Back in the U.S., I never really could get into yoga. In New York, it seemed more the realm of snooty former sorority girls, clad in designer leggings and drinking designer organic iced tea in carefully constructed environments designed to feel natural, pristine, calming, and exclusive. The handful of classes I tried felt competitive and conspicuous. You could feel each participant trying to outdo the others with the length of their reach, the balance of their poses, the force of their inner peace, the trendiness of their Lulu Lemons.
But there's a free yoga class in Carolina Park on Saturdays, and lately on most Saturday mornings I seem to end up there. This yoga class is a different story. This is the yoga of the people.
In this haphazard crew, you might be doing your sun salutations next to middle-aged moms or uncle-types wearing track suits or jeans or a soccer jersey, or shorts that may also be swim trunks. Some people bring mats to be on, some bring beach towels, some just pop a squat barefoot in the grass.
The class is located in one of the prettiest of lush, shady spots in the park, but at the end of the day, it's still a public park. One time a bunch of people dressed as ninjas swarmed around the nearby pagoda and began doing slow-motion battle moves with big long ninja sticks, I guess maybe they're filming a ninja movie? Another time there was a thumping reggaeton beat the whole time -- DOOSH-a-doosh-doosh, DOOSH-a-doosh-doosh -- from a nearby festival in the park. Yet another time a dog who had escaped his leash came around sniffing our feet and butts and crotches.
Butt-sniffing ninja warrior reggaeton yoga, that's more my style. I wonder if they have that in New York.
It is also comforting to me that in spite of my novice status, that I am not the worst one in this class. There are always people more mystified than I by the pretzel-like postures we're supposed to take on, and when we do core-strengthening type exercises, there are always people who give up before I do, or whose muscles are trembling even worse than mine. One time there was an old guy next to me who would make these noises like Ooooh or aaaahhh or eeeeeehhh with every new pose, as if he were maybe passing some painful gas or getting some dislocated joints re-set, or lowering himself into a bath that was several degrees too hot. It was funny and distracting.
The two instructors are welcoming and open and gentle with their corrections and encouragement, and they're matter-of-fact about what we're trying to accomplish and why. And I'm also learning lots of useful Spanish phrases, like the lift up your heels and tighten your glutes...
Well I was going to tell you about a moment of clarity during my last class, but I ended up telling you about the class's pleasing idiosyncrasies instead. I'll save clarity for another day.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Aftershocks
It's been a strange week.
One of those weeks where it's all you can do to get yourself dressed and out the door for work in the morning. Forget packing a lunch, or laundry, or tidying up, or making a healthy dinner. One of those weeks at work where it feels like it's all you can manage to have some semblance of a lesson planned, where you hope the kids don't notice that you're winging it, and you haven't quite ironed out all of the details of the lesson you are starting in 5 minutes. One of those weeks where your body certainly is where it's supposed to be, answering emails, attending meetings, up in front of the classroom or behind the conference table, monitoring the patio during recess... but your heart and mind are somewhere else. My heart was on the coast. My head was in the headlines.
It was a week that felt like it took place in grayscale, despite the crisp brightness of the days. It was a zombie week, in no small part because of lack of sleep.
Several nights this week there were aftershocks strong enough that I felt them here in my apartment in Quito. The first thing I noticed, and what woke me up, was the sound of hangers banging and knocking into each other in my closet. Then I realized that my apartment was vibrating, shaking from side to side. One of the tremors felt like a roll - I remember feeling it from the foot of my bed moving towards the head. Being on the 10th floor makes it kind of feel like you're in a swing. I remember thinking in my sleep-addled state, what is it that I'm supposed to do? Should I be doing something other than staring wide-eyed into the darkness and feeling my heart rate accelerate?
Luckily, the tremors weren't severe and didn't cause any damage close to home. But it was hard to go back to sleep afterwards. My apprehension turned itself into dreams. First, an evacuation dream of my apartment, then my apartment turned into a school, and I had to evacuate hundreds of children from many floors up. Almost all of my anxiety dreams are some sort of school-based scenario. It's something we often take for granted as teachers, but when it comes down to it, we spend our working hours responsible for the very lives of our students. It's an overwhelming thought if you think hard about it.
A friend of mine said that this week felt like the week after a terrible bus crash last year in which half a dozen Colegio Americano teachers were severely injured. There's a surreal feeling, especially when everything in your daily life remains almost exactly the same. You try to maintain stability and constancy for the sake of the kids. You clean all of the non-perishables out of your pantry and put them in the collection bins. You put together an emergency kit to keep next to your bed. For the kids, you try your best to model optimism, empathy, action, strength. Steady as she goes. But still, you feel helpless. You know that the lives of the people affected by the tragedy will never be the same. You know that out there, there is nothing but disaster, devastation, destruction, uncertainty, hunger, desperation, heartbreak, fear. You know that for the people who lost family members, friends, homes, businesses, neighbors, life will never truly be back to normal.
And yet, as always in times of crisis, there are opportunities to be truly moved by the selflessness of others. As Mr. Rogers says, look for the helpers.
Ecuador jerseys were everywhere this week, bright yellow beacons of solidarity and hope. In the Supermaxi, there was hardly a can of beans to be found, because they had all been swept up in a whirlwind of donations by citizen shoppers. Carts were lined up in the checkout aisle full to the brim - one with water, another with cans of food, others with toilet paper, diapers, rice, cooking oil, pots and pans. Employees were hurriedly restocking the shelves with all of the emergency items, not even unpacking them from their bulk containers, because they knew the customers would be buying them in bulk to send to the coast. As quickly as the red-aproned workers could stock the shelves, the relief supplies were whisked away into shopping carts and onto the conveyer belts and then sorted back into boxes to be transported to the coast.
There are collection stations across the city and the country, called puntos solidarios, or solidarity points. Many, many tons of food and clothing have been donated. So many people wanted to go and help out that officials had to send out warnings that the affected areas had reached capacity and couldn't sustain more volunteers. Rescuers have recovered 113 people alive. Millions of dollars have been donated by individuals, foreign governments, and international and local organizations.
There is a long, hard road ahead. It will take years to rebuild. But, to echo the sentiments of just about everyone everywhere around here, from radio ads, to posters, to newspapers and social media, Ecuador will come through this stronger than ever before. Fuerza, Ecuador.
One of those weeks where it's all you can do to get yourself dressed and out the door for work in the morning. Forget packing a lunch, or laundry, or tidying up, or making a healthy dinner. One of those weeks at work where it feels like it's all you can manage to have some semblance of a lesson planned, where you hope the kids don't notice that you're winging it, and you haven't quite ironed out all of the details of the lesson you are starting in 5 minutes. One of those weeks where your body certainly is where it's supposed to be, answering emails, attending meetings, up in front of the classroom or behind the conference table, monitoring the patio during recess... but your heart and mind are somewhere else. My heart was on the coast. My head was in the headlines.
