of pretending to chase them. At one point, my arm was bright red because a kid had been trying to give me a snake bite and was pinching me. Someone has some anger issues. It`s always the boys having the meltdowns here. The girls are content to run around the school yard, play on the jungle gym and ride unicycles all over the place.

Please fight.

2010-10-23T00:39:00.000+09:00

Sumimasen! I have been MIA for over a month now. Life just got crazier. Between schools, lesson planning, extracurricular activities and my adult English language group, my dance card fills up quickly!

I can’t believe how much easier lesson planning is when you have the internet. You want to figure out how to teach past perfect? Google it and you can come up with a million different games. And it helps that I have a general idea of what kids like to do because of the games I played in Mozambique. In the high school, I teach the first year students (the sophomores) and the two classes of second and third year students who aren’t planning on going to universities. 16 of the kids in my senior class are going straight into jobs, 2 are going to hair stylist school (is that what you call it?) and 2 more are going to art design and mechanic school. So while their focus is still on learning English and doing well, it is a less stressful atmosphere because the teacher doesn’t have to worry so much about teaching to the college entrance exam. Those kids study more than normal people work anyways. The seniors going to college get to school at 7:30 and study until 7:00 pm. And then when they get home, they probably study some more. It amazes me.

My seniors class consists of mostly boys. 19 boys and 1 girl to be exact. They seem to get restless just sitting in their desks and studying grammar so a teacher and I took them outside on Monday to practice directions. I had them pair up and blindfold each other and lead each other around the school grounds. It was highly entertaining. The person who wasn’t blindfolded had to use only English to guide their partner around without them crashing into walls or tripping downstairs. Admittedly, there were a few boys who found great pleasure in ramming their partner into another blindfolded student or a wall, but overall, their ability to avoid an accident would make OSHA proud. I admit that I was kind of nervous on the stairs – so I walked in front of them. Then I had them do the human knot using only English. It’s where you stand in a circle and grab hands with someone who is not next to you. You then have to untangle yourselves back into a circle formation while still holding hands. You never realize how immature 18-year olds are until you are surrounded by them for 50 minutes three times a week. I have seen them punch each other in inappropriate places. Slap each other. I have seen them spit water on each other. I have seen one boy walk up behind another boy and lick his neck. Strange island children.

In my class of juniors, I had the students make nametags so I could remember their names easier. Well, thankfully the Japanese English teacher was there because they were making nametags that were not their names and she stopped them. One called himself “monkey” and another “eyebrow,” all written in Japanese romaji. Romaji is Japanese words spelled out with the English alphabet. It would have been supremely embarrassing to have the students come to the teachers room to talk to me and have me call them monkey or eyebrow in front of all the Japanese teachers. They drew pictures of themselves that were supremely unflattering too. The one who calls himself a monkey drew a picture of a monkey and the other student drew comically large eyebrows and buck-teeth. But hey, they are making themselves memorable. It is never really a dull day with the high school students. I might just be serving as a human tape recorder sometimes, reading and repeating a sentence for the students to listen to and correcting the grammar, but the kids are spunky.

I went to teach at the elementary school on Tuesday and the first grade teacher forgot that they had English so I went to their class to get them and walked into the room from the back door. The kids all turned around, saw me and started screaming “erin-sensei!” and they all stood up and ran to get their nametags. Now that would melt even the coldest heart. The first graders are my favorite. They are so happy all the time. I see them on my way home from school a lot and I am always asked to push them on the merry-go-round. I have a ritual on my way home now. It’s A) stop to push the kids on the merry-go-round, B) go to the shop down the street and C) pet a neighborhood dog. There’s a dog that lives close to me that is ALWAYS chained up outside and never seems to get any exercise. It is just tied up all the time and sits and watches the playground across the street. Must be a pretty drab existence. So I make a point to pet it every time I see it. And he knows me well. Every time he sees me, his tail starts wagging fast and he dances with his front paws because he’s so excited. I have seen him howl and bark at other people but he likes me. So, I may not speak much Japanese, but dogs and children like me.

I did a Halloween party at another island school last week. There are only five students in the entire school (and I’m embarrassed to admit, but I can only remember three of the students’ names). For the Halloween party, I had them have a mummy-wrapping contest with rolls of toilet paper and bobbing for apples. The school was prepared and had them make “jack-o-lanterns” out of peppers. It worked out surprisingly well. I had never heard of that before. The students also went “trick-or-treating.” I brought them a ridiculous amount of candy and hopefully their parents don’t hate me now for probably making their children sick with sugar.

I received some books in the mail from the JET program this week to help learn Japanese and I am going to study those every day. Hopefully they make a big difference. I am trying to learn about 15 different new symbols every day. It’s very difficult to learn the Japanese symbols because they must be written a certain way and the slightest change can change the meaning of the symbol and an entire sentence or phrase. There are three different types of symbols to learn as well. I am starting with Katakana – symbols usually used to write words that aren’t originally Japanese. For example, the school uses Katakana to write my name because my name is foreign. There is Hiragana – which is the main Japanese symbol. And there is Kanji – Chinese symbols. So, Kanji is usually used for nouns, adjectives, and verbs. And Hiragana is used for sentence particles. It sounds complicated…and it is. At least it is for now, when I am learning the ropes. Until I get the hang of it, I am at least providing entertainment for my fellow teachers who walk past my desk and see me writing words that a pre-school student knows better than I do. They like to see the effort and I am excited to eventually be able to hold an intelligent conversation that isn’t just an exchange of “konnichiwa!” I have been getting a lot of encouragement from teachers. “Ganbatte!” Which means “fight!” in an encouraging way. My favorite saying in Japanese is “Ganbatte, kudasai!” Fight, please. It’s very dramatic and polite wrapped into one.

My Right Arm`s Babysitter

2010-09-17T08:50:00.000+09:00

Last night was better than expected but still not phenomenal. One of the other teachers is the head baseball coach and I was playing catch with him before the game. That, of course, caused the other team to start laughing when they saw that there was a girl playing with their opponents and that she knew how to throw a ball. And they really started laughing when they saw me start to practice pitching. I was the only woman on the team and the rest were male staff. The female teachers continued their tradition of cheering on the sidelines.

I hit and walked several batters and struck out a few. I didn`t make it all the way through the game because my arm was getting tired. It was nothing to write home about in terms of my performance but I think the teachers were impressed that I had the background of playing, what is considered in Japan, a male sport. I got to bat one time and got thrown out at first. The other female teachers did bat at the end. It is more for the fun of it though rather than being competitive. Most of the female teachers just tried to bunt because they were too scared of the ball.

My arm feels like Jello. It`s not very strong right now because the poor thing went through so much last night. I am sure my muscles would be screaming "Erin! We thought you were finished with us!" if they were capable of independent thought. I rode my bicycle home from the game last night and I had a very difficult time lifting it up the steps to my front door. My left arm has become my right arm`s babysitter. Shampooing my hair, brushing my teeth, and reaching up to the school cubby to get my inside shoes out.

The whole shoe thing in Japan still is awkward for me. Japanese people make a seamless transition from outside shoes to indoor shoes when they walk into a building. I, however, still awkwardly fumble with my indoor shoes. Slip-on flats are the best option. I rarely wear lace-up shoes to school because they are too time-consuming. A lot of teachers wear sandals at school, which I think is a brilliant idea. My clothing vanity, however, forbids me from making a great outfit look horrid with a pair of open-toed sandals and bright red socks.

This weekend will be full of small activities. One of the previous JETs on the island is coming back to visit with her husband. I also need to clean my apartment because hell hath no fury like an apartment not given the proper attention. And I will probably try and practice with the brass band. Playing the trumpet isn`t one of my favorite things to do but if I have been invited, I am not going to turn the request down. The part I look forward to the most is sleeping in. I have discovered something crazy. If you go to bed at 9 pm, you are not tired the next day. Amazing.

Knowing My Limits

2010-09-16T13:55:00.001+09:00

So I was randomly told on Tuesday that the teachers have a softball game and that I should come. I went to the game, thinking they were going to make me play. Thankfully, the sports gods smiled on me, and I found out that women don`t play softball usually. I played catch with the music teacher and even though I threw the ball softly, she screamed and turned her face away every time the ball came her way. "Not the face! Not the face!" She didn`t say that but I imagine that was what she was thinking. So the female teachers, the school nurse and I stood behind the bench and did the wave - which is hilarious, by the way. But no one else`s team had a cheer squad do the wave for them. All of the male teachers and office staff played in the field and we ended up winning against the middle school and elementary school teachers. I don`t know the score but it felt like a bloodbath because there is no fence and there were several homeruns.

After the game, we had an enkai, which is a teacher drinking and eating party. So we were at the party, sitting there getting our food and drink on, and they asked me if I know how to play softball. Me and my stupid mouth. I said yes and that our team won state in high school. And that I was the pitcher. That resulted in an immediate announcement that I will be pitching in the game on Thursday (tonight). They were like "why didn`t you tell us!?!" The gym teacher thought it was hilarious that I had sat by the female teachers the whole time. I had no reason to tell them. But I am super nervous now because I haven`t pitched in eight years. I have my limits. If I do pitch, my arm is going to feel like it is falling off tomorrow and I won`t be able to write on the chalkboard. So, I`m hoping to possibly beam a couple of batters and then be asked to go pick weeds in the outfield. I don`t mind batting, but I`m already stared at a lot in public and I could do without any extra amount of that. So yeah, I will definitely be writing about how that went after I crash and burn.

I have been practicing my Japanese. The tennis girls have been teaching me some words and phrases every day. They have me repeat words and then laugh really hard, so I think they might be having me repeat bad words or they think my pronunciation is horrible. Whatevs. I was talking to a student in Mozambique the other week on the phone and when I meant to say "sim," I said "hai." So that must mean that I`m changing languages. :) So far, I can understand about a third of what a 3-year old says. Impressive, right?

I taught the first, second and third-graders on Tuesday. And they are the most adorable creatures in the world. I ate lunch and had recess with the first graders. Two little girls came to the English room, holding hands, to get me for lunch. So cute! They all watched me eat and turned to say things to their teacher about my food and what I was eating. I kind of felt like a gorilla in the zoo, behind a wall of glass. One of the first graders is the son of one of my adult english class students. She told me that he told her he could tell that I am a foreigner because of the food I ate - but mentioned nothing about me being white or not speaking Japanese. Haha! Oh, children. The first graders were very innocent and fun. I was standing at the window in the high school, hole-punching a sheet of paper and the first-graders were walking home from school and they saw me and yelled "ERIN-SENSEI!!" and waved. They are at their cutest when it is raining and they wear rain ponchos that look like ducks.

The third graders, on the other hand, were a bunch of hellions. I have never seen the Hello Song go so horribly wrong. It was basically 18 children running around the room, yelling at each other and the boys tackling each other. And there is some random first or second grader who must have a phobia of public bathrooms because I have now seen him run outside by the window of the English room to pee outside two times. And when he is finished, he giggles loudly and runs back inside. Makes me feel like I`m in Mozambique again. And makes me think what he`s going to do once he gets to high school. I have seen a goat too! I`m not exactly sure what purpose it serves because it is tied up by a bunch of boats. At first, I thought it was a dog and almost crashed my bike when I recognized it as an entirely different and familiar species.

My Extracurricular Druthers

2010-09-11T17:38:00.000+09:00

What do I do in my spare time? A lot of ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) say that they have too much time on their hands. It seems like the opposite with me, like my dance card always gets full because I try to say yes to every invite and request. I have started teaching at the elementary school, junior high and high school all in the same week. And it involves a bit of running around. In a couple of weeks, I will go to Oshima elementary, a school on another smaller island, for lessons in the morning. There are 5 students at the school, all boys. Two in sixth grade, two in fifth grade and one in second grade. I will take a ferry over in the morning and then return to Ojika after lunch. So my school days are filled with lesson planning for every class. I also have started extracurricular activities!

I am playing tennis after school with the girls tennis team. There are about 12 girls and it’s a lot of fun. I am proud of myself because yesterday, I managed to memorize all of the girls’ names. They asked me if I like Michael Jackson and when I said that he is okay but not my favorite, there was an audible cry of disappointment. But then I asked them if they knew how to moonwalk and there was a lot of hilarious walking backward movement. Their tennis practices are just drilling by hitting back and forth. When I was in high school, we had a lot of games and certain drills to practice. Plus, we had music. It’s so quiet during their practices! And before the girls hit the ball, they need to call out “onegai-shimasu!” and afterward, “arigato gozaimashita!” – which is like greeting and thanking the other player for hitting with them. And after practice, they all line up on the court to practice bowing to the other team. It’s the most polite tennis I have ever seen. But the girls can really wail on the ball and they are impressive players. The ball is a soft tennis ball, not the hard tennis balls we play with in the states. You might compare it to a stress ball. Squishy and not as bouncy, it’s a lot different to hit so it is going to take me some time to adjust. It doesn’t bounce very high, no matter how hard you hit it – so you have to take that into account when you are returning a volley.

In Japan, you can only join one club because all the clubs tend to meet at the same time of day. Rachel from Glee would be super disappointed. At my school, there is tennis, baseball, badminton and brass band. The seniors taking the college entrance exams had to quit before summer break to focus on their studies. Boo! I told the brass band club that I would play a song with them at the end of October but I haven’t gone to a practice yet. I don’t want to hurt their feelings, but I prefer to listen to music rather than play it. So I will practice with them for this one band event, but my druthers include sports and moving around. The song involves some super high notes that I don’t think I have ever hit in my trumpet-playing career. When I was in high school, if I couldn’t hit a note, I would just pretend to play and let everyone else cover for me (the truth comes out!). The band teacher has agreed to let me play an octave lower though because I confessed my high note habit.

Thursday nights I have eikaiwa, or adult English conversation club. There are four to six dedicated adults and we play English games, practice a grammar point and practice speaking in English. I am learning quite a bit about Japan from them and one of the members is going to help me with my Japanese, which is in sore need of improvement. I really need to hunker down and set aside time every day to study. I was talking to a predecessor on Ojika and she said that a lot of people tend to think they can just “pick up” Japanese but it’s not true at all. I totally agree. So besides teaching, tennis, random band practice, eikaiwa and a social life, I need to set aside time to study. I haven’t been to the island library yet but apparently they like for the ALT to read to the kids in English. That’s on my to-do list as well. I love being busy and productive though! Life is such a far cry from what it was two months ago!

I am a fish person.

2010-09-08T14:20:00.000+09:00

So I have been a bad person and not updated for a bit. It’s a combination of being busy and not having a solid internet connection. At my apartment, I am still picking up on a weak wireless signal. If I stand on my right leg, with one arm in the air, in the corner, I can get a “low” signal, rather than a “very low” signal. I will be getting internet (supposedly) September 27th. Let’s hope that works out. Seeing as the instructions for installing the modem and internet are all in Japanese, I foresee some problems and possibly some cursing.

Let’s see, let’s see, let’s see. Since I last wrote, I have accomplished quite a bit. I have taught everything except elementary school. That’s tomorrow. I teach 1st through 6th grade. I am pretty excited about working with the young kids. I get recess again at the age of 26! I hope it’s not too hot or I will have to tell those kids to push themselves on the swings while I sit in the shade, fanning myself.

I also got a cell phone, a new bicycle and a tennis racquet! The cell phone confuses me still. It’s pretty nice. Japanese cell phones have all the bells and whistles. And if there is one thing I don’t understand, it’s technological bells and whistles. And the Japanese language. And the last episode of Lost. I am learning some words and phrases here and there but it’s a whole other ballgame in comparison to Portuguese. Still, people love it when you use Japanese and I would like to be able to communicate with my co-workers who don’t speak any English. I feel so proud when I say goodbye properly, leaving the teacher’s room every afternoon.

I have a fish! His name is Chikamaru-fish. Like the previously mentioned boy dressed up as a deer. He may not be snuggly like a dog but he sure gets excited when I feed him in the morning. I can’t read Japanese and I just assume that I am feeding him enough. Hopefully not over or under. But he has stayed alive for almost a month now, so that must mean something. I really wish I could get a dog but I don’t know how long I will be here AND I live in an apartment.

I got Chikamaru-fish at the Obon festival on Ojika. It was an impressive little festival. It’s a Buddhist celebration of ancestors and many people return to their home city or town to pray to their ancestors. The festival was put on by the shops in Ojika and there was a performance by a taiko (drumming) group and a Beatles cover band. There was even a stage production for the children that involved Chikamaru-kun and his girlfriend, Hana-chan (actual costumes!) being kidnapped by some evil guy and the power rangers coming to their rescue. I got so excited when I saw Chikamaru-kun, that I spilled my strawberry shaved ice all over my lap. I am happy to report that I wore black pants.

I think there may be mold in my apartment building. I am fine during the day, and then once I get to my apartment, my nose starts running and my eyes sometimes get itchy. So I will eventually talk to the school about the problem and see what they say. My apartment is fine otherwise. I would hate to move because my neighbors are all the female teachers and it’s great to have them there. They have been very helpful. And where else would I attribute odd noises while watching horror movies in my living room.

We had sports day on Sunday, where the junior high and senior high students split into three teams and compete in some normal and some abnormal races. They have some games that Americans would consider dangerous and cruel. They had a dizzy bat (where you spin around with your head at the top of a bat) and then the student had to finish a race. Hilarious. And a competition with the boys was holding onto a pole and climbing and shoving their way to the top of the opposing team’s pole to grab a flag. It was very entertaining, to say the least. All the students participated too. American children would have said no and asked to speak to their lawyer. At the end, all of the teams and certain groups danced too. That was my favorite part and I have videos of it that I will try and post on here after the arrival of my internet. After the sports day festivities finished, the students and teachers did the takedown in the pouring rain. The kids are so helpful and work hard. I was and am impressed.

That night, the teachers from the junior high and high school had an “enkai,” which is a teacher drinking party. There is some great food at the party. I have developed a liking for sashimi, or raw fish, with soy sauce and wasabi. If I could have that for every meal, I would. There is also tempura, which is seafood battered and fried. And there was also what can only be described as fried cheese sticks. And in the stick, they include a minty leaf that improves the cheese stick, in my humble Wisconsin-born opinion. I have ideas for when I return to visit Wisconsin and my sister and I run to Culver’s to ask for their second largest cheese curds. But enough about cheese sticks. Enkais are great. There is a lot of good food, good company (despite not being able to understand about 75% of what is going on) and a pinch of alcohol mixed in. I drank sake for the first time and my first instinct was to mix juice with it to make it taste better, which I don`t think is normal.

The Japanese teachers work really hard during the week. They are mostly in their late 20’s to mid-30’s. They get to school around 8 am and are often there until 8 pm. I have a hard time staying past five if I am sitting at my desk. I also don’t have motorized transportation, so I am not fond of the idea of peddling home in the dark. It’s not that I’m scared of people but of vehicles that might not see me. Ojika has a zero crime rate. I walk past the police station every day and they always look bored. I went and registered my information with them and I think that was the most thrilling event they had seen that week.

My bicycle has been great. I have taken it all over the island and heaved it up hills when I am panting at an embarrassing volume. It has a basket and I take my camera with me and take pictures. My new favorite thing is to visit this public park by the public gymnasium and feed the giant fish pieces of bread. I don’t know if it’s good for them, but they seem to like it and it doesn’t seem like I’m the first person to ever do it. They see you standing there and swarm to catch the bread first. It has happened. I have become a fish person. I would pet the dogs that live on my road if I thought I would get my hand back. So yeah, if those fish end up belly up in the pond, I didn’t do it.

I have taught with the high school teachers to a couple of classes. One is a shy junior class of 9 students. Today, I showed them a point card that looks like a board game. I stamp a space each time they raise their hand and participate. Once they reach the “prize” space, I give them something. I am not sure what yet. It worked well with the shy class. Hands were shooting up like popcorn. My other class I co-teach with is a senior class of 19 boys and 1 girl. I feel bad for her. She is very quiet and timid. Hopefully, me being female and everything, I can get her to speak up. But the senior boys are loud as loud can be. Every time I walk past them in the hallway, I hear “HELLLLO!!!!!” and sometimes, a salute. They are an energetic group to teach and should have no problem filling up their point cards with stamps. I am a big fan of the junior high kids too. They are very lively and interested in what I have to say. The non-jaded, if you will.

It’s amazing the difference that having the internet makes. When I was a teacher in Mozambique, I had to think of games and activities on my own, with my own ideas and my roommate’s ideas. Here, I have a lot more resources and I have the internet to help me get ideas from what has worked for other teachers in games dealing with grammar and vocab. If I am at a loss for an activity, I just jump on google and within minutes, I have an idea of the shape of the lesson’s game. I mostly play games and activities with the kids. The Japanese teachers tend to focus on the rules and the grammar and I am the “game player” and I have no problem with that. It’s like getting to play Santa Clause every day.

And no, I have not seen the pothole yet. That`s my goal for the month of September.

The Pothole - The Great Natural Miracle

2010-08-11T11:10:00.000+09:00

Island life is great thus far. Everything has gone smoothly, with the exception of several expected cases of language problems. I am in the process of waiting for my alien registration card. Without this card, I can’t get a cell phone. So I’m ready to be an alien. It should take another week and a half or so to get this and then I take a ferry to Sasebo to get a phone. It might just end up being toward the end of August anyway because I will have to go to Sasebo and then take a bus to Nagasaki for a prefectural orientation. So for now, I am just relaxing in Ojika.

All stores are closed except for one or two on Sundays. I tried to go to one of the two stores during the week but had an awkward encounter with the sliding door (i.e., it wouldn’t open) and I quickly walked away and hoped no one saw. Something tells me I won’t be frequenting that store. Or at least I will loiter by the door until someone exits or enters. A lot of things like that happen that just make me laugh to myself and probably lead people to think I’m a few crayons short of a full box. I was riding my bike home from school last week and I was going to walk up a hill and I had to get off the bike. Well, I was wearing a skirt and was trying to figure out the most ladylike way to dismount and just ended up flopping over onto some gravel. And just my luck, a guy was walking past. I just nodded and smiled at him, dusted myself off and checked for rips or blood, then started walking up the hill. Halfway up the hill, I started laughing to myself and thought that it was something my sister would have appreciated witnessing. We share a similar grace. In fact, right now she has to use crutches for two weeks because she stepped into a hole at a dog park. Hi Kara.

Anyways, school is going well. I have just been looking up different activities that I might be able to do with the students online and then putting together visual aides and stuff like that. My colleagues seem so busy that I kind of feel like a kindergartener, sitting there cutting out hearts with scissors. If my teacher’s room had a Thanksgiving meal, I would be sitting at the kid table. I figured out that I’m actually one of the youngest teachers. There is the home ec teacher who is 23 and then myself and another teacher follow at 26. Most of the teachers are 28 and up. Everyone looks so young to me though. I am and always have been a horrible judge of age.

On Monday, I gave a speech for Day of Peace. August 9th is the anniversary of the atomic bomb dropping on Nagasaki, so they have a special ceremony to talk about the importance of peace and to talk about conflicts in the world. I introduced myself and made a speech they had asked me to prepare at the wrong time. I ended up just saying the speech again, but with the PowerPoint presentation the social studies teacher had made. The island loudspeakers rang at the exact time the bomb was dropped and there was a minute of silence. As an American, it definitely felt strange to be at a ceremony held in memory of the deaths of 70,000 people as a result of actions taken by my own country.

I am learning a lot in Japan though. I am trying to figure out when to bow and how low to bow. There is the informal 15º bow, the more important 45º and the deepest and most respectful 90º bow. I never realized that. Men bow with their hands at their sides. Women bow with their hands in front of them. Before meetings or classes, there is the tradition of standing and bowing. That was something I learned when I went to band practice. That’s right. Band practice. I played trumpet for a couple hours with the Ojika Bass Brand. It’s a happening club. Eight students and they play a mean “Star Fantasy,” which is like a fancier Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with a Star Wars tune at the end. I found myself doing the same thing I did in high school. When there was a high note I couldn’t hit, I just pretended to play. I think they probably noticed. I’m sorry, but after eight years, I should not be expected to hit a high F. They’re lucky I reached a C. When they moved onto a song with higher notes, I excused myself and said I had something to go do.

The band teacher is awesome. She is actually my next door neighbor in the apartment building and she’s so energetic. You can tell she is popular with the students. She thinks she speaks English horribly and after I played trumpet with her band, she gave me a note in English to thank me and the note said that I should come and play with them more and that her English is horrible. I spoke in English with her later and it’s not bad. I think she was just nervous to use English with me in front of the teachers in the teacher room. From their reputation and culture, Japanese people are extremely modest. I compliment people on their English and they put their hands up. “No! No! No!” I will have to remember to disagree when people compliment me even though the American in me just wants to say “thank you.”

I really like my co-workers. They have all been really nice and helpful so far. One of the guys who works in the office was nice enough to take me to the bank two or three times in one day last week. Just today, the band teacher, a Japanese teacher and the school nurse drove me around the island with a map to show me some of the scenery. We stopped at the ferry terminal and got this awesome map of the island that has all the landmarks mapped out. I found out there is an island mascot. It’s this cartoon of a little person dressed up in a deer outfit. His name is Chikamaru-Kun. A nearby island, Nozaki Island has a lot of deer. Chikamaru-Kun is very cutesy. Cutesy things are super popular here. Anyways, Nozaki Island is the island that used to be inhabited but when a storm came through several years ago, people just left their homes and never returned. The school on the island has been converted to a camping area for when people come to visit the island. I haven’t visited it yet because it was too rainy and windy when we went around the island, but there is a place on Madara Island called “The Pothole.” The brochure refers to it as follows: “This is a natural miracle. It is the largest sea-made stone ball in Japan.” The picture on the brochure is creepy because it looks like a monster’s eye. I just love that it's referred to as "the pothole." I must see it.

So the reason I couldn’t go to the other island to see the Pothole yet is because the island is experiencing a typhoon right now. So it’s on my to-do list. It would take me about 45 minutes to walk to Madara from my apartment (because there is a long bridge that connects the two islands). I plan to do that on a day when it’s sunny out and I wouldn’t fly over the edge of the bridge. That’s also the part of the island that is supposed to get hit more by the storm. As I write this, it’s pretty windy and rainy out. I don’t work for the next few days because the school wanted me to take a few days of summer vacation that is offered so I randomly picked these next few days. The ferries and all boats to and from the mainland are canceled, so everyone is staying on the island for the time-being. During school, when the waves are too high, the students who live on nearby islands don’t come to school. Hopefully the storm dies down quickly so I can walk around or ride my death trap of a bicycle around during my time off.

I have met three members of the adult English conversation club and they are amazing. Their level of English is very good. We met at a coffee shop and we had a lot to talk about. They are looking forward to continuing English lessons. There are about 8 people in the group right now and we are thinking of eventually splitting the group up into two groups: beginner and advanced. One of the members made notes and is going to submit a notice to the island newspaper (that is only published once a month) to advertise the group and to invite more people to join. So I think those meetings will be on Wednesday and Thursday nights. I look forward to those meetings. Judging by the people I have already met, I think they will be a lively crowd.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who is the Sweatiest of Them All?