It was a week that felt like it took place in grayscale, despite the crisp brightness of the days. It was a zombie week, in no small part because of lack of sleep.
Several nights this week there were aftershocks strong enough that I felt them here in my apartment in Quito. The first thing I noticed, and what woke me up, was the sound of hangers banging and knocking into each other in my closet. Then I realized that my apartment was vibrating, shaking from side to side. One of the tremors felt like a roll - I remember feeling it from the foot of my bed moving towards the head. Being on the 10th floor makes it kind of feel like you're in a swing. I remember thinking in my sleep-addled state, what is it that I'm supposed to do? Should I be doing something other than staring wide-eyed into the darkness and feeling my heart rate accelerate?
Luckily, the tremors weren't severe and didn't cause any damage close to home. But it was hard to go back to sleep afterwards. My apprehension turned itself into dreams. First, an evacuation dream of my apartment, then my apartment turned into a school, and I had to evacuate hundreds of children from many floors up. Almost all of my anxiety dreams are some sort of school-based scenario. It's something we often take for granted as teachers, but when it comes down to it, we spend our working hours responsible for the very lives of our students. It's an overwhelming thought if you think hard about it.
A friend of mine said that this week felt like the week after a terrible bus crash last year in which half a dozen Colegio Americano teachers were severely injured. There's a surreal feeling, especially when everything in your daily life remains almost exactly the same. You try to maintain stability and constancy for the sake of the kids. You clean all of the non-perishables out of your pantry and put them in the collection bins. You put together an emergency kit to keep next to your bed. For the kids, you try your best to model optimism, empathy, action, strength. Steady as she goes. But still, you feel helpless. You know that the lives of the people affected by the tragedy will never be the same. You know that out there, there is nothing but disaster, devastation, destruction, uncertainty, hunger, desperation, heartbreak, fear. You know that for the people who lost family members, friends, homes, businesses, neighbors, life will never truly be back to normal.
And yet, as always in times of crisis, there are opportunities to be truly moved by the selflessness of others. As Mr. Rogers says, look for the helpers.
Ecuador jerseys were everywhere this week, bright yellow beacons of solidarity and hope. In the Supermaxi, there was hardly a can of beans to be found, because they had all been swept up in a whirlwind of donations by citizen shoppers. Carts were lined up in the checkout aisle full to the brim - one with water, another with cans of food, others with toilet paper, diapers, rice, cooking oil, pots and pans. Employees were hurriedly restocking the shelves with all of the emergency items, not even unpacking them from their bulk containers, because they knew the customers would be buying them in bulk to send to the coast. As quickly as the red-aproned workers could stock the shelves, the relief supplies were whisked away into shopping carts and onto the conveyer belts and then sorted back into boxes to be transported to the coast.
There are collection stations across the city and the country, called puntos solidarios, or solidarity points. Many, many tons of food and clothing have been donated. So many people wanted to go and help out that officials had to send out warnings that the affected areas had reached capacity and couldn't sustain more volunteers. Rescuers have recovered 113 people alive. Millions of dollars have been donated by individuals, foreign governments, and international and local organizations.
There is a long, hard road ahead. It will take years to rebuild. But, to echo the sentiments of just about everyone everywhere around here, from radio ads, to posters, to newspapers and social media, Ecuador will come through this stronger than ever before. Fuerza, Ecuador.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Terremoto
This weekend was a contrast between earth and sky.
On Friday for the three day weekend we ascended into the clouds, hiking up to a nature reserve accessible only by foot or by mule. At the summit you find a wooden lodge with an orchid garden, a giant swing that makes you feel like you're flying into the forest, and no electricity.
At one point I caught a glimpse of the view from the top, but most of the time the sky all around us was totally clouded in. That, along with the candlelight, gave our weekend an ethereal, heaven-like quality. We existed in a fog of white, high above the world. We inhabited the sky.
Then, the world shook. It felt like when the above-ground subway passes directly overhead, only it didn't stop. The only thing above us was sky, and we were many, many miles from the nearest train. The building rattled around us, and I grabbed the arms of the two people sitting next to me. As it dawned on us what was happening, we scrambled outside, where the ground continued to shake underneath us. After the earth stopped quaking, my legs continued for some time.
We had enough cell reception to confirm that family and friends had not been harmed, and to let others know that we were all right.
But the true magnitude of a 7.8 didn't impact until we came down the mountain and reconnected to our phones, our Facebooks, our various newsfeeds... Hundreds of people dead, thousands injured, and thousands more suddenly homeless, all in some of the poorest, most remote provinces of this beautiful country. People are still trapped under the rubble.
And here we are, so close to the epicenter, yet so far. Collecting bottles of water and cans of food doesn't feel like enough. I want to gather up souls, invite people into my home, bulldoze or bleed or brandish a sword, embrace the ones who are hurting, wrap them in blankets, rebuild their homes. I want to send them up into the clouds, like we were this past weekend, so they won't have to look at the earth that betrayed them.
On Friday for the three day weekend we ascended into the clouds, hiking up to a nature reserve accessible only by foot or by mule. At the summit you find a wooden lodge with an orchid garden, a giant swing that makes you feel like you're flying into the forest, and no electricity.
At one point I caught a glimpse of the view from the top, but most of the time the sky all around us was totally clouded in. That, along with the candlelight, gave our weekend an ethereal, heaven-like quality. We existed in a fog of white, high above the world. We inhabited the sky.
Then, the world shook. It felt like when the above-ground subway passes directly overhead, only it didn't stop. The only thing above us was sky, and we were many, many miles from the nearest train. The building rattled around us, and I grabbed the arms of the two people sitting next to me. As it dawned on us what was happening, we scrambled outside, where the ground continued to shake underneath us. After the earth stopped quaking, my legs continued for some time.
We had enough cell reception to confirm that family and friends had not been harmed, and to let others know that we were all right.
But the true magnitude of a 7.8 didn't impact until we came down the mountain and reconnected to our phones, our Facebooks, our various newsfeeds... Hundreds of people dead, thousands injured, and thousands more suddenly homeless, all in some of the poorest, most remote provinces of this beautiful country. People are still trapped under the rubble.
And here we are, so close to the epicenter, yet so far. Collecting bottles of water and cans of food doesn't feel like enough. I want to gather up souls, invite people into my home, bulldoze or bleed or brandish a sword, embrace the ones who are hurting, wrap them in blankets, rebuild their homes. I want to send them up into the clouds, like we were this past weekend, so they won't have to look at the earth that betrayed them.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
One of those days
Some days the pages come out of the printer backwards and upside-down.