2010-08-03T18:51:00.000+09:00

So I am seriously overdue for a blog post! Pure and simple, I love this island! I live on Ojika, an island off of Nagasaki prefecture in southwestern Japan. The island only has about 3,000 people on it and it covers about 35 square km. So, fairly small. The people are amazingly friendly and kind. An English teacher from the school met me at the Nagasaki airport and took me back by bus and ferry to Ojika. Traveling by airplane, bus and ferry in one day was a new one for me. I was a zombie when I stepped off the ferry but to my surprise, school staff and some students were standing on the dock with a sign that said Welcome to Ojika for me. One student even read a welcome message. It was a great way to start life on the island. After dropping my stuff off at my apartment and a quick shower, I headed over to my welcome party at a local restaurant with the other teachers. I had a great time even though I didn’t know half of what I was eating.

My co-workers are awesome. My Japanese is limited so there have been more than a few times where they have whipped out their electronic translators to help me figure something out. I am trying to set aside time to study Japanese every day and then practice it on people when I’m at school or in the shops. I have to be patient with Japanese though. Portuguese was easier because it is so similar to Spanish. Japanese is a whole other ball game.

My neighbors in my apartment building are all single female teachers. The building is owned by the prefecture so my landlord is the school. It will be nice because they will deduct my rent and utilities directly from my pay. But my neighbors are wonderful! They have been so friendly and took me to a bbq and the beach this past weekend. I want to have them over for dinner some time when I can figure out something I am good at cooking. Too bad there is no such thing as a frozen pizza on the island.

My school is quite large. There are four levels to the building, a gym, an athletic field, tennis courts and the junior high down the road has the swimming pool. I will be at all three schools on the island during the week but I am based at the high school and all three schools are next to each other on the same road. Also, I will be going to another smaller island once or twice a month to give a lesson. It will be an adventure for sure. In the high school, I will be working with 1^st year students’ oral communication and 2^nd and 3^rd year students with their writing. I have already begun working with a student on her English skills and she has impressive English comprehension. She wants to go to university for English and I really hope that happens for her. I gave her a random topic to write about, like “What are two problems facing Japanese youth today? Why are they problems and how can they be solved?” And she understood the question and formed eight near-perfect complete sentences in response! I was impressed. Now obviously not all the students are going to be like that and she’s apparently at the top of her class in English, but seeing her paying attention and responding to me really made me excited to start teaching again. I have already made up a bulletin board in the student entry way. My notebook is full of ideas for activities and games.

I was walking but now I ride a bike to school today. The phrase “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” must have been coined on Ojika island. A lot of things just feel damp because of the sea. I have to air things out once in a while to keep everything fresh. But with the heat and the humidity of summer, I show up everywhere I go completely and irreversibly drenched. I bring a bandana with me to mop up the sweat but to no avail. A bandana is no match for the amount of sweat I can produce. I am riding a rusty old bike with questionable brakes (just don’t ride too fast down hills and I walk up them), which has cut down on my time out in the heat. I hope to buy a new bike to explore the island more in the future but this bike will do for now until I have saved some money. If the teacher’s room at school didn’t have air conditioning, I’m fairly certain I would just wear a swimming suit to school. But thankfully they keep the room fairly icy all day. On my bike ride home from work today, I saw the sea, the landscape and smelled the sea. It was one of those moments where I stopped and thought how lucky I am to be in such a beautiful place.

Hmmm, my apartment. My apartment is small but cozy. I have a large room that serves as both a living room and a bedroom. Off the living room are sliding doors with space for storage and other sliding doors that lead to a small balcony where I can hang my laundry. I also have a good size kitchen with a microwave, gas burners, a fridge and a rice cooker. Running water! Then I have a small shower and/or bath (so many options!), a room with the washer and the sink and another room for the toilet. It’s all a perfect size. I am pretty smitten with it but I have yet to figure out how to decorate it. And there is something that I’m mildly allergic to but hopefully that will change soon. Dust, maybe. I have an entry-way where I take off my shoes and I have a stoop! My very own stoop! And once a day I can find some large bug or cockroach lingering nearby, like it wants to come in. There are crazy big bugs that make loud noises here. Thankfully, they have all been outside of my apartment so far.

Okay, time to go make dinner! I have so much to talk about that it’s hard to focus on one thing. I WILL update this at least once a week! I have the technology this time and I’m not afraid to use it.

Mais Uma Aventura

2010-06-22T08:53:00.001+09:00

Konichiwa! I found out that I am going to Nagasaki prefecture in the southern-most island of Kyushu in Japan. I have yet to find out exactly where in Nagasaki prefecture and which grade I will be teaching, but it seems like every week is full of news and emails. I have already bought my plane ticket to fly to Chicago on July 23rd. From Chicago, we fly to Tokyo. The flight to Chicago will be on a little baby planelet, which is an extremely scary mode of transportation. I took a flight from Eau Claire to Minneapolis once about five years ago and told myself that would be the last time. Well, that was a pack of lies.

Anyways, this time, through the gate, I feel like I have a better start than when I left for the Peace Corps. JET has meetings where the new JETs can gather and discuss issues that are important before leaving for Japan and there is even a pre-departure picnic for Minnesota JETs. They are extremely organized and quick to answer questions. In the spirit of Microsoft Excel and my passion for organization and spreadsheets, I have already begun to make a binder of classroom ice-breakers, activities and lesson plans that I hope to find beneficial when I begin to serve as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) to a Japanese Teacher of English (JTE). That’s right. Another organization, a whole new set of acronyms.

I have been staying in contact with my Mozambican host family and some former students. It’s difficult at times because I want to help them out but I am not financially capable. Often, to send packages, the contents cost less than the shipping itself. Overall, you spend at least $80 on a package and that not even guaranteeing that the person you send it to will receive it because of the iffy mail system in Mozambique. Before I left Monapo, I gave one of the kids I was friends with of my laptops. Not long after I had left, his brother passed away. He wanted to help out his parents by selling CDs of burned music. Well, the computer was older and wasn’t capable of burning CDs. I talked with him today and he said “senhora professora, I am asking for help. I would like to know if you would send me another computer because I want to help my parents by selling music CDs.” It was a difficult conversation because in his eyes, I am a rich foreigner and this is a simple request. But he doesn’t see the reality that I have very little money and influence.

Also, in the same phone call, I spoke with another student from Monapo and he said “senhora professora, how come you wrote Teresa and Fabiao letters but you didn’t send me a letter?” You want to talk to everyone and try your best to stay in contact. It’s just not possible to make everyone happy and I appreciate the people who understand that, often, the most I have to offer is a phone call. I wish I could talk to them more often too. Word must have spread quickly that I spoke with those two because about an hour later, I received a phone call from one of my students to tell me his new phone number and to call him. So word must have traveled quickly over there: Senhora Professora Iren is calling people. I have called one of my favorite students and member of my REDES group a few times and each time she was begging for something from me. Namely she wanted me to send her my phone from Mozambique (which I still have for when I eventually return to Africa – my goal). I haven’t called her much since because it’s kind of a drag when half of the conversation is spent begging.

But, onto the next chapter. I will bring my kids’ phone numbers with me to Japan and figure out how to call them from there. I have already started making a packing list of what I want to bring. I am trying to be as conservative in my packing as possible but then I usually need to take that and cut it in half. After having lived abroad for two years, I have a good idea of what things I miss the most and what helps me miss things at home less. I am also bringing gifts for colleagues and officials at the school and I’m torn between a few options. Plus, there is the usual teaching fanfare: my lesson plan ideas, stickers, stamps, etc. I am excited to dive into teaching and get involved with my school. Plus, I get to move into and decorate my own apartment! SO much to look forward to! 31 days and counting!

And...I'm Back

2010-05-10T13:10:00.000+09:00

I sent in my application and paperwork to the Japan Exchange and Teaching program (JET)the same day I got home from the Peace Corps. Trust me. It was a mad dash to the post office to get that in on time since I needed a few documents from Mozambique in order to apply. I have heard back and I am happy to announce that i will be an assistant language teacher in Japan starting in late July! I am pretty excited about this opportunity. Japan has such a history and beauty. I can't wait to experience a new culture, language and educational system. I imagine that it will be quite different than what I experienced in Mozambique. As an assistant language teacher I will be paired up with a Japanese teacher of English and we will work together to create lesson plans and activities to engage students in learning English. I'm not sure yet as to the age group or what school but I will find that out toward the end of May. Almost every afternoon, I am like a vulture scavenging through my parents' mailbox at the end of the driveway (in case it doesn't arrive electronically.)

It has been nice being back in the United States and being with my family and friends, but I miss Mozambique (respect to nossa terra gloriosa), the friends I made there (Peace Corps friends and Mozambican friends), my independence and having a steady job and endless flow of projects. I miss having a purpose. I love being busy and I'm definitely at a standstill at home. The job market is horrible here, as many people can relate. I am back in Eau Claire and my interests have changed and developed. There is nothing worse than feeling like you are moving backward rather than forward.

I have already started learning some Japanese and it has proven to be far more challenging than Portuguese. I still use Portuguese for phone calls I make to friends and former students in Mozambique, sometimes I speak to the dogs in Portuguese and I read the news online so as to keep the language fresh in my mind. Because it is true that if you don't use it, you lose it. And there is no way I'm losing it after spending that much time and effort trying to learn it. Before I went to Mozambique, I dabbled a bit in Portuguese but never really put the pedal to the metal in terms of learning it. I remember wishing I had really put my best foot forward. So I am taking that experience to heart and hoping to learn as much Japanese as possible because if you are living in a country, you don't want to be that ugly foreigner who just expects everyone to speak English. That's not how you get to know your community.

The JET contract is for a year and if everyone (the JET teacher and school) is happy in the situation, participants are able to extend for up to three years. My master plan after Japan is to go to graduate school on the east coast. I have been researching some schools and have a found a few on the east coast that appeal to me. Working abroad has really peaked my interest in international development and the different areas under that umbrella. Specifically, I am interested in international education and development work concerning women.

Other than my master plan for the future, life in the present has been good to me. I have my family, friends, health and food on my plate. Not all those are on my plate. Literally. Just food. I just thought that I would update to say that I haven't fallen off the grid and that I will continue using this blog in the future to tell you about life in Japan. Now excuse me. I have to go practice using chopsticks that don't have a rubber band around them. You know the type. The kind they give kids to use in restaurants.

Pictures from the Peace Corps

2010-01-17T07:59:00.000+09:00

The cutting of the ribbon at the grand re-opening of the renovated library. The ribbon was cut by a local official and at first, he seemed put out by having to be there but then he seemed to really enjoy himself.

This was our administrativo, Senhora Amelia. She was a really nice woman. And it's not too often that you find a woman in a position of power like that.

Teachers dancing at the teacher's day celebration in October.

Teacher's day celebration

The organized bookshelves in the library. Hoping they stay that way.

Eulalia and Anifo before the fashion show in the library

The beautiful beach at Chocas, about 50-60 km from where I lived, but on a very bad road.

The girls soccer team in Monapo. Hilarious and tough wrapped into one.

Chaulana at the sewing machine

Me and an honorary member of our REDES group, Benicia's niece

Benicia after school one day

The girls prepping vegetables at our end of the year festa

Abiba, walking the runway for our end of the year fashion show.

The girls in their REDES capulanas before the fashion show began in front of the library.

The secondary school library, a finished product.

A couple of girls from my REDES group and their friends. They have a dance group and this was after a performance on our front veranda.

The kids lined up under the tree. This is where they lined up every day before school to sing the national anthem and to hear announcements.

A pedagogical director's wife and children. They are adorable. One of his daughters was in my REDES group.

Efigenia, Joaquina and Eulalia at the Fortaleza on Ilha de Mocambique. I love this picture of them on the top of the fort. This fort was once inhabited by the Portuguese and was a port for the slave trade. It was closed for renovation when we were there but we were able to get in and walk around.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

2009-11-16T18:09:00.000+09:00

I have officially left Monapo and am waiting to fly to Maputo, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to update the ol' blog. Leaving Monapo was difficult. You don't know exactly how to say goodbye to people. I tell people I'm coming back to visit one day, but you can't really put an actual timeframe on "coming back." I gave away pretty much everything I owned. Now, my life in Mozambique has been compacted into a backpacking backpack and a suitcase. Pretty crazy.

Timba has been given a good home. He has gone to live with the priests in Monapo. It's actually some pretty nice digs. He will live inside their compound with three other dogs that seem to be very friendly. There are concrete walls with an iron fence above that - so he better fashion himself a pick-ax or a rope ladder if he wants to escape this time. The priests are really good with the dogs and Timba seemed to like them almost immediately - especially the priest from Waukesha, Wisconsin. When they came to the house to pick me and the dog up, he started barking like a guard dog but he's quick to warm up to people and the priests eventually didn't have to jump away when Timba came near them. Finding him a good home was one of the things that made me the most nervous. I know that to some people he's just an undisciplined little dog, but he was good to have. A lot of Mozambicans couldn't understand why I was so attached to a dog. When I would feel homesick, or all alone, or like no one was understanding me, especially living abroad, he would always be by my side, chewing up my bras and laying his head on my lap so I could scratch his ears. I can now leave Nampula with the peace of mind that he will still live a long and happy life.

From here, I fly to Maputo tomorrow afternoon, after a medical exam in Nampula City. I am ready to go. The heat is getting to me already. Tis the hot season I suppose. This week, I basically finish up paperwork, have interviews, and eat a lot of ice cream and pizza. And I'm okay with that.

Tim Robbins would be proud

2009-11-06T16:18:00.000+09:00

I officially set foot in the Minneapolis airport at 10:16 am, November 21st. I am looking forward to it but can’t help but feel panic set in a bit. I have a lot to do beforehand and it’s an overwhelming idea that I will be going home permanently. I have thought about it a lot over the past two years but it seems pretty surreal now that it’s actually happening. My grades are turned in, my projects are finished, and I’ve already packed up or given away half of my things. All I have left to do is paperwork, medical exams and interviews in Maputo. One of my suitcases has already been packed and transported to Nampula city for my flight to the capital on the 17th. There is no way I am bringing a suitcase and a backpacking backpack on a chapa to the city the day I leave Monapo. It should be under the weight limit. I am going home with some souvenirs and a few changes of clothes and that’s it. Minimalism is key.

When I get home, we are probably going to go out to eat and visit with my sister a bit. Then I head back to Eau Claire for a couple days to put my stuff down, settle in and then I head to the Cities again to be a witness in my sister and her friend's mock trial at law school. I am looking forward to Thanksgiving. I have never actually sat down and watched all of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade but I always say I will. Maybe this will be the year. I’m hoping for some apple pie, turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes, and if all the stars line up correctly, popcorn balls. That’s what my dreams have been made of for the past 27 months.

I had a scare last week with Timba. I have been trying to get him used to the nuns’ house, who said that they would take him when I leave. Well, I took him to their backyard and was going to leave him there for an hour to start to get used to it. I get home and not 5 minutes later, Timba comes strolling through the door, panting and heaving like he just ran the Marine Corps marathon. Apparently, he shawshank redemption-ed himself out of that place. I put his leash back on him and took him back to the house and sat in the backyard with him while the nuns were in the house. The nuns have two other dogs. One is just a puppy and a Mozambican dog (a mixed mutt) like Timba and the other one is an actual, rip-your-face-off kind of German Shepherd guard dog that they bought in Maputo. Timba had never been in the yard with the dogs when they were out of their cages because they weren’t used to each other yet. Well, I was sitting with Timba, petting him and trying to get him to adjust to the yard with the other dogs in cages. As I was sitting there, I noticed that the German Shepherd kept pawing at his door and that the latch to the cage was slowly lifting as a result. As soon as I saw that, I grabbed Timba’s collar and dragged him toward the gate. The gate was shut and as I was trying to open it, I turned and saw the German Shepherd coming toward us with his head and tail down. The dog attacks people it doesn’t know and my heart just sank. Timba took over from there though and fought with him and I was able to get out of the gate and shut it. I yelled for the nuns and they came running but there was no way to stop the dogs from fighting. Timba refused to be pinned to the ground by the big dog and they were biting and fighting each other all over the backyard.

People were standing at the fence, laughing and talking about what was going on with each other. It was like a telenovela on TV to them. Something dramatic and interesting to do at the moment. I, meanwhile, was having a nervous breakdown in the yard. The nuns kept calling for the dog to go in his house. When he obviously wasn’t listening, one of the nuns put a padlock on the gate and said no one was going in the yard. She said their dog would hurt anyone who went in. Both of the nuns kept pacing and saying “he’s going to kill your dog.” Thankfully, Timba is smaller and was able to escape through the hole he originally found. He ran straight home and I sprinted home after him, yelling at the people at the fence as I ran. I got home and he was panting and pacing, covered in blood. His adrenaline eventually calmed down enough that he let me give him a bath and I realized that most of the blood wasn’t his but that of the other dog. He beat up a German Shepherd guard dog and got away with only a couple of scratches and just 24 hours of soreness! I saw one of the nuns a few days later and she said “your little dog is strong! Our dog has a wound on his neck.” The whole situation made me appreciate and love my dog even more. I've never felt unsafe in my house because he's always been by my side. He will be one of the hardest things for me to say goodbye to.

Besides that drama, I have been busy with an application and getting the right paperwork from the school system here. The application is for one of my REDES girls. I am helping her apply to a school called the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. It’s like a secondary school for African youth that focuses on giving them a quality education to help develop and improve their African nations, and the possibilities of continuing their educations in South Africa at the end of their schooling. Teresa, one of my REDES girls, is wonderful. She is respectful, intelligent and eloquent. I have high hopes for her. Even if she doesn’t get accepted, I have all the faith in the world that she will accomplish things in her lifetime. Her goal is to work in the hospitals with pregnant women. 3

The other application I have been working on is to apply to teach abroad in Japan. If I were to get accepted, I would leave in July or August and the contract is for a year with options to extend. If that doesn't pan out, I have been updating my resume to apply for jobs. I need to save up money and pay off some of my student loans. It'll be back to the real grown-up world, with bills and responsibility of a different nature. But I look forward to it in a sick kind of way. I can't wait to get my first cell phone bill and pay for my health insurance. It means I'm moving onto a different phase in my life. But talk to me again in two months and I might be whistling another tune.

I am getting two site visitors this weekend. The new group of PCVs is in Maputo (Moz 14) in training and before they swear in, they are always sent to people’s sites to get an idea of what life is like at site and as a teacher. Should be a good time. After they leave, I will be alone in Monapo for my last week. I plan on just walking around, taking some pictures, and relaxing at home with the dog. Low-key. But that’s just how I roll.

My Chimpanzee

2009-10-27T16:28:00.000+09:00

It’s been a very busy past few weeks. School has finished and I gave each of my students a goodbye message and we had dance parties in every classroom. It was sad that it was the last time I would see them all together but it was also a relief in a way to finish classes. A lot of them have already left Monapo to go and visit relatives over the holidays. They will get back for when school starts at the beginning of February. They have a longer break this year because the presidential election is being held tomorrow (October 28th). I have already turned in my grades and they were much higher than last year so thankfully, there will be no arguments with the school about me being such a horrible teacher because I actually gave students the grades they deserved. When I told the pedagogical director that I reached the 85% passing rate that they require, he reached out and shook my hand. I think they were happy too that there were no arguments this year. I was much easier on my students this year, letting them use their notebooks and doing projects as groups. The passing rate is supposed to be at 85%, but in all reality, less than 50% should actually be passing. In order to even pass, the students only need to get a 10 out of 20 points. It saddens me that knowing half of the information of the year is considered passing for the next level. It’s because of a system such as this that I am correcting my students’ Portuguese. I am a foreigner who just learned Portuguese starting in 2007 and my portuguese is not perfect. Some of my students in ninth grade didn’t even know how to read or write well. My students are intelligent but they have never been pushed to succeed at a higher level. Hopefully, one day that will change.

Monday was the inauguration of the library and it was exciting to see. We announced it on the radio and we invited the local director of district education but she had to go to a funeral so another man came in her stead. At first, he was very standoff-ish and uninterested in a school ceremony. But as the ceremony went on and he saw that it wasn’t your typical boring one, he actually seemed genuinely interested and stopped playing with his cell phone. We had him say a few words, student activists talked about HIV/AIDS, the JOMA group showed some of their art work and my REDES group presented and did their fashion show. I am happy it ended well and I would call it a success in my books. Although I have donated two years of my life to teaching in Monapo and secondary projects, some people here still wouldn’t consider that enough. No. There must be refreshments at the inauguration. So I had to go and buy soft drinks for everyone. I tried not to be bitter about it. It was frustrating but at that point, I was ready to just pull the band-aid, buy the soft drinks and call it a day. Of course there wasn’t enough for everyone and people got upset. I have come to learn that you can’t please everyone and that’s okay. The library is pretty much finished. There are just a few organizational issues that need to be addressed and then we will be set to go for next year.

REDES is having our end of the year goodbye lunch next Saturday. We are going to cook and eat together and I think I will write each of the girls a letter. They are really amazing girls and I hope that they make it all the way through secondary school and continue their education afterward. I have seen them grow so much over the past two years. They have become more confident and vocal. And they have learned how to sew and start their own small sewing business. They have a long way to go still but they have started with the basics and the only direction from here is up. I have already submitted the project reports for my library and REDES projects and am relieved to call those projects finished. They were a lot of work but they also made my Peace Corps experience even better. When I wasn’t teaching, I was always with my REDES girls or in the library. I feel like I have helped my community gain new skills and materials and that’s all I have ever wanted. I feel like I have made an impression on them but they have made a bigger impression on me. We will always be connected to each other and I will miss many of the people in my town very much when I leave in three weeks.

In other news, I have found a home for Timba after I leave! I originally was going to leave him with one of my students but I have always been kind of afraid that he would get beaten by neighbor kids, have rocks thrown at him, or not get any food to eat. As a result, I asked the nuns in our town if they wanted another dog. They told me to bring him by and I have been taking him to their house each day to get the other dogs used to his scent before he joins them entirely. Right now they have a real guard dog. The kind of guard dog that would rip your face off if you were trying to break in. The other one is still just a puppy. I think it would be a great place for Timba. He can run around the fenced in yard all night long and play with the other dog. The nuns are building a new house for the dogs as well. I kind of feel like I’m putting a chimpanzee that has grown accustomed to love and affection of humans back into the rainforest. Timba is my chimpanzee. He will have little interaction with humans, except to bark at them. But I feel like he will be well cared for and live a better, longer life than he would have if he lived in a random house. I feel like a burden has been lifted off of my shoulders and that he will like it. And if the nuns had decided not to take him, a priest across the street saw me with the dog and one of the nuns and he started inquiring to the nuns if the priests could have him. I never thought there would be such a demand for my undisciplined little clown of a dog. Maybe he always was such an unruly jerk for a reason.

A Professional Speed Walker

2009-10-02T22:02:00.000+09:00

The waves of alternating excitement and nausea are becoming more recurrent. I have so much to get done before I leave and so little time. I am busy right now labeling every book in the library. The librarian is helping me. And by helping, I mean I write out the labels for the books, stack them up nicely for her, cut the labels, cut the tape to stick the labels on them and lay it out for her. Plus I’m marking my own books. The other day she said “Professora, once the furniture comes, I am going to be very tired.” I bit my lip and continued marking physics books. If all goes well, marking books should be done by the middle of next week. The final deposit has been made and the furniture is ready to be delivered. It is going to be delivered next week and I can’t wait!

Right now, it’s difficult to focus on library work in the library itself because the school is matriculating students for school next year in the same room. So there is a Mozambican line of students of all ages waiting to register for school. A Mozambican line is a mob. No single-file formation. Ah, I have fond memories and look forward to single-file lines in the states. That and talking to someone who works at the bank whose personal cell phone is ringing and them not ignoring you to talk to their cousin. But anyhoo, in the library, it doesn’t help either that the man doing the matriculation is a tempestuous old man with a sharp tongue. I am constantly hearing “stand in a straight line like humans!” and “what do you think I am? Your servant? Fill your paperwork out correctly.” The kids just laugh but I’m fairly certain that if that man yelled at me, my drawers would be soiled.

The new sewing machine is absolutely wonderful! Haven’t had a problem with it yet (knocking on my bed frame as I write that)! The girls have become so much more productive with two. Before, they all stood around the one while one girl toiled on hemming a capulana for what seemed like a decade. I have been practicing my own skills to work with the girls and I have made two dresses and a shirt. I’m getting quite good and I’m not afraid to toot that horn. We were originally going to have a fashion show with what the girls have learned but because of the sewing machine problems and not receiving our funding until last week, I think that we will size it down to a small show. All the girls got capulanas for group solidarity. Very exciting stuff. We are having our group meeting at a girls’ house on Saturday so that her mother can teach embroidery to the girls. Personally, I don’t have the patience to embroider, but the girls are churning out tablecloths. Soon, there won’t be enough tables for all of them.

I am enjoying my last few class periods with my students. They are hilarious. Everyone still calls Hermengildo Timba. I have seen him chasing other kids around the schoolyard over calling him that name. I feel like that nickname might stick but I also think he secretly enjoys it. The kid who almost got beaten up for sassing an older man outside during a bathroom break has actually become a very good student. It’s funny because each time before class, he stands outside the door with his arms crossed and his collar popped like a classroom bouncer. He even held the door open for me and smiled. He’s now a little more distant cry from the boy who tried to kick my dog last year.

Next week, I give my students their final test they will ever have with me. After that, I give them back their results. I think I might offer them the possibility of giving extra credit if they go and get an HIV test and present proof that they went. They want higher grades and it’s important for them to know their status. I’m feeling sad leaving them. I have started to feel like a second mother to them. I feel choked up at the thought that I will never stand in front of them again with a piece of chalk in hand, joke around with all of them or even throw a kid’s notebooks out the door to kick him/her out. I will definitely take class time speed-walks to the latrine off my “will miss” list. I do hope to have a fun last day of school though, and bring music and just hang out a bit.

Next weekend, after the library project is completed, I will be taking three of my REDES girls to Ilha to visit the women’s association and stores to get ideas of things to sew and make, and to give them a small vacation from Monapo. They are pretty excited about it. I am going to talk to their parents to get permission since they are teenage girls. I went to visit one of the girls’ houses last week to see why she hadn’t shown up to a meeting. I was sitting with her aunt, chatting and talking about her family. I asked her how many children she has and she said “two boys. But I’m hoping to have a girl. I need someone to prepare xima.” Xima is maize. So, basically she wants a worker. I am more than happy to give her niece a well-deserved trip, since she seems more like a housekeeper than a member of the family. I just hope that the aunt agrees.