Some days everyone's talking in circles.
Some days you can't quite find what you're looking for.
Some days it drizzles more or less without stopping.
Some days half the kids' homework didn't get done, and paltry excuses accrue like desiccated flies on flypaper.
On days like this, it is almost certain that your Inbox will have reached its quota, and you must eliminate unnecessary emails in order to continue.
In this case, it is also virtually certain that you will delete emails that turn out to be necessary after all.
Luckily, days like these don't last forever, and sometimes even arrive with a built-in cure. The warmth of a chat with family can evaporate the cold, wet chill from the air. Learning something new and interesting in Spanish class can erase the frustration and futility of beating all those dead horses - the disobedient printer, the engorged Inbox, the guilt-ridden, wide-eyed stares of the culprits of the incomplete homework. And a nice hot meal and a cold beer can fill you up enough to cancel out the absence of that thing you never found, or the sought-after words that never got said.
Onward!
Tomorrow is a different day. Let's see what truth it holds.
Some days everyone's talking in circles.
Some days you can't quite find what you're looking for.
Some days it drizzles more or less without stopping.
Some days half the kids' homework didn't get done, and paltry excuses accrue like desiccated flies on flypaper.
On days like this, it is almost certain that your Inbox will have reached its quota, and you must eliminate unnecessary emails in order to continue.
In this case, it is also virtually certain that you will delete emails that turn out to be necessary after all.
Luckily, days like these don't last forever, and sometimes even arrive with a built-in cure. The warmth of a chat with family can evaporate the cold, wet chill from the air. Learning something new and interesting in Spanish class can erase the frustration and futility of beating all those dead horses - the disobedient printer, the engorged Inbox, the guilt-ridden, wide-eyed stares of the culprits of the incomplete homework. And a nice hot meal and a cold beer can fill you up enough to cancel out the absence of that thing you never found, or the sought-after words that never got said.
Onward!
Tomorrow is a different day. Let's see what truth it holds.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Oda Ecuatoriana
Ecuador, que eres?
Yo si se lo que soy a ti...
A veces turista, huesped, habitante, trabajadora, viajera, ex-patriota, media-Quitena...Perdida y/o comodamente enclavado en mi hogar.
Pero que eres a mi?
Tus caras, tus miradas, son variadas como mis sentimientos a ti, mi anfitrion.
La sierra, la espina de la tierra. Montanas fuertes, siluetas contra sol y oscuridad; truenos, rayos, torrentes. Misterios. Dedicacion. Fortaleza, perseverencia y obstinencia a continuar a vivir cada dia mejor.
Las brisas de la costa, ustedes son los momentos suaves, calidos, los que paso con amigos, conocidos y queridos. Olas frescas y refrescantes. Pero tambien hay mosquitos alla: dudas, timidez. Todo lo que rompa la confianza y comodidad.
Galapagos, eres todo lo que me sorprende, el inesperado. Eres una esquina unica, eres colores brillantes y no totalmente cuerdos. El tiron a no hacer lo que hace los demas. El instinto a llenar el espacio mio, no importa que la forma no cabe dentro de las lineas demarcadas. Evolucion. Cambios hechos para adaptarse al lugar y al tiempo.
Y el oriente, aun no visto. Eres posibilidades. El amanecer. Eres lo que voy ver, lo que voy a entender. Crecimiento. Frondosidad. Lleno con vida todavia no conocida.
Ecuador, en que capacidad pertenezco a ti? Y cuando voy a comprender lo que eres a mi?
________________________________________________________________
Ecuador, what are you?
I know what I am to you...
Sometimes a tourist, guest, inhabitant, worker, traveler, expatriate, kind-of-Quitena...Lost and/or cozily nestled in my home.
But what are you to me?
Your faces, your looks, are as varied as my sentiments about you, my host.
The sierra, the spine of the land. Strong mountains, silhouettes against sun and darkness; thunder, lightning, torrential rains. Mysteries. Dedication. Fortitude, perseverance and stubbornness to continue living each day better than the last.
The breezes of the coast, you are the gentle, warm moments, those I spend with friends, acquaintances, and those held dear. Cool refreshing waves. But also there are mosquitoes there: doubts, self-consciousness. Everything that breaks your confidence and comfort.
Galapagos, you're everything that surprises me, the unexpected. You are a unique corner, you are brilliant colors that aren't totally sane. The pull not to do what everyone else is doing. The instinct to fill the space that is mine, no matter that the shape doesn't fit inside the demarcated lines. Evolution. Changes made to adapt to the place and time.
And the Amazon, not yet seen. You are possibilities. The dawn. You are that which I will see, what I will understand. Growth. Lushness. Full of life yet unknown.
Ecuador, in what way do I belong to you? And when will I understand what you are to me?
Yo si se lo que soy a ti...
A veces turista, huesped, habitante, trabajadora, viajera, ex-patriota, media-Quitena...Perdida y/o comodamente enclavado en mi hogar.
Pero que eres a mi?
Tus caras, tus miradas, son variadas como mis sentimientos a ti, mi anfitrion.
La sierra, la espina de la tierra. Montanas fuertes, siluetas contra sol y oscuridad; truenos, rayos, torrentes. Misterios. Dedicacion. Fortaleza, perseverencia y obstinencia a continuar a vivir cada dia mejor.
Las brisas de la costa, ustedes son los momentos suaves, calidos, los que paso con amigos, conocidos y queridos. Olas frescas y refrescantes. Pero tambien hay mosquitos alla: dudas, timidez. Todo lo que rompa la confianza y comodidad.
Galapagos, eres todo lo que me sorprende, el inesperado. Eres una esquina unica, eres colores brillantes y no totalmente cuerdos. El tiron a no hacer lo que hace los demas. El instinto a llenar el espacio mio, no importa que la forma no cabe dentro de las lineas demarcadas. Evolucion. Cambios hechos para adaptarse al lugar y al tiempo.
Y el oriente, aun no visto. Eres posibilidades. El amanecer. Eres lo que voy ver, lo que voy a entender. Crecimiento. Frondosidad. Lleno con vida todavia no conocida.
Ecuador, en que capacidad pertenezco a ti? Y cuando voy a comprender lo que eres a mi?
________________________________________________________________
Ecuador, what are you?
I know what I am to you...
Sometimes a tourist, guest, inhabitant, worker, traveler, expatriate, kind-of-Quitena...Lost and/or cozily nestled in my home.
But what are you to me?
Your faces, your looks, are as varied as my sentiments about you, my host.
The sierra, the spine of the land. Strong mountains, silhouettes against sun and darkness; thunder, lightning, torrential rains. Mysteries. Dedication. Fortitude, perseverance and stubbornness to continue living each day better than the last.