Timba is as wily as ever. Taking him for walks still never gets old. I was walking with my roommate to the market the other night and I took Timba along because he had been cooped up all day. It was like the parting of the Red Sea with people when we walked there. I was sitting at a corner stand with the dog, away from the crowd, petting him and waiting for Nia to buy some juice. People were looking at me like I was petting a crocodile. All of a sudden, one of Nia’s students sees the dog from about twenty feet away and starts screaming like he’s attacking her. Then we walked back to the house and we saw her again, standing ahead of us with her back to us. Being sympathetic to her phobia, we did the right thing. We snuck up behind her with the dog and stood behind her. He didn’t even do anything. He just stood there. And she started screaming and sprinted all the way down the road to her house. And we laughed all the way back to ours. I know that it’s probably horrible that we picked on a person’s phobia, but people need to learn that dogs aren’t just guards. They are also fun little beasts that are dull-witted enough to repeatedly chase the same stick, yet smart enough to steal boiled eggs off the kitchen table when you are busy washing your hands. That potato salad just wasn’t the same that night without those eggs.

Potato Salad is Delicious

2009-09-23T15:33:00.000+09:00

I had my students write and present dialogues for their second test of the trimester. They could write it about family, travel, human rights, or domestic violence - all things we discussed in class. Here are a couple of stellar examples from my best students:

1: Where’s your father?
2: My father’s in Nacala.
1: What is your surname?
2: My surname is Afate.
1: Is your family rich or poor?
2: My family is all right.
1: How is your mother?
2: My mother is, honestly, very fat, short and clever.
1: Is your father handsome or ugly?
2: Of course, my father is handsome.
1: Is your mother beautiful or ugly?
2: Umm…my mother is okay. I am sorry.

No joke. I didn’t help them at all with that, just the spelling of words…and I laughed the entire way through their presentation to the classroom. They memorized it and said it in front of everyone. Here’s another one.

1: How can you avoid domestic violence?
2: Don’t hit the people who live with you.
3: Prohibit the father from drinking.
1: Why are women more vulnerable?
2: Because of society and community.
3: Many time the women and children are victims of domestic violence.
1: Mothers, sons, fathers! We should denounce domestic violence!
2: If we don’t stop domestic violence, it will cause problems in life and we will never be happy.
3: Yes, it’s true. Domestic violence is not good for us.
ALL: (shouted with gusto and pumped fists) Stop the domestic violence! Say no to domestic violence!

I only have one more test left as a teacher in Monapo. Pretty crazy. I'm gonna let them use their notebooks. I don't want to fight them up to the very end on cheating. It's a losing battle, so I might as well make the test harder but let them use their notebooks. It's a win win if you ask me. This ACP will be the last time I will be trying to control the kiddies. The last time I will be boo-ed at as I enter the room. I can just feel those tears welling up.

We had a teacher’s meeting the other week where they talked about news at the school and to air grievances. Usually, we bring along a good US Weekly or People magazine for these things. Whether Anne Hathaway was wearing Dolce & Gabbana or Prada seems much more thrilling than whether we are changing grades or problems with depositing money in teachers’ accounts again. I took to doodling in my notebook, fixating on how I was going to make potato salad for dinner. In the middle of scribbling “Potato salad is delish” in bright, checkered letters, I had my legs up on the seat. Much to my dismay, an education official, in front of all the other teachers, announced “Senhora Professora, do you think you are sitting at home? Sit up straight.” I felt like I was in second grade again and was getting yelled at by a nun who mistook my filling up of a milk carton with water as dumping the milk out. But then I went home and ate potato salad and watched Gilmore Girls and the world was turned right again. I ended up giving some potato salad to the workers at the bar next to our house and the next day, the woman said "that mayonnaise you made was excellent." Ha.

Tuesday was Monapo Day. At the beginning of the day there was a bicycle race and a motorcycle race on the main road in town. All the motorcycle riders were showing off, lying down on their seats as if that was really affecting the aerodynamics and their chances of winning. The sides of the road were packed with spectators and you could tell, in the glint of people’s eyes, that they were hoping for a bike to fall down and bite the dust. Or at least, it would have added to the drama. Frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t. There were so many children around and bikes going 60 mph down a normally slow traffic road. That is not a good combination.

Tuesday night, Danny OG came to Monapo and performed. Danny OG is like a shoddy DMX or Ja Rule - which, if you have heard the American rappers, speaks volumes about the quality of talent. We got seats in the front, within a taped off area. If there is anything we have learned in the past two days, it is that taped off areas at public events mean nothing in Mozambique. We tried going to the Miss Monapo pageant that Nia’s student won Monday night but the pavilion was so jam-packed with people that our claustrophobia got the best of us and we had to get out. If you are going to travel to Mozambique in the near future, go ahead and pop that personal bubble of yours because that pavilion was like a super-sized chapa. I am honestly surprised that no one died. It was all very running of the bulls. People were shoulder to shoulder, including short children who lacked vision and breathing space. Women with newborn babies strapped to them take the children to the events where the speakers make my own eardrums vibrate. There is a new generation of Helen Kellers growing up in Monapo as we speak.

In other news, my REDES group has received their funding and we can now take our trip to Ilha to visit the women’s association. The girls are pretty excited to get another sewing machine and more supplies. The library project should be completed in the next couple of weeks as well. I visited the school making the furniture last week and it's all shaping up beautifully! And they gave me a bag of vegetables! It is a race to the finish now, making sure projects get completed and I only have four more classes to teach before I am done with my career as a Mozambican teacher. I have heard that Monapo will likely be getting three volunteers next year! That came as a total surprise but we are happy with the likelihood that our girls and art groups will be be continued. The next group of volunteers gets to Maputo at the beginning of October. And they will get to site in December. Time is flying.

How much is that ice shanty in the window?

2009-08-31T22:40:00.000+09:00

I made it all the way to the market and back with dried toothpaste around my lips the other day and no one said a word. Sure, people will point out if your skirt is showing too much thigh, practically pop your zits for you and point out every other unflattering fault, but they seem to draw the line at Aquafresh. I like to think that maybe it blended in with my skin but after almost nine straight months of Nampula sun, my skin is far from the Wisconsin near-albino heritage that it used to be. SPF 30 is still no match and I fear early wrinkles around my eyes and cancer on my neck, where I’m honestly just too lazy to reach. I try wearing sunglasses to avoid squinting (and eye contact with people) and hats, but I can’t very well wear a hat to school. As informed by students, wearing a hat to school is right up there with eating a boiled egg on the street. You just don’t do it.

It’s true. My roommate and I have had anxiety over PDE (Public Displays of Eating). It usually draws more stares, like you’ve grown two extra heads, rather than one. I’ve only ever felt comfortable publicly eating roasted peanuts, a food that has been given a stamp of student approval as publicly edible. I have eaten chocolate in the street but feel myself forced to hide the wrapper in my bag, palm the chocolate, and bring it quickly up to my mouth like I have an urgent itch. I feel like I’m twelve and sneaking food from the kitchen. Puts some adventure in my life though. Nothing like a challenge to brighten the day. I remember when my sister and I were little and we would purposely burn toast, hide it in a napkin and store it in our room until darkness came. Certain that our parents were asleep, we would gather in her room to feast on burned toast. I still don’t even know why we did it, but like this, it put adventure in our lives while we listened to Paula Abdul on the radio.

The only mirror I own is the size of my hand. Whenever I happen to stay at a hotel or see my reflection in a shop window in the city, I stare at myself. I am aware that I probably look extremely vain. People walk past me and I’m sucking in my stomach and turning to the side, like in a dressing room at JCPenney’s. It’s weird. Whenever I see my reflection now, I seem so much older. And then I remind myself to use SPF50 even when I sleep and avoid smiling to increase the little lines under my eyes. I’m one of those people who look like they are frowning 24/7. A natural frown, if you will. One of the students who visits us a lot at our house has told me that students I don’t teach say “Ai, that Teacher Erin. We are scared of her. She appears angry.” I’m the American Boo Radley of Monapo. At least the older students don’t bother me to do their English homework for them.

My students are doing well. I am collecting their notebooks to grade this week. 350 notebooks is no easy feat. I basically give them a good grade as long as they have written down all the notes I gave them in class and did a handful of the homework assignments. I have been giving them stickers or stamps every time they do the homework so it should be easier to gauge what work they have completed. Stamps to them are like diapers to Timba. You can never have too many. As soon as I pull out the ink pad and ask who did their homework, hands shoot into the air and desperate “teacher!” is shouted out. Some kids change seats to ensure they will receive the much-desired stamp of a balloon or turtle. They are not impressed by the stamp of the birthday candle, deeming it undesirable by its small size. As soon as I stamp the page of their notebook, they smile and visibly relax because their notebook has been beautified. It’s a simple joy I’m glad to reward them with for doing their work.

I’m making them work for their grades this trimester. I might have to grade them loosely because the school will pass them anyways, but goshdarnit, they will put effort forth. First, it was the family trees and compositions for 10 points. Now it will be the notebooks for 10. Then I will have them do another project and another notebook collection for 10 points each. They hate it but I find that it has the reverse effect with me. I feel like I am making them work for their grades and they know they are. It’s half the battle of trying to control a test with them and easier on the blood pressure, so I am sticking to the less stressful tactics while I'm winding down my time in Monapo.

My girls group is about to buy another sewing machine and is in the process of making dolls. They are dolls sewn out of black cloth and we are going to make capulana outfits for them. Should be “chic de matar,” Chic enough to kill. I hear that term all the time when my students are sucking up to me. I think they should use that on Project Runway and in the fashion world in general. My roommate’s boyfriend made up one, “chic de boofar.” Chic enough to fart. We are trying to spread the saying and already, my REDES girls and Nia’s JOMA students are using it. Maybe it will spread nationwide by 2010.

The sewing machine still has its problems, unfortunately. Hopefully, I can get it repaired well in the next week. I will be much choosier in picking out the next one. I will transport that back to Monapo when I rent a chapa to bring back the library materials I am purchasing. I am going to the city this week for a couple days to buy all the supplies for the library project. I will be buying books, maps, a diagram of the human body, a globe, a filing cabinet, bulletin board, and basic library supplies. The furniture should be finished soon for the project and I want to have everything ready to install as well. Time is getting shorter and I’m starting to feel it. After the trip to the city, I will probably spend next weekend at the beach with some friends. I need to soak up these beautiful beaches before my only option is an ice-covered Lake Altoona. However, those little ice shanties have started to sound downright snug.

Running in Pajama Pants

2009-08-28T16:57:00.000+09:00

We have had our close of service conference and are now counting down the months and days until it’s time to leave Mozambique. The conference was great because we got to see all the volunteers from our group one last time together in Mozambique. And there were mini-pizzas, chocolate mint mousse, kabobs, cake, granola and cheese (cheddar and feta). It never fails to amaze me, my fixation on food options when they are available. But in terms of the conference, it makes me sad and happy all at once to think about going home. Mixed feelings were to be expected. There is a whole chart on what our emotional rollercoaster is supposed to look like throughout and after our service and so far, it’s been fairly accurate. Apparently, I’m going to be very depressed in a few months. Fair warning.

My students have been saying, “Senhora Professora, you need to stay!” or “why do you want to leave Monapo?” It’s hard to explain to them because they have never left their homes to go to a completely different country and culture. I just tell them that I miss my friends and family. I told them that I would come back one day to visit and I hope to live up to that promise.

Along with the usual questions of “why are you leaving,” there is another question that often follows. “What are you going to do with your computer? With your bicycle?” Many people have asked to buy my computers from me. I was considering giving my computer to the library project but I’m afraid that someone will just take it if I give it to the school. I explained to a school official that I was thinking about leaving it for use in the library by the librarian in keeping track of the book inventory and a library user system, but he just laughed. “No, you will give your computer to me.” Um. No. I will give my computers to people who want to genuinely learn and not use the computer to show off the fact that they have a computer. I will probably end up giving them to responsible students or a responsible colleague who could use it. I would never sell them. In terms of the bikes, the dog and weather got to them long ago. The wheels are rusted from being in the backroom and in his fits of lonely rage, when I left the dog in the backroom, he tore the seats off and chewed on them. Now, the bikes work as a protective buffer between the dog and my roommate’s art group supplies. He loves paintbrushes.

I'd say I spend a good percentage of my day trying to figure how to outwit the dog. He refuses to stay in the yard and while I’m washing dishes or lesson planning, I will hear “MUALAPUA!” and then a scream and running feet. Mualapua means dog in macua. They run like he is going to tear their face off but he usually just stands there, sniffing garbage or staring at a herd of goats. He has only chased someone a few times and it’s usually because they provoked him or because they are running, which in his mind means happy fun playtime. He was chasing a kid one time who was throwing rocks into the tree next to our fence to get maçanica (little, gross apples, in my opinion). I think he misconstrued it as the kid throwing rocks at him. Lo and behold, I look out the windows and the kid is running like a sniper is after him, running in zigzags with the dog trailing closely behind. He found refuge in the bar next door. I threw his sandals to him and told him not to throw rocks anymore. Lesson learned. The other day I was in my room and the children at the school next door were singing the national anthem before school started. Besides their little voices singing about “nossa terra gloriosa” (our glorious land), I also heard a goat stampede. The dog was chasing a herd of goats across the school grounds in front of about 500 children. How embarrassing.

I have a student, Hermengildo, who is an “indisciplinado.” That means he’s a class clown and jokes around a lot during class. I told him he plays bad, like my dog, so I named him after my dog. And now all of his friends call him that. It’s pretty funny actually. He came up to me the other day “Senhora Professora, everyone calls me Timba now!” He laughed about it though. I told him it was a compliment because Timba is pretty, clean and strong. I didn’t say anything about the dog’s fixation with and consumption of fecal matter.