The breezes of the coast, you are the gentle, warm moments, those I spend with friends, acquaintances, and those held dear. Cool refreshing waves. But also there are mosquitoes there: doubts, self-consciousness. Everything that breaks your confidence and comfort.
Galapagos, you're everything that surprises me, the unexpected. You are a unique corner, you are brilliant colors that aren't totally sane. The pull not to do what everyone else is doing. The instinct to fill the space that is mine, no matter that the shape doesn't fit inside the demarcated lines. Evolution. Changes made to adapt to the place and time.
And the Amazon, not yet seen. You are possibilities. The dawn. You are that which I will see, what I will understand. Growth. Lushness. Full of life yet unknown.
Ecuador, in what way do I belong to you? And when will I understand what you are to me?
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Good things are happening
Just letting you know that Operation End Social Isolation is in progress and so far working. Last night I went to the artisanal beer bar called La Reserva and an impromptu barbecue. Today I went to a baby shower, tonight I'm going out for burgers with some of my girls.
Next week I have lined up salsa lessons, a sushi date, a movie, and a trip to a nature reserve with a bunch of friends for the three day weekend.
There, take that, loneliness!
Next week I have lined up salsa lessons, a sushi date, a movie, and a trip to a nature reserve with a bunch of friends for the three day weekend.
There, take that, loneliness!
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Blues and grays and rays of sun
You know what was delightful? On Wednesday, I got to sleep all the way in to 7am and it was glorious! I had to go back to the doctor for a routine blood test which they only do weekday mornings before you have eaten and they open at 8. So that meant I got to come to school a couple hours late...
Waking up at 7 was so decent, so humane (compared to my usual 5:30 or 5:45)! The sun was already shining, the morning chill had been mitigated by said sun, people were out and about, life was present. I have always felt a sort of silent solidarity for the other early risers that I usually see in the gray dawn of my morning commute - maintenance people, truck drivers, nurses, parents dropping off little ones at school or daycare before work, other teachers, people preparing for big events... But it was nice to join the other folks for a day! The stores were open, morning radio programs had begun. Somewhat jealously, I wondered what subset of people had time to attend a Tai Chi class in the park on weekday mornings.
Once I arrived to work, with plenty of time before my next class, I stopped by the Teacher's Club to refill my coffee and have the cook make me nice gooey grilled cheese sandwich. It was a rare luxury to be able to operate within a flexible time frame. In teaching, your entire existence is plotted out minute by minute. There is no being late when all of your students are depending on you to unlock the classroom door and take attendance and get the gears going in order to set the daily routine into motion.
This unique Wednesday morning, I relished the feeling of reading the headlines in bed before getting up, without the pressure of knowing a bus would be waiting for me on the corner at exactly 6:46am and that I'd better hurry up and get my ass out of bed or I'll miss it. It was nice to dilly-dally. We teachers don't get to do that a lot. Our lives are about pressing on ahead, figuring out how we can makes things go more quickly, more smoothly, more efficiently, more like clockwork. It was nice to un-tether myself from the clock for a few hours.
The other delightful thing that day was a real live teachable moment! Our new Social Studies unit is about resistance and revolution, and as students studied photos and images from segregation and the Civil Rights movement, it gave way to a really interesting and honest conversation. We talked about how to talk about race, and why it's difficult, and how words are important because they have the power to evoke specific meanings and feelings and entire time periods in history. The students also shared some moments where they had detected latent racism in their own lives. It was unplanned, and ended up superseding the Read Aloud I had planned, but it was one of those rare, cool, moments where you can see that the whole class is thinking, listening, being challenged, realizing or naming things that they are just beginning to understand.
Those were some highlights this week.
The not-so-delightful thing is this week is that I think I have been suffering from human contact withdrawal. To have Auntie J here for 2 weeks meant that there was someone to come home to to ask me how my day was, and to tell me about hers. And in the evenings she would gently nudge me when the 9 o'clock hour rolled around, fluffing up my pillows and asking me if I wouldn't like to crawl into bed and get cozy and aim for a good night's rest. Not to mention that she did laundry and dishes, and even discovered a way to get rid of my persistent toilet bowl ring stain! She also bought me a hair dryer. She took good care of me.
Having her here filled up my cup, but suddenly this week I'm back to filling up my own...
Teaching can be isolating. You're on your own. Sure, you are around other human beings all day long, but the relationship is not exactly a socially fulfilling one when you are basically trying to control their actions, words and even their thoughts all day long. (Come to think of it, when people ask me what I do for a living, I'm going to start saying mind control.)
Once the day is done, you begin wondering, where are my friends? What is my life? Is everyone else having more fun than I am? Why has everyone else been able to develop seemingly close friendships with no trouble at all? Things that were so easy and simple back home, like calling up a friend in the neighborhood to out for a meal or a beer, here seem prohibitively complex. When I get home, will my old friends have moved on without me? Will they be resentful that I am so bad at keeping in touch? And it's so strange - have you ever noticed that when your mind has already started wandering down a path of gloom and doom, your brain tends to further betray you by conjuring up out of nowhere embarrassing things you said or did like 10 years ago, just to twist the knife? It would be nice to be able to control my own mind a bit more.
The truth is, these feeling aren't altogether unexplainable. It is the rainy season after all. It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that I have ended up feeling a bit isolated, especially in the first week back to work after a week of vacation, and with the next long break a solid three months away. At school, my classroom is physically pretty far away from most of the rest of the school - I'm kind of at the edge of campus. I don't have a teaching partner, and my schedule is different from most of the other elementary teachers. Besides that, at school, it's difficult to focus on anything beyond "What's next?" Most days I don't stop working from the moment I arrive at 7:25am to the moment I'm running to catch the afternoon bus at 4. Which I admit is not an altogether healthy way to live. And then I go home tired, and sometimes keep working at home (though not as much as in the past, thankfully.) And then of course there's the whole living in a different country thing. But I've been here six months. I would like to be adjusted already.
Now, I talk a a big game to the kids about using challenges as opportunities to learn and to stretch yourself. According to our curriculum, I am supposed to be teaching them about balance, which has never been my strongest suit. But I figured I should at least try following the advice I'd give to someone else if they came to me with the same complaints. So I reluctantly decided to use today as an opportunity to pull up my big-girl panties practice some self-care.
I told myself that the good news, when it comes to the blues, is that there is a remedy. The remedy is knowing yourself. My prescription is to get up and get out. Resist the temptation to numb out and watch television for the entire day, because it doesn't end up feeling too good in the end. Instead, I went to yoga in the park, where they make you take the time to breathe and look inside yourself and realize what you're feeling. I had lunch with my Ecuadorian friend and her mom, and then drank coffee and took shelter from the rain with a couple of friends from school. (Oh right, I guess I do have friends. I had forgotten.) Then I picked up some groceries and came home and put on the mix of uplifting songs Rika sent me, and cleaned up the house and now I'm writing to you in order to express myself about my touch of the blues. I'm proud of me.
And I'd like to report that it is working. In yoga this morning I went ahead and admitted to myself that I was feeling lonely, and I put it out to the universe that I'd like to spend some time with other adult humans. And within a few hours the universe had responded with an invitation to go dancing tonight. Thanks, universe.
There's been a foggy, gray drizzle outside for several hours now and Pichincha volcano, the sentry outside my window, is almost completely obscured. But before I go ahead and put on my dancin' shoes, I'm going to close with some words from Mason Jennings from my playlist of uplifting songs from Rika. They are as follows:
Be here now, no other place to be
Or just sit there dreaming of how life would be
If we were somewhere better
Somewhere far away from all our worries
Well, here we are.
Be here now, no other place to be
All the doubts that linger, just set them free
And let good things happen
And let the future come into each moment
Like a rising sun
Sun comes up and we start again.
And it's all new today
All we have to say
Is be here now.
Sun comes up and we start again.
Waking up at 7 was so decent, so humane (compared to my usual 5:30 or 5:45)! The sun was already shining, the morning chill had been mitigated by said sun, people were out and about, life was present. I have always felt a sort of silent solidarity for the other early risers that I usually see in the gray dawn of my morning commute - maintenance people, truck drivers, nurses, parents dropping off little ones at school or daycare before work, other teachers, people preparing for big events... But it was nice to join the other folks for a day! The stores were open, morning radio programs had begun. Somewhat jealously, I wondered what subset of people had time to attend a Tai Chi class in the park on weekday mornings.
Once I arrived to work, with plenty of time before my next class, I stopped by the Teacher's Club to refill my coffee and have the cook make me nice gooey grilled cheese sandwich. It was a rare luxury to be able to operate within a flexible time frame. In teaching, your entire existence is plotted out minute by minute. There is no being late when all of your students are depending on you to unlock the classroom door and take attendance and get the gears going in order to set the daily routine into motion.
This unique Wednesday morning, I relished the feeling of reading the headlines in bed before getting up, without the pressure of knowing a bus would be waiting for me on the corner at exactly 6:46am and that I'd better hurry up and get my ass out of bed or I'll miss it. It was nice to dilly-dally. We teachers don't get to do that a lot. Our lives are about pressing on ahead, figuring out how we can makes things go more quickly, more smoothly, more efficiently, more like clockwork. It was nice to un-tether myself from the clock for a few hours.
The other delightful thing that day was a real live teachable moment! Our new Social Studies unit is about resistance and revolution, and as students studied photos and images from segregation and the Civil Rights movement, it gave way to a really interesting and honest conversation. We talked about how to talk about race, and why it's difficult, and how words are important because they have the power to evoke specific meanings and feelings and entire time periods in history. The students also shared some moments where they had detected latent racism in their own lives. It was unplanned, and ended up superseding the Read Aloud I had planned, but it was one of those rare, cool, moments where you can see that the whole class is thinking, listening, being challenged, realizing or naming things that they are just beginning to understand.
Those were some highlights this week.
The not-so-delightful thing is this week is that I think I have been suffering from human contact withdrawal. To have Auntie J here for 2 weeks meant that there was someone to come home to to ask me how my day was, and to tell me about hers. And in the evenings she would gently nudge me when the 9 o'clock hour rolled around, fluffing up my pillows and asking me if I wouldn't like to crawl into bed and get cozy and aim for a good night's rest. Not to mention that she did laundry and dishes, and even discovered a way to get rid of my persistent toilet bowl ring stain! She also bought me a hair dryer. She took good care of me.
Having her here filled up my cup, but suddenly this week I'm back to filling up my own...
Teaching can be isolating. You're on your own. Sure, you are around other human beings all day long, but the relationship is not exactly a socially fulfilling one when you are basically trying to control their actions, words and even their thoughts all day long. (Come to think of it, when people ask me what I do for a living, I'm going to start saying mind control.)
Once the day is done, you begin wondering, where are my friends? What is my life? Is everyone else having more fun than I am? Why has everyone else been able to develop seemingly close friendships with no trouble at all? Things that were so easy and simple back home, like calling up a friend in the neighborhood to out for a meal or a beer, here seem prohibitively complex. When I get home, will my old friends have moved on without me? Will they be resentful that I am so bad at keeping in touch? And it's so strange - have you ever noticed that when your mind has already started wandering down a path of gloom and doom, your brain tends to further betray you by conjuring up out of nowhere embarrassing things you said or did like 10 years ago, just to twist the knife? It would be nice to be able to control my own mind a bit more.
The truth is, these feeling aren't altogether unexplainable. It is the rainy season after all. It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that I have ended up feeling a bit isolated, especially in the first week back to work after a week of vacation, and with the next long break a solid three months away. At school, my classroom is physically pretty far away from most of the rest of the school - I'm kind of at the edge of campus. I don't have a teaching partner, and my schedule is different from most of the other elementary teachers. Besides that, at school, it's difficult to focus on anything beyond "What's next?" Most days I don't stop working from the moment I arrive at 7:25am to the moment I'm running to catch the afternoon bus at 4. Which I admit is not an altogether healthy way to live. And then I go home tired, and sometimes keep working at home (though not as much as in the past, thankfully.) And then of course there's the whole living in a different country thing. But I've been here six months. I would like to be adjusted already.
Now, I talk a a big game to the kids about using challenges as opportunities to learn and to stretch yourself. According to our curriculum, I am supposed to be teaching them about balance, which has never been my strongest suit. But I figured I should at least try following the advice I'd give to someone else if they came to me with the same complaints. So I reluctantly decided to use today as an opportunity to pull up my big-girl panties practice some self-care.
I told myself that the good news, when it comes to the blues, is that there is a remedy. The remedy is knowing yourself. My prescription is to get up and get out. Resist the temptation to numb out and watch television for the entire day, because it doesn't end up feeling too good in the end. Instead, I went to yoga in the park, where they make you take the time to breathe and look inside yourself and realize what you're feeling. I had lunch with my Ecuadorian friend and her mom, and then drank coffee and took shelter from the rain with a couple of friends from school. (Oh right, I guess I do have friends. I had forgotten.) Then I picked up some groceries and came home and put on the mix of uplifting songs Rika sent me, and cleaned up the house and now I'm writing to you in order to express myself about my touch of the blues. I'm proud of me.
And I'd like to report that it is working. In yoga this morning I went ahead and admitted to myself that I was feeling lonely, and I put it out to the universe that I'd like to spend some time with other adult humans. And within a few hours the universe had responded with an invitation to go dancing tonight. Thanks, universe.