It’s weird. You give a student a nickname and it sticks. One kid was literally hanging out the window one day. I called him a “passarinho,” which means “little bird.” Now everyone calls him passarinho. If he’s not in class and I ask where he is, the other students say, “he must have flown away.” I honestly don’t even know his real name. With 350 students, it’s hard to keep them all straight. I do love catching students not paying attention during class and surprise them by knowing their names and having them answer my question. “Senhora Professora, I didn’t perceive what you said.” They want me to repeat myself. If you know me, you know I hate repeating myself. I then say, “I don’t perceive why you didn’t perceive what I said.” That just tends to confuse them more and they stand there, staring at ceiling until I take pity on them and let them sit down.

After the conference and plates of food, I can feel the extra junk in the trunk so I’ve started running the past few days. I have decided, once I get home, that I want to try to run a half-marathon in the spring so I’m going to start training now. A full marathon scares me. That’s for people who wear really short shorts and have chips inserted into their Nikes that sync with their iPods to track their progress. I’m more of the “running in pajama pants, tripping on my shoelaces” type. I have plenty of ideas of what I want to do when I return home, none of which are concrete. I need to take the GRE for grad school applications and get a job or two to save money. I haven’t decided exactly what I want to go to grad school for but I’m thinking something along the lines of international development or something involving writing. Who knows. That might be a firefighter or ballerina tomorrow.

I have been considering applying to a program called JET while I submit applications to graduate schools. It’s a one-year teaching contract in Japan. I would apply for a position as an assistant language teacher that would start in July or August 2010. You work with a Japanese counterpart to help them in teaching English and supervise extracurricular activities. I have enjoyed working with youth in Mozambique and teaching English at the same time. Japan seems so beautiful and has a rich history, so it would be a great place to live abroad, doing similar work. It would be much different than Peace Corps because you actually get a paycheck and the living conditions are better. And I wouldn’t need to take a malaria prophylaxis that makes my hair fall out. And I’d learn Japanese. I’m down for a challenge though. It’s just an idea right now, but if I don’t end up doing that, I will surely find something else that sparks my interest and doesn’t make me shed like a Labrador.

Family Trees and Earring Beads

2009-08-14T22:23:00.000+09:00

And…I’m back for the last trimester of teaching in Monapo. I admit that it was really nice coming “home” to Monapo. I missed seeing my students and eating pasta sauce made from market cans of tomato paste. And I missed my dog, who Fabiao did an excellent job of feeding while I was gone. I might start making him chubby so that he tires easier. Is that inhumane? I don’t think so. He has so much energy. I take him for a walk and two minutes later, he is still biting my ankles as I try to walk to the bathroom. I am planning to give Timba to one of my students. She brought her dog to my house one day last trimester. Her dog is fatter and she is richer, so I asked her:

Me: Enia, would you be interested in taking my dog when I leave?
Enia: (Immediately answers) Yes, my dog needs a husband.

Haha! Now that is a very Mozambican thing to say. No one can be alone. Not even dogs. I’m not so sure she is aware of Timba’s character or she might say no. He is a slightly flawed factory model. My sister got to see his personality firsthand when she came to visit. One of the days she spent in Monapo, Timba lured a goat in the yard to have it chase him around out of pure boredom. I’m sure he thought he’d found a friend but the goat was probably thinking something along the lines of “I am going to kill you.” There is footage of it somewhere.

I’m trying to come up with creative lesson plans to end teaching with a bang. Right now we are working on family names. My students love talking about themselves, so I thought that making family trees would grab their interest and it has. I thought it might be difficult but it is even more so than I’d imagined. “Teacha, my father has three wives. How do I draw that?” “Carlitos, how many siblings do you have?” Counts in his head for a literal minute. “19.” “Wow, your mother must be tired.” Shrugs his shoulders. “Yes.” There are some sequoias being drawn in student homes as I write this. That’s the only way they’d fit their whole complex family histories into tree form.

It’s interesting to see my students’ families and their lives up close and personal though. While Kara was here, we went and visited two of my best students. They live in Monapo Rio, on the other side of the river. To walk to school each day takes about an hour and they have to leave around 5:30 every morning. And then they have to walk home after school for lunch. Then they have to walk back for physical education in the afternoon some days of the week (and even then, the teacher might not show up). They could take a chapa but that’s expensive.

Mozambicans are extremely inviting when you visit their homes. As soon as you set foot in their yard, they send a child to get you a plastic chair and place it under the shade of a tree. One of my students’ mothers gave us a plastic bag of soda cans and another gave us a full meal. You don’t want them to extend such effort but to turn down their food or hospitality is rude. It’s like when you are seven and don’t want to eat your beans and your mom has you sit at the table until you finish them for your own health. In this case, I don’t want to take beans that could be going into someone else’s mouth. But when you visit Mozambicans, you best clean your plate to show your satisfaction and as a mark of respect.

I’ve grown to really love Mozambican cooking. Xima (pronounced she-ma), which is the main staple in Mozambique and in most countries in Africa, has grown on me. It’s like doughy cornmeal. The traditional way of eating it is to ball it up in your right hand (after you wash your hands and you use your right hand because your left hand is considered unclean) and dip it into a sauce made of tomatoes and onions. It’s like manna from heaven when made by Mozambicans. I have yet to perfect it. It’s not exactly something you see Rachel Ray tackle on the Food Network.

Now that I have a functioning camera again, I really have to start taking more pictures of everything. I want to show everyone the market experience in Monapo so I am going to try and film what an average market trip looks like and attempt to post it on here. While she was here, Kara said it reminded her of the hectic market in Aladdin. And if you’re lucky, you might catch someone donning genie pants. I’ve seen it. That and people wearing witch hats, santa hats, bath robes, men wearing women’s tank tops and capris, Packers jerseys, etc. It’s a great place to people-watch AND be stared at yourself at the same time.

Next week, we have our COS conference in Inhambane province on the beach. COS is Peace Corps lingo for Close of Service. It’s when Peace Corps tells us about health insurance, life after Peace Corps and stuff like that. But most importantly, we get to see everyone in our group one last time before we begin trickling out of the country November 5th. While I’m in Maputo, I think I’ll buy some more books for the library project., which will hopefully be completed or close to being completed in a month’s time.

My proposal for my girls group got passed for buying more sewing supplies, a visit to Ilha de Mocambique and the HIV awareness fashion show. I now just need to wait longer than the average goldfish’s life to get the money. Three to four weeks. Time is getting shorter now and I am feeling the pinch in regard to my girls’ group and what type of impact I want to make on them before I board that flight on November 20th. They have really started to grasp the sewing machine but there is so much more to learn. Like how to apply zippers and how to make earrings that aren’t ugly. It’s hard to think of how to praise them when they string together fake pearls with sea shells and clear beads. They are some of the most god-awful earrings you’ve ever set your eyes on. Like something you’d find at a 90-year old chain-smoker’s garage sale. I just tell them to leave them and I’ll put the earring hook on them, but then I just take them out back (my room) and put them out of their misery (back into the bead containers) and hope the girls don’t notice.

I have about three months left in Monapo. The countdown has begun and until then, I will try to update once a week. That and teach my dog to be the gentleman and scholar I know he can be.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures!

2009-07-22T22:24:00.000+09:00

The tour by an ex-prisoner on Robben Island, the prison where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years.

Me and Kara on Robben Island in front of the shore of Cape Town

Kara, after a stressful day, and the junk food we ate while watching 30 Rock.

Me and some of my students, who enjoy posing dramatically

The library set-up, pre-library project. I had organized the books more, but the shelving units are going to be completely different and we're getting more books in August!

The river in Monapo. It has crocodiles in it, making it a dangerous place to wash clothes or go swimming.

One of my smallest students hanging onto the window outside for some reason.

The mural in the library that Nia and her JOMA group painted for our library project

Me and some of my students

Kara and Eulalia, one of my REDES group members

My youngest students and I after class

Greetings and Salutations from Cape Town!

2009-07-19T04:35:00.000+09:00

We are in South Africa! By we, I mean my sister and I. We spent about a week and a half in Mozambique and I think my sister was ready for running water by the end, judging by the joy on her face and the way she seemed to hug any hotel bed we got. She pointed out things that I have just grown accustomed to, but it's been a bit tough for her to handle. She and Timba are now best friends - he showed his love for her by charging her as she walked out of the latrine at night. I think he doesn't like you if he doesn't charge you and try to take you out at the knees. My students saw her playing with him and their mouths were hanging open with surprise. "Teacher, your sister doesn't have fear of dogs?" Kara got to come to school with me and experience a couple of chapa rides (including one where she ripped her pants) and we walked to Monapo Rio to go see a couple of my best students' houses. She got to carry water (but not on her head - that's only for us seasoned veterans), wash clothes and dishes, and cook like a peace corps volunteer. I'm fairly certain it was everything she ever dreamed it would be. After Nampula, we headed down to Maputo and saw my host family and stayed with them for a night. She got to meet some other PCVs in the capital before heading on to Cape Town.

South Africa is a beautiful country! We are in the Western Cape area and I would recommend it to anybody! So far, we have been quite busy. We have seen the Slave Lodge (where they used to house slaves before they were to be sold) and the Aquarium. The Cape Town aquarium is an aquarium on steroids. Sharks, manta rays, giant sea turtles, and crazy looking giant crabs were the highlights. One of my highlights that day was definitely the Victoria's Wharf shopping center. I think my sister was slightly embarassed by my shoes and socks so I got some new ones to not tarnish the family name. I can't help it my socks have lost their brilliant white color. I would now call it more of a taupe color, worn with love. And I got some more clothes because it turns out Cape Town is pretty cold since it's winter here.

We also went to Table Mountain and Robben Island. Table Mountain is surrounded by the city and it's gorgeous! There's a cable car that takes you to the top so you don't have to hike. In my opinion, if you want to hike, you're weird...and athletic, I suppose. Robben Island was interesting too. Each tour is guided by an ex-prisoner of the island. You get the history of the island (never knew it used to be a lepers' colony!) and a tour of the cells. I got to see Mandela's prison cell where he wrote The Long Walk to Freedom! And today is his birthday! Pretty interesting. And at the end of the tour, you have the option of looking at the penguin colony or the gift shop. I went to look at keychains and Kara went for the penguins and saw them AND a snake that, according to her, was gigantic. I'm convinced it was a baby grass snake but she describes it as a black mamba. We'll just say it was somewhere in between.

After being in the city and seeing TWO movies in a REAL theater (Bruno and The Proposal), we decided to head in a rental car to Simon's Town for some more penguins and Stellenbosch for wine tasting and sleeping. Penguins actually smell bad but they are so adorable, you just want to pinch their little flippers. And we drove to Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve to climb a really high lighthouse and reach the most south-western point of Africa. The climb was steeper than anticipated and I was unjustly accused of telling Kara she was panting like a little dog. Along the drive, we saw Ostriches as well. There are signs everywhere to not feed baboons and saying they are dangerous, so to avoid them. I, personally, find baboons, chimps, monkeys, apes, etc. to be kind of creepy, so you won't find me trying to approach one to put a bow in it's hair any time soon. Baboons are ugly and mean animals anyway. We pulled into Stellenbosch and my sister finally calmed down a bit after driving on the left side of the road all day. It didn't exactly comfort me at first when she held up her forefinger and thumb on both hand to figure out which direction was right or left. But don't you worry, Mom and Dad, she gets a gold star in my book. We haven't even gotten lost because of her driving and my excellent navigational skills. Only turned around twice!

We spent a night at super nice B&B in Stellenbosch and signed up for wine tour with a really nice guy who kindly explained the wine making and tasting process for us. We visited three wineries and tried a lot of wine (Kara got to use a spitoon cuz she was driving! Jealous? Yes). In my opinion, wine starts to look and taste the same after a while. "Oh, well this one is sharp and sugary and goes well with chicken or salads or pasta." Ugh. Just give me a Fanta already! "This one has a woody, earthy taste as it sat in the barrel for longer. It also tastes toastier because of the toasted French oak that was used in the lining of the barrel." I don't know how they memorize that kind of information. One can easily drink a lot of wine on those tours but it just ended up making me sleepy, which pleased my sister greatly as I am the map-reader in the car (Kara: Erin, how far away is Houwhoek? - Me: I dunno, like an inch). The most interesting part in it all was seeing the wine process and cellars and the views. The views were gorgeous! Vineyards for as far as the eye can see, with mountains in the backdrop. The views made it for me...that and a bird pooping on Kara's shirt.

After the wine tours, we headed down to Hermanus to do some whale watching. We tried looking a bit but those whales are hard to sight. We saw one in the far distance but not much luck thus far. We'll try again in the morning. We have a super nice bed and breakfast. Our room has a patio with an ocean view to do some whale watching. The whales are the part of our big five (rock dassies on table mountain, penguins, baboons, ostriches and whales). Tomorrow, we head back to Cape Town for a couple more nights in the city. I think we will go on a day safari to see the real big five Monday. Tuesday, it's the bus back to Maputo - which is probably good because I'm eating my weight in ice cream, biltong (South African beef jerkey - which grosses Kara out when I eat it - "sounds like you're chewing your cud"), and cheese. It would be wonderful to live in South Africa one day. The scenery is beautiful and it's so serene. I'm jealous of everyone who lives here and I hope to return for longer than a week in the future. Hope all is well in the states! Four months left for this gal in Mozambique! I'll update pictures asap!