There's been a foggy, gray drizzle outside for several hours now and Pichincha volcano, the sentry outside my window, is almost completely obscured. But before I go ahead and put on my dancin' shoes, I'm going to close with some words from Mason Jennings from my playlist of uplifting songs from Rika. They are as follows:
Be here now, no other place to be
Or just sit there dreaming of how life would be
If we were somewhere better
Somewhere far away from all our worries
Well, here we are.
Be here now, no other place to be
All the doubts that linger, just set them free
And let good things happen
And let the future come into each moment
Like a rising sun
Sun comes up and we start again.
And it's all new today
All we have to say
Is be here now.
Sun comes up and we start again.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Slice of life
Today, I happened to be walking to Spanish class during an extremely important soccer game. The Ecuadorian national team was playing a qualifying match for the World Cup against one of their arch-rivals, Colombia. On top of this, for what I believe for the first time ever, Ecuador is in first place in the pre-World Cup competition.
I have never seen the city so dead. I got home from school in record time because the roads were empty, because every good citizen-soccer fan had found a spot indoors to watch or listen to the game. The manic stream of narration of the announcers over the radio followed me through the city in a percussive, rhythmic accompaniment - filling up the school bus, and emanating from every storefront and security guard's booth.
Time stood still. The usual snaking lines of rush hour traffic had disappeared, and the busiest, most life-threatening intersections had transformed into empty, quiet lanes more suited for a stroll in the country. The usual masses of pedestrians and shoppers and coming-home-from-workers and vendors and hawkers and beggars that I usually dart and weave around on the sidewalks were also nowhere to be found. The streets were deserted. The city seemed empty. It looked the way New York looks the morning after a big snow storm - only the few and the bold venture out, along with those who have absolutely, positively no way of getting out of going to work. And when I arrived at Spanish class, naturally, all 3 evening teachers were clustered around the laptop, breathlessly rooting for the team. I hovered with them for a while, becoming temporarily a part of Ecuador's collective soul, a witness and a participant in the 90-minute freezing of time and city life.
(Just don't ask about the results of the game.)
I have never seen the city so dead. I got home from school in record time because the roads were empty, because every good citizen-soccer fan had found a spot indoors to watch or listen to the game. The manic stream of narration of the announcers over the radio followed me through the city in a percussive, rhythmic accompaniment - filling up the school bus, and emanating from every storefront and security guard's booth.
Time stood still. The usual snaking lines of rush hour traffic had disappeared, and the busiest, most life-threatening intersections had transformed into empty, quiet lanes more suited for a stroll in the country. The usual masses of pedestrians and shoppers and coming-home-from-workers and vendors and hawkers and beggars that I usually dart and weave around on the sidewalks were also nowhere to be found. The streets were deserted. The city seemed empty. It looked the way New York looks the morning after a big snow storm - only the few and the bold venture out, along with those who have absolutely, positively no way of getting out of going to work. And when I arrived at Spanish class, naturally, all 3 evening teachers were clustered around the laptop, breathlessly rooting for the team. I hovered with them for a while, becoming temporarily a part of Ecuador's collective soul, a witness and a participant in the 90-minute freezing of time and city life.
(Just don't ask about the results of the game.)
Monday, March 28, 2016
Easter Eggs
I know by now that there are no right or wrong choices in life; only series of possible pathways, each with their own upshots and outcomes, pros and cons. No black and white, only infinite shades of infinite colors.
I also know by now that it's not healthy to compare your life to other people's Facebook versions of themselves. Through the carefully-manicured filter of social media, it's easy to begin to believe that other people spend 100% of their time opening yoga studios, becoming published authors, training for half-marathons, garnishing elaborate dishes they made from scratch for their loved ones, getting glammed up in order to attend fancy parties, becoming betrothed, getting hitched, and reproducing.
But let's be honest. If you were to look at my Facebook feed recently, sure, you would see me climbing Machu Picchu and befriending alpacas in Peru. And I did do these things! Yay for me! Truly, it was super cool, and I'm happy to let the world think that I live in my hiking boots and totally go hiking, like, all the time and that my life here is nothing but adventures and alpacas and breathtaking vistas...
But what you won't see on Facebook is me eating leftover pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner today because it was easier than going grocery shopping. You also wouldn't see me playing a game on my phone for 2 and half hours (it's called Twenty, by the way, if you need a new time-sucking digital distraction, and I would estimate that it is approximately as addictive as heroin). My Facebook feed won't tell you that I spent an entire day watching old episodes of X-files on Netflix... Okay, fine, an entire weekend...and I also didn't post about having to spend a morning re-entering grades in my Excel spreadsheet after incorrectly saving them. And you wouldn't find out about me accidentally dying a quarter of my wardrobe light pink through imprudent laundry-related executive decision making.
That's because Facebook, when it's not about bitching or moaning or ranting or raving, is largely about celebrating accomplishments and milestones, and that's fine. It's the highlight reel. And it's a perfectly good way to catch up on important events in the lives of your friends and acquaintances. But it can be a little disconcerting to see everyone else's good news and Hallmark moments all concentrated in one place, peering in from the shadows of your own quotidian life. The contrast tends to be especially stark because, more often than not, you're peering in from your lumpy, crumb-covered couch while wearing pajamas in the afternoon, or from your bumper-to-bumper rainy bus ride home. For these reasons, it is important to remember that social media is more advertisement than documentary.
That said, Easter Sunday on Facebook was a tidal wave of family portraits and precious memories and traditions and tenderness and adorable children all tied up in ribbons and bows and miniature neckties. Some of my peers are already starting their second round of baby-having, and babies are something I'd actually quite like to have myself, assuming I one day find a partner I think highly enough of to want to create additional human beings in their image. And of course, it was also a reminder that I'm just a smidgen under 3,000 miles away from my family and our usual Easter traditions. Easter eggs have been on my mind.
As you might know, in movies and TV shows, "easter eggs" are inside jokes or little shout-outs or homages to other works in the oeuvre that the creators throw in maybe for their own amusement, maybe for the benefit of devoted fans. Just something to make them smile, if they catch it. They're usually gone in an instant.
I think it is the responsibility of each one of us to find the easter eggs hidden in our own lives - the little surprises and hidden moments that maybe no one else can appreciate except for you, because you're the only one who knows where to look. These are not summits or climaxes of the sort you'd post to Facebook. They wouldn't even breach the consciousness of others not in the know. They're just the little incidental perks of the path you have chosen. So, in the spirit of Easter, here is a list of the easter eggs from my life recently:
* the opportunity to spend more time together one-on-one with my beloved Auntie than we ever have before
* an Easter Sunday that was perfect for the context (the context being that our flight coming back to Quito from Peru got us back to my apartment at 4 in the morning.) Aunt Jane and I slept late, symbolically ate a hard-boiled egg each, talked to my mom on the phone, and went out for pizza
* learning how to make fast guacamole, and access to avocados whenever I want
* learning how to cut mangos, and access to mangos whenever I want
* getting compliments from native Spanish speakers about my Spanish
* owning a soccer jersey and going nuts along with the real soccer fans when the announcer goes GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLL
* having a washer and dryer in my apartment (doesn't get old)
* teaching and really getting to know 14 lovable, well-cared-for, amusing lil' knuckleheads
* the absence of winter and associated unwelcome meteorological events
In conclusion, I guess what I'm saying is this: Each of us can only travel one pathway at a time. It's pretty easy to unwittingly become jealous of other people's paths - maybe the ones you've always wanted to take, or that you kind of always thought you'd be on by now, or an unfettered dream unlikely to ever come true for you, but it already has for someone else... but that jealousy is kind of pointless.
You only get one life, but it is singular. I might have been one of about a zillion tourists visiting Machu Picchu, but I was there with MY friends, MY eyes, MY thoughts and feelings, MY sweaty underclothes. Maybe every tourist came home with dozens of pictures of Inca rocks, but I have pictures of the ones that I saw, that I liked. Your history is your own, so own it. Make yourself proud. Follow the path that presents itself to you. But don't regret things that never were, and don't wish yourself into other people's lives, because you'll end up missing out on the easter eggs all around you.
I also know by now that it's not healthy to compare your life to other people's Facebook versions of themselves. Through the carefully-manicured filter of social media, it's easy to begin to believe that other people spend 100% of their time opening yoga studios, becoming published authors, training for half-marathons, garnishing elaborate dishes they made from scratch for their loved ones, getting glammed up in order to attend fancy parties, becoming betrothed, getting hitched, and reproducing.
But let's be honest. If you were to look at my Facebook feed recently, sure, you would see me climbing Machu Picchu and befriending alpacas in Peru. And I did do these things! Yay for me! Truly, it was super cool, and I'm happy to let the world think that I live in my hiking boots and totally go hiking, like, all the time and that my life here is nothing but adventures and alpacas and breathtaking vistas...
But what you won't see on Facebook is me eating leftover pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner today because it was easier than going grocery shopping. You also wouldn't see me playing a game on my phone for 2 and half hours (it's called Twenty, by the way, if you need a new time-sucking digital distraction, and I would estimate that it is approximately as addictive as heroin). My Facebook feed won't tell you that I spent an entire day watching old episodes of X-files on Netflix... Okay, fine, an entire weekend...and I also didn't post about having to spend a morning re-entering grades in my Excel spreadsheet after incorrectly saving them. And you wouldn't find out about me accidentally dying a quarter of my wardrobe light pink through imprudent laundry-related executive decision making.
That's because Facebook, when it's not about bitching or moaning or ranting or raving, is largely about celebrating accomplishments and milestones, and that's fine. It's the highlight reel. And it's a perfectly good way to catch up on important events in the lives of your friends and acquaintances. But it can be a little disconcerting to see everyone else's good news and Hallmark moments all concentrated in one place, peering in from the shadows of your own quotidian life. The contrast tends to be especially stark because, more often than not, you're peering in from your lumpy, crumb-covered couch while wearing pajamas in the afternoon, or from your bumper-to-bumper rainy bus ride home. For these reasons, it is important to remember that social media is more advertisement than documentary.
That said, Easter Sunday on Facebook was a tidal wave of family portraits and precious memories and traditions and tenderness and adorable children all tied up in ribbons and bows and miniature neckties. Some of my peers are already starting their second round of baby-having, and babies are something I'd actually quite like to have myself, assuming I one day find a partner I think highly enough of to want to create additional human beings in their image. And of course, it was also a reminder that I'm just a smidgen under 3,000 miles away from my family and our usual Easter traditions. Easter eggs have been on my mind.
As you might know, in movies and TV shows, "easter eggs" are inside jokes or little shout-outs or homages to other works in the oeuvre that the creators throw in maybe for their own amusement, maybe for the benefit of devoted fans. Just something to make them smile, if they catch it. They're usually gone in an instant.
I think it is the responsibility of each one of us to find the easter eggs hidden in our own lives - the little surprises and hidden moments that maybe no one else can appreciate except for you, because you're the only one who knows where to look. These are not summits or climaxes of the sort you'd post to Facebook. They wouldn't even breach the consciousness of others not in the know. They're just the little incidental perks of the path you have chosen. So, in the spirit of Easter, here is a list of the easter eggs from my life recently:
* the opportunity to spend more time together one-on-one with my beloved Auntie than we ever have before
* an Easter Sunday that was perfect for the context (the context being that our flight coming back to Quito from Peru got us back to my apartment at 4 in the morning.) Aunt Jane and I slept late, symbolically ate a hard-boiled egg each, talked to my mom on the phone, and went out for pizza
* learning how to make fast guacamole, and access to avocados whenever I want
* learning how to cut mangos, and access to mangos whenever I want
* getting compliments from native Spanish speakers about my Spanish
* owning a soccer jersey and going nuts along with the real soccer fans when the announcer goes GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLL
* having a washer and dryer in my apartment (doesn't get old)
* teaching and really getting to know 14 lovable, well-cared-for, amusing lil' knuckleheads
* the absence of winter and associated unwelcome meteorological events
In conclusion, I guess what I'm saying is this: Each of us can only travel one pathway at a time. It's pretty easy to unwittingly become jealous of other people's paths - maybe the ones you've always wanted to take, or that you kind of always thought you'd be on by now, or an unfettered dream unlikely to ever come true for you, but it already has for someone else... but that jealousy is kind of pointless.
You only get one life, but it is singular. I might have been one of about a zillion tourists visiting Machu Picchu, but I was there with MY friends, MY eyes, MY thoughts and feelings, MY sweaty underclothes. Maybe every tourist came home with dozens of pictures of Inca rocks, but I have pictures of the ones that I saw, that I liked. Your history is your own, so own it. Make yourself proud. Follow the path that presents itself to you. But don't regret things that never were, and don't wish yourself into other people's lives, because you'll end up missing out on the easter eggs all around you.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Guest blog by Aunt Jane!