Pump, Pump the Jam

2009-06-29T17:12:00.000+09:00

So my spirits have lifted a bit since my last posting, despite now having a cold. My mother taught me that when you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all. For me, when I have nothing nice to say, I say wear your headphones and listen to your iPod and then you can drown out what some people are saying. There’s nothing like cranking up some ridiculous ESPN jock jams I have on my iPod – thanks to either my dad and the music he had on the computer for playing at high school softball games or my sister and her random CDs: the jury is out on a which one I got it from. All I know is that I when people are being rude, I just crank up the volume and think “pump, pump the jam, pump it up” and all my cares just float away on a sports center cloud.

School is going well. I was at the board the other day, writing the directions for homework and one of my students said “senhora professora, is it true that there is no God?” My jaw dropped. I asked him why he was asking that and he said “because the Portuguese teacher just told us there is no God.” I told him that it depends on what a person believes and that people are free to believe whatever they want – from Christians, to Muslims, to Jehovah’s Witnesses, to all types of religions (all represented in the classroom). “Well, I am going to ask the biology teacher if you don’t know because I bet he would know.” All the other students nodded their heads in agreement. I tried to explain to them that a question like that has no definite answer and the answer will vary with each person. I am still betting that they went to find the biology teacher to ask him.

The library project is well on its way. It’s shaping up nicely. Nia’s JOMA group is painting a mural on corruption in schools and it is turning out beautifully. I made curtains for the windows and am in the process of organizing the mangled mess that is the library’s “system.” The librarian has obviously taken little care of the library in the past. All of the books are out of order. At the end of the day, after getting books for students, they are just stacked in random piles on desks. This isn’t a library like in the states. It is a single, long, bookshelf unit. Then there is a space for the librarian to walk. Then there is a long librarian’s desk. She can literally sit in the center, pick up a book with her left hand and give it to the student with her right; the space is so small. That is after she plays on her phone for five minutes while the student is standing there, waiting with his/her identification card. That’s obviously something we will need to work on.

Kara (my sister) is coming to see me on Friday! I am incredibly excited and I can’t wait to pick her up from the airport. I will give her a tour of the market and she will get to see the goat heads that are constantly on a display like a warning to all naughty goats. She’s gonna come to school with me for the last day of the trimester to distribute tests and the class prizes. I lied and told my kids that she will be here to control their last exam and I said “there will be TWO Americans controling your test” and a look of horror crossed their faces. “NO SENHORA PROFESSORA!” It will be interesting sharing a bed with her, under a mosquito net, with the dog trying to jump on the bed. She will get to take a bucket bath in our latrine. I have reassured her that my house is like “classy camping” but with numerous locks. I think the most memorable camping trip I ever had with her was when she threw up in my hair. I was like five years old, so this has got to be better. I figure we will spend about five days in Monapo, a couple of days on Ilha, and then we are going to Maputo to visit my host family, making a day trip into Swaziland (my host family lives on the border with Swaziland and I hear you can cross the entire country by car in about two hours) and then we are off to Capetown for a week to go see the penguins, Table Mountain, and Robben Island, experience an array of food and water temperature choices, and we are even getting a rental car. I think the private car might be one of the things I’m most excited about. There are no such things as crowded chapas in South Africa. I often daydream about this chapa-less country - land of milk and honey.

Roadblocks to Funkytown

2009-05-28T17:43:00.000+09:00

I’ve had a case of the mondays for the past few weeks now. I think several things have left me in a general funk. First, there is the problem with my library project. I got the project approved in November and I received the check in March. I then went to the bank with my counterpart to open the bank account. They told my counterpart that she couldn’t open the account with me because she didn’t have documentation that had the names of her parents on it. My counterpart is in her early 40’s. Well, in order to get the documentation, she had to make three trips to the city. Finally, once she got the documents, a month later, we went to the bank and opened the account. Turns out, to my intense delight, that in order to withdraw money from an account that has both your name and your counterpart’s name on it, and even with both people present, one needs to order checks so that they can write the check out to themselves and receive cash from the bank. That’s right. In order to withdraw money, even if it is just once, you need to write a check out to yourself. It’s completely ludicrous. I’ve had it up to here (hand at my chin) with incompetent bank personnel. Well, I ordered the checks as soon as I could and went back to check to see if they had arrived yet in the 15 days they claimed it took to receive them. Each day they told me to come back the next because they hadn’t arrived yet. After about four days of this, the bank manager looks the account number up on the computer and says “oh, well, you have to order checks still.” He then informed me that I couldn’t have ordered the checks until my signature appeared on the account on the computer system. After re-ordering the checks, I walked home from the bank in the biggest display of infantile behavior I could muster. There was glowering, snapping, and angry-walk-arm-swinging. Everything but a full-on show of throwing myself in the nearest trash pile with the goats and screaming until my face turned red and I passed out. There is always something standing in the way and I’m tired of these roadblocks.

With the student who stole the money from the project I had going last year, it has been anything but roses. He came to my house last weekend to talk with his original business partner to make out a plan for paying him back. I then had him write out how much he spent and what he spent it on. I then had him sign and date it. Then they worked out a plan for him to pay back his partner. Then we all signed and dated that. Well, he comes to the house yesterday and says that he doesn’t understand why he has to lose money to pay it back. Umm…because he gave a part of it to his girlfriend, another part to starting a temporary bar, and just basically spending the other half of it. I don’t know how to spell it out for him, short of sharpening up a stubby dark magenta and stenciling it in crayon on his forehead. It’s like talking to a wall with bad acne. He wanted to go and discuss the situation with the police later in the week at 2:00. Well, I had class at 2:00. When I told the partner that got screwed over that I won’t miss class for the meeting, he just laughed like I was kidding. “No, the police will write a letter to get you out of work.” No, it’s not like high school and being excited to get out of band practice. I actually want to stay on track with my lesson plans and my classes. I’ve got something called work ethic (except when it comes to playing Funkytown on the trumpet) and there’s also a little something called a backbone. Maybe he should get one in terms of getting his former partner to pay him back so I don’t have to keep playing bad cop.

I’ve been having sewing machine issues as well. The “master” has been coming to the house to fix the machine. He keeps saying that every part of the machine isn’t the original part of the machine. He also says that if I give him the money he can go and buy the right part in Nacala or Nampula – possibilities that I ignore. Ever since the day he asked for 400 meticais to dismantle the machine, he wouldn’t exactly be on the list for my phone-a-friend on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. He brings parts from his sewing machines to replace it when I don’t say anything in response. Right now, he is lending me the parts but we still have that lack of trust. He said “you don’t trust me, do you?” I told him he ruined that the day he asked for 400. I said he wouldn’t have asked anyone else for 400 in Monapo. He said that, on the contrary, he would have asked them for 700. Doubtful, seeing as that is more than most people make in a month. So, pardon me if we won’t be doing any trust falls in the near future.

It’s sad when the thing I’ve gotten the most joy out of in the past week has been throwing my Nalgene bottle against the wall to demonstrate to my students its inability to shatter. There was actually a collective gasp as I threw it and some people clapped their hands as it rolled across the floor. I felt like Houdini. Then they all wanted to throw it and I began to doubt the product’s durability and put it back in my tote bag. I wore some sandals that my feet weren’t used to and got sores that have now turned into infected, pussy, red wounds. In Africa, wounds take much longer to heal for some reason. It seems like every pair of shoes and sandals I own rubs my feet in the wrong way. My students immediately notice the foot and say “aren’t you taking any pills to make it go away?” I then try to explain in my best Dr. Quinn voice that only a topical treatment would be effective in healing the sores and that I am already doing that. But I’ve decided to just nod and say yes so they stop eying up my gangrene. And I think they may have lost some respect for me as I tried to teach them “there is” and “there are” barefoot. The concrete just felt so cool and liberating.

My students in my bad turma have been getting my bad side like no other but they still don’t seem to get it. They’re late to class? I make them crawl on all fours to their seats. They are too rowdy? I make them sit down and then announce “we are going to play a little game I like to call silence.” We then proceed to stare at each other for the last 10 minutes of class and whoever talks loses and has to leave. They’re like little 17-year old kids sitting in front of a big, shiny, red button and they have to push it. One particularly mouthy kid said he had to go to the bathroom and I watched him do his potty dance all the way out the door. He came back a few minutes later, looking quickly behind him and slamming the door. He then sat down behind some other students. I’m sure if he’d had the sports section he would have whipped it open. Bam! Bam! Bam! Knock on the door. It was a guy and his friend. “I want to talk to that boy outside. He offended me and my friend.” Part of me wanted to feed him to the wolves. The part of me that saw him try to kick my dog once. But I told them no and then informed the student that he has a big mouth and he best be careful about who he insults in the future on his potty breaks.

One of my students received a zero on a composition because two people wrote the same composition. I warn them over and over again that I will give a zero if I receive the same compositions. And yet I still receive compositions that are copied from books and from the smart kids. He got upset and started to walk out the door. I told him I didn’t give him permission to leave and if he walked out the door, he would receive a falta vermelha. He just shrugged his shoulders and walked out as I reached for my red pen. The next day I told him that I wouldn’t let him back into the classroom until he wrote me an apology letter for his little display. The next day he had written the letter but I decided to take it one step further. I told him that in order for him to stay he had to read his letter of apology in front of the class. His eyes teared up and his lips quivered. “Senhora Professora, I can’t do that.” So I told him he was too proud and had him stand next to me up front. “Everyone, Melito has something to say,” and I then proceeded to read his letter out loud while he stared at the floor. I recognize that it was slightly evil but maybe that public humiliation will tone down his sass in the future.

So hopefully this case of bitter hostility will pass. I am ready to stop feeling so cranky. I wake up and walk to the market and someone says “how are you?” in English and I want to turn to them and say “Don’t start a conversation you can’t finish, buck-o. Do I say ‘ehali?’ to you in order to give myself that false, pat-on-the-back feeling that I can speak fluent Makua just because I know a few random phrases? No. So lay off.” Until the cantankerous emotions subside, I have locked up the slingshot and every balloon to resist the temptation of those little bulls-eyes, er, children that attend the primary school next door during their daily 9:30 am bark-off with the dog. It’s the least I can do.

Prairie Dogs and a Breathless Lone Wolf

2009-05-22T18:11:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, we had a “Day of Culture” in Monapo, or as I like to call it “I don’t feel like going to school or work so I officially dub thee a Day of Culture.” I walked from the school with my students to the community stage, where there was music blasting and kids in uniform as far as the eye could see. I quickly got asked to dance and my students got pretty excited when I pulled out my dance moves. It was a repeat of the rousing impromptu dance performance during physical education last year. Let’s just say, I took it to the streets for about…10 seconds. Northwestern Wisconsin streets. In a matter of seconds, I was surrounded by cheering/staring kids. They get a kick out of anything out of the ordinary my roommate or I do. Kids here are amazing dancers. You will be walking down the street and all of a sudden, with music blaring from a local store, they will pull out these sick dance moves and then continue walking as if nothing just happened. People can pop and lock it from the womb here.

For culture day, there was a presentation by local officials – a presentation that, in all honesty, no one cared about. There is a stage but it’s odd because the officials sit on the stage while people dancing or performing are on the ground with the general public. Wouldn’t it make more sense to put those people on the stage so people could see? Yes. Yes, it would. But anyways, as they were presenting on the stage, we noticed a guy had a shirt from the JOMA conference in Nampula this year. Backstory - besides REDES in Mozambique, there is also another youth group that is run by Peace Corps volunteers called JOMA (Youth for Change and Action – translated). They had their conference at the same time as ours that I made a speech at and Nia and I both have shirts. Nia had run into him earlier in the month for “Day of Workers” and he was wearing the shirt. She asked him where he got it and he leaned in really close and was like “why do you want to know so bad?” She asked him where he got the shirt from and he said it was from someone in Angoche. She then asked him who gave it to him because she probably knows them. And then he went into this ridiculous lie about how people have different names on their identification cards so he couldn’t be certain. Well, after getting home yesterday, I was curious about where my JOMA shirt was and lo and behold, it’s missing. The only explanation we can come up with is that he took it off our clothesline. What a creep. So I am determined to see him in public wearing the shirt, and then walk up behind him and do that nifty little hockey trick where they pull it over the person’s back. Followed promptly by the biggest wedgie of his life.

I have been going running every morning at 5:30 at the soccer field by our house and I’m up to 7 laps. There are always children playing soccer, so it can be annoying at times. I have to hide my heavy breathing every time I jog past. You jog past a group of people and they just stare. Stare, Stare. Stare. That’s life for us. Like a monkey in a cage. I enjoy staring back with exaggeration – my jaw hanging down. And then say something like “flies are going to enter your mouth.” Most of the time they get embarrassed and look away, but sometimes they just look confused. One day, these two little boys were sitting in the field and as I started my laps, they stood up and started jogging behind me. Every time I would go slow, they would go slow. Every time I sprinted, they would sprint. It was all quite annoying - like “I know you are but what am I?” or repeating everything someone says. Another time I had the same pace as a 12-year old girl. I tried to pass her but then she sped up. I tried to slow down and I swear she slowed her gait. I think she wanted to run with me, which is cute and everything because I’m the only other female in the field in the morning, but I can’t handle that kind of pressure. I’m the lone wolf type when it comes to exercise.