Quito, not quite
You know how it is when you visit a
new place and you say to yourself, this place is rather like this one or that
one? I’m not so widely traveled that I
have a hundred examples, but I’m pretty sure Quito is unique! My first morning here,
I looked out Mara’s living room window onto a whole new world. Either beautiful
or threatening depending on the weather, the dormant volcano, Pinchincha, looms
large in the background with, before it, shiny modern high rises, freeways and
MacDonald’s billboards, along with boxy, cement-gray, utilitarian apartment
houses, laundry hanging on lines, tiny patios filled with exotic plants, vacant
lots, and a bazillion yellow taxicabs. Cars are small, homes are small, streets
are narrow. Quito houses more than two million people (and about half that many
stray dogs) in a basin among mountain peaks that could comfortably manage maybe
half that many. It’s an intriguing,
vibrant mix of fancy and plain, ancient and modern, rural and urban, indigenous
persons, life long residents and ex-pats.
The amazing natural environment
surrounding Quito notwithstanding, the city itself is not pretty, but has large
areas preserved for public parks, designed with fitness, fun, and family
activities in mind. The parks are well used, filled with families and groups,
walking, picnicking, playing sports or participating in yoga or zumba classes.
A striking feature of Quito is its family life, especially clearly demonstrated
on weekends in the parks.
Quito is the oldest, highest continuously
inhabited capitol city in the world. Old Town is a warren of Spanish Colonial
buildings, most of them beautifully restored and maintained. Traffic is tight
and scary in Old Town with many traffic police (traffic is all they’re good
for, I’m told) trying to keep things moving. Walking is the way to go here, and
walking is when the richness comes out. The Spanish Colonial buildings are
homes, offices, and government buildings, including the governor’s palace, with
ornate details and wonderful windows and doors. Walking among them, you
encounter all kinds of street vendors, from young men hocking selfie sticks and
burner cell phones to women of all ages in western dress or traditional
indigenous attire, everywhere, selling fruit, vegetables, handicrafts, cooked
meat on sticks (oh, no, no, no), bottles of water and scarves, everywhere
scarves. I even saw a woman walking among the cars, offering toilet paper for
sale.
Churches are everywhere, especially
on the Street of the Seven Crosses, and each one has a plaza, either ‘grande’
or ‘pequeno’, some of which cover cemeteries from Colonial times, not of the
Spanish, of course, but of the Indian people. The Spanish were buried inside
the churches, as close to the main altar as they could afford to get. Every
church seems to have its legend, and most of the interiors are incredibly
ornate, gold-leafed, arched, high-ceilinged affairs. My local guide for one
day, the lovely, fun and knowledgeable Lourdes, said, “That’s what they used to
believe the Lord needed. We know better now.”
As you walk along in Old Town, you
pass tiny stores without names or windows, jammed into what I can only
characterize as storage units with garage doors. A few had more room and beautiful
old wooden doors, but most were a tenth the size of the smallest New York
bodega. My guide and I visited one specialty cheese store with a line out the
door (there’s only room for one or two customers inside). I don’t know how she
finds it among all the other nameless, identical stores around it. Lourdes showed me other stores with just one
purpose – to provide Baby Jesus dolls and cribs, glass display cases and
costumes for the dolls. They are taken to church at Christmas time and
otherwise proudly displayed at home. The costumes range from christening-like
gowns to chefs’ hats, cowboy outfits and you name it. I kid you not.
Another specialty shop was all
about spices, in their unprocessed form. (Stevia leaves taste sweet - I know,
duh, but it’s the weirdest anyway.) Great big bags of spices unknown to me
weighed out into little plastic bags and sold for an unbelievably low price.
Before I came here, an acquaintance
had given me a veiled warning about the food – “no me gusta,” she said, but I
have encountered only deliciousness, thanks to Mara, her friends, and Lourdes.
Empanadas, llapingachos (isn’t that a great word?) and, oh my goodness, locro
de papa (potato soup), plus a new favorite ice cream flavor, fig! Lots of
options in the meat, beans, potato, and rice departments, so don’t even think
about low carb eating here. You’ll walk it off anyway. Mara took me to the
farmers market, the mother lode of amazing fruits and vegetables.
Indescribable, but fabulous. Ecuadorian food, not a problem for me. Me gusta!
Getting around here involves a
lot of walking and a lot of taxi rides. There is a street car system and buses,
but of limited scope and not especially useful, depending on where you are and
where you want to go, of course. Driving would be truly frightening. (Lourdes
drove us around. I had to keep complimenting her on how brave she was!) We have
used cabs a lot, and they are very inexpensive. We paid about $3.50 for a ride
that would have been $25 or $30 in Los Angeles. Tipping is mostly round up to
the nearest dollar or ten percent in restaurants. The currency, weirdly, is
American, the most popular item being dollar coins. All those dollar coins we
hated in the States? They’re here! Twenty-dollar bills are a problem, being
mostly too big, and forget about fifties unless you’re buying large! The price
of food is shockingly low. Last night’s dinner, at a popular chain that
specializes in Argentinian meat, cost about $6.00 per person and that included
a delicious sandwich, fries and a beer each.
Lourdes
also took me to La Mariscal, a neighborhood pretty much designed for tourists,
locally known as “gringolandia”. She helped me with my shopping at the
artisanal market, bargaining my purchases from $18 down to $5, while charming
the heck out of the vendors, scolding them for not teaching their children
their native tongue (Quechua), and complimenting the quality of their products.
She knew exactly where to go and how much to pay. It was fun to watch! She told me, “I say to
them, I am not gringo! No gringo prices for me!” It was a hoot.
Mara is an
excellent hostess and we’ve had such a good time! Her apartment is cute and
convenient, though itty bitty like everywhere here. She keeps it
well-organized, as is necessary in small spaces. She has adapted very well, and
her Spanish is very, very good and getting better daily. A cab driver asked
Mara where she was from and how long she had been here. He was surprised it was
only since August. (My pitiful beginning level of Spanish has grown by leaps
and bounds, to a level slightly less pitiful. I’d like to come back here for a
longer stay and take a Spanish immersion course. Ecuador is known for its
beautiful, crisp, clear Spanish. There are Spanish language schools all over
Quito.)
Mara’s school is beautiful and her
kids cute. They respect and obey her without being afraid of her – a fine line
she walks perfectly. I attended her class’ science fair and was very impressed
with the quality of their work and how much they could explain about the
scientific method and what they had learned from their experiments. While I was
in her classroom, there was an earthquake. It wasn’t a big scary one, but it
was significant. Mara and her students were so engaged in preparation for the
science fair that they didn’t even feel it! Now THAT’S a teacher!
Tomorrow,
we’re off at the crack of dawn for Peru and our Machu Picchu adventures! I will
try to write again about that, with perhaps more success in describing
uniqueness than I have had here - Quito, but not quite. You’ll just have to come yourself. I know
someone who would love it!
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Measuring days
I remember back in my Study Abroad days, noting the different ways in which I tracked time in Ghana (like watching the malaria pills slowly