I am having issues with a turma (class) of students. I handed out a falta collectiva (marking everyone as absent) and a falta vermelha (the worst offense) one day this last week. They just get obnoxious and you have to try to put them in their place. Some teachers have changed classes in the school so they don’t have to teach certain bad turmas. It shouldn’t be like that. In my mind, there should be major punishment for that kind of behavior. For example, kicking them out of school. I become evil when I have a bad turma. I was kicking people out left and right. I made everyone who didn’t do their homework (which was about 90 percent of the class) sit on the floor between the aisles for the entire class period, which is not comfortable. A fellow teacher walked into my classroom in the middle of class to make an announcement and all my students looked up from between the desks like prairie dogs. I think I’ll have a Mozambican teacher yell at them for me. Or at least tattle on specific people to the pedagogical director. There just gets to a point where there isn’t anything you can do and you have to call in the reinforcements.

Kids at the school have been barking at the dog and standing in the cashew tree again. So I went and talked to the school and we haven’t had a problem for the rest of the week. It’s ridiculous that no one controls the kids here. No teachers show up to school so the kids just sit around and get bored, so they decide to stir up trouble. One day I was teaching at school and Nia was home. I guess a kid was throwing rocks at the dog and barking at Timba. Well, Timba has this King Kong-like ability to burst free from his restraints when he is enticed and he managed to do so. He immediately sprinted out of the gate and chased down the kid. As he was trying to flee, the kid got so scared that he fell down and Timba just stopped on a dime next to the kid and turned around as if to say “well, my work here is done.” I like to imagine he dusted his paws off. I would have given up my monthly salary and eaten just cassava for weeks to see that.

I am Feeling Downright Collicky Today

2009-05-15T22:50:00.000+09:00

So life has been crazy busy and internet hasn’t been working in my town…and those are my reasons for not updating this. Just think of my desire to update this often as a new years resolution – a completely breakable promise with the best intentions. The REDES conference was a success! It was in the city for four days with 47 girls, 7 Mozambican counterparts and 10 Peace Corps volunteers. Each day, they had a focus on a certain area – gender, HIV/AIDS and health, women’s rights and setting goals. Also, they had technical projects – painting a mural, sewing a capulana purse, first aid sessions, cleaning a park, and computer classes. Everything ran fairly smoothly. No one got seriously ill during the conference. One of my girls told another girl to tell me that she felt sick. I went and found her and asked her what was wrong, only to have her reply with “I feel a little colicky.” I thought that babies only got that. I just told her to drink some water and sleep, which worked like a charm. That was my response to all reported headaches and minor pains. Yeah, I know. I’m a veritable Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman. All in all, I’ve never been that tired in the span of a week. It was stressful and wonderful all wrapped into one. I definitely consider it one of my top achievements in life thus far…besides figuring out that it’s “I’m Shameless,” not “I’m Shaving,” in the hit country song by Garth Brooks.

Since the conference, I’ve had a chance to relax a bit. All of us Nampula volunteers went to Angoche the weekend after to celebrate a fellow PCV’s opening of an impressive youth center and to hang out on the beach. Then, I went to Chocas and Ilha with another volunteer and some ex-pats. It was a lot of fun, despite unnecessarily long chapa rides and a freakishly horrible display of exiting a boat. I have realized that these Wisconsin legs are meant only for land and reasonably small bodies of water. There’s a reason why the Little Mermaid had transition issues. I tried to gracefully descend from the boat, only to slide down the side and fall straight into the water, leaving three bruises (arm, leg and ego, respectively).

One might say I have an irrational fear of a boat tipping over but I think it all circles back to swimming lessons I took when I was about 7 years old. I refused to jump off the diving board until they finally convinced me that it’s not as bad if you hold onto the long metal pole. Well, those teenage swimming instructors were a bunch of Judases because it’s not. When I went to Girl Scout camp a couple years later, Camp Nawakwa, to be exact, they gave me a “yellow zone” swimming bracelet – based entirely on my inability to tread water. The yellow zone was equivalent to what I was bathed in at the age of three. So I stood there in my swimsuit and yellow bracelet, stomping through that puddle they referred to as the “yellow zone” while the other girls got to be submersed in the “orange” and cannon ball like lunatics off of the “red zone” dock. I don’t regret it though. If you think about it, if that lake were an ocean, those red zone show-offs would be the first victims of a great white and I would be the one with all my limbs intact, applying a thick layer of SPF 40 on the shore, saying “well, that sucks.” Glass half full indeed.

My REDES group is going well. We started sewing machine lessons this week. The sewing machine “master” (as he refers to himself) took apart the machine and oiled it. With the machine torn apart, screws lying everywhere, he then tried to tell me that the job would cost 400 mt to complete. I flat out refused and said 100 mt and he laughed. When people try to rip me off and then giggle, I go straight from negotiating to slinging insults. It’s a defense mechanism that doesn’t always get me what I want but it makes me feel a ton better to emotionally maim someone. I went from saying 100 mt to telling the guy that if he wants to take advantage of people and hinder development in Mozambique, he can walk out the front gate and I can get someone else to put the machine together. And then he starts talking to the girls in Macua. Which resulted in me saying “You don’t know how to speak Portuguese, huh? Do you know anything?” All of my REDES girls looked at the ground. I think I made them uncomfortable but maybe it was a lesson in not letting people walk all over you. We settled on 150 and the assurance that he would come when I call to do machine maintenance. That is a promise that might be similar to my promise to update this blog - minus the best intentions.

I am having a woman from the Women’s Club in town teach me a different skill each week that I will, in turn, teach the girls. I tried to get her to come last week. Apparently, in her world, saying to be somewhere at 8 technically falls somewhere between 9 and 9:30. It’s amazing how one can feel like a date being continuously stood up in Mozambique. It’s like Groundhog’s Day meets…Never Been Kissed? We are trying it again this week and I’m hopeful everything will run smoothly and according to plan and other cliches I cant think of at the moment. My ultimate goal though is to give them the basic sewing instructions they need in order to operate a sewing machine and they can take it from there after I leave. Before I leave Mozambique, I have to figure out a location to leave the sewing machines so that the girls can continue the project in order to make it sustainable. So far, we are learning how to work the pedal on the machine and punch holes in a piece of paper. If you are nice to me, I can stitch your name in a piece of notebook paper along with a heartwarming message. Merry Christmas.

I went to the police station next door to finally talk to them about actually sitting down and talking to this guy who stole money from a project I was working on last year. I filed a report and sat in a concrete room with three bored police officers plucking away on typewriters the size of a small SUV. I returned later in the day to walk to the guy’s house with a police officer. I wanted to do it all SWAT-like. For example, send a plain clothes police officer or just send me in first to lay down a false sense of security. But no, the officer goes with me in full policeman’s garb. Apparently subtlety is right up there with chivalry in terms of all things dead. Children in the neighborhood ran screaming when they saw the whitey and the officer. Their mothers were no help either. “Policia! Policia! Policia!” The kids then ran and grabbed guns they had fashioned out of banana leaves and bamboo and pretended to hide from the police while their mothers pretended to turn them in. Would have been cute if we weren’t trying to apprehend a perp. Turns out, this guy got a job working at a banana farm about 50 km from Monapo and is only home on the weekends. The school still won’t let him graduate because of the money he stole and all he can do now is work. If I were him, I would be doing everything I could to get this money back but his priorities seem to be about as organized as my intestinal tract.

I received my COS (close-of-service) date of November 20th. I’m pretty happy about that because it means I will be home in time for Thanksgiving. I will fly home on the 20th. There’s a lot to do before then though so I have plenty to keep myself occupied. I have the library project I’m working on at my school. My sister is coming in July to visit for a couple of weeks and then we are going to Cape Town in South Africa for a week. After that, in August, I have a close of service conference with everyone from my Peace Corps group. September and October will be busy with finishing up projects and beginning that fateful step of searching for a job in the states. I don’t want to be pulled into the black hole of watching The Price is Right and eating frozen chicken pot pies in my parents’ living room for any longer than I have to. And my spider senses tell me my parents would rather not have that black hole exist either. I am thinking I want to work in the Twin Cities for a year or two to save up money for some furthering of education. I’m not exactly sure of what that furthering of education will entail at this point but I figured that it will come to me. Maybe in a dream. Or on a piece of buttered toast in my parents’ living room.

Bend It Like Encyclopedia Brown

2009-03-24T17:45:00.000+09:00

We just finished the week of ACP exams in Monapo and we all know what that means. We got to play a little game I like to call “close your eyes and point your finger and you’ve got yourself a cheater.” We aren’t even talking about good cheating. Slick 007 cheating. Ocean’s 11 rig-the-deck cheating. No. This is the type of cheating where they see the teacher looking at them and throw their notebook back on the floor. Or the notebook is on the floor but they page through it with their toes. There’s also my favorite: blatantly sitting on the notebook. You can always tell because they might as well have brought a blanket and picnic basket. They don’t tuck in their shirts so that the fabric will cover any corner of the notebook that is peaking out. Also, they look slightly uncomfortable when you walk past them, give you a side-glance or are sweating more than what is seasonably acceptable. When I would yank a notebook out from under a student like the golden egg from under the goose, a look of shock and horror would appear on their faces.

“Senhora Professora! I didn’t cheat! I don’t know how that got there! That’s not my notebook!”

And then I joke that they were probably sitting on the notebook so they could see the board better. They continue to argue with me and the amazing thing is that they actually seem to believe they did nothing wrong. They are just that desperate to pass without doing any work. All of the teachers control the exams of other teachers. We just pass out the tests and keep an eye on them. The teacher eventually comes in and explains everything. I can’t help but feel sheepish when the teacher comes in to explain and I’m standing on a chair, looming over the students in my dark sunglasses, red marker in hand. The teacher usually appreciates it though and backs me up when the students try to complain to them that I’m actually marking down who is cheating and talking.

The students have this trick of not telling you their name after they cheat and not writing their names on the test,so that they can go to the teacher of that discipline later and say that they were sick that day and couldn’t take the test. I have found a good way to combat this problem. I steal from the students. They don’t tell me their name or are suffering from temporary Alzheimer’s? Fine. Osvaldo doesn’t get to wear his shoes on the long walk home. It’s virtually fail proof (unless I worked in a nursing home). When they want their shoes or their random personal belongings returned, they have to go and talk to the teacher. At the end of one test, my tote bag looked like a middle school lost and found.

They take two tests each day for ACPs and one day I controlled 11th grade exams, it was bloodshed. I was handing out “cheated” on tests like a shoe salesman getting commission. After the break between tests, I walked into the room to find a message scrawled on the board.

“Erin – you can not enter this classroom anymore! We are not asking – we are ordering!”

Frankly, I was flattered that they spelled my name correctly. Now if only they would stop spelling English as “Inglesh.” I was hoping for a skull and crossbones. Or at least a Mr. Ick. But alas, we can’t have everything we want in this world.

Life has been amazingly busy between planning a conference in the city and school. I have been dealing with a man who works at a venue in the city where the REDES conference room and food will be provided. I should have known what it would be like to deal with the man from this place (I will call him “half pint”) when one of the first things he asked me when I talked to him in January was “are you married?” I have learned that I just need to lie and say yes in hopes that it will squash the possibility of future discussion of the topic. The problem is that you can tell men you are married, but that isn’t good enough. They need to see your spouse as a conjoined twin at your side, like some warped TLC special, in order to leave you alone. Half Pint attempts to flirt with me each time I go to discuss conference logistics, making me want to shove his stubby tie halfway down the paper shredder in the corner of the office so he can sit there and think about what he’s done.

I went to stay at a friend’s house the other week in an attempt to get more accomplished and in the morning, as I was walking out to the road, I flagged down a chapa to take me to the center of the city. Well, lo and behold, Half Pint was behind the wheel of an SUV directly behind the chapa. He waved for me to come so he could give me a ride. I couldn’t say “oh no, thank you. I much prefer this smelly, dilapidated excuse for public transportation.” So I hopped in with my belongings strapped to my back. The bulk of the conversation went like this.

Half Pint: “I like you a lot.”
Me: “Is that a soccer field over there?”
Half Pint: “When I think about you, I feel frightened by how much I like you.”
Me: “Sporting is a Nampula team? Or is it Benfica? Or are they both?”
Half Pint: “Fright. I don’t know why. Strange, isn’t it?”
Me: “Soccer is a good sport.”
Half Pint: “I like you a lot. We should have dinner the next time you are in the city.”
Me: “I am married.”
Half Pint: “I sense that you are bothered when I talk about how I feel for you.”
Me: “I am married.”
Half Pint: “We should have dinner.”
Me: “I eat dinner with my friends when I’m in the city.”
Half Pint: “You are bothered?”
Me: “Yes.”

Yes, Half Pint is a true Encyclopedia Brown of female emotions. I feel like the closest I could come to him understanding that I don’t like him is by punching him in the face, and outweighing him by a good 50 lbs., I am fairly certain a sneeze would suffice in steamrolling the little feller. I just have to put up with it for another month. Until then, he isn’t charging me for the use of the microphones and sound system.

Speaking of dogs, Timba got his rabies vaccination. So if he bites a thief and they start foaming at the mouth, I can wave a piece of paper in their face and say it must have been something they ate. I was relieved to find out that it wasn’t our town veterinarian but a veterinary technician who was available. The man had gin on his breath but hey, he was a dapper gentleman in comparison with the other guy. I had to pin Timba to the ground while he shot the dog up. I couldn’t plaster the little guy down the whole time and he got up, snarling at the tech. I always love getting a front row seat to Mozambican men yelping like little girls. The man picked up his feet and ran like a collegiate marching band’s half-time show to our front gate and I had to talk to him through the door to have him drop off the paperwork later. Part of the injection ended up on the ground, which the dog promptly lapped up. This is Africa. Waste not. Want not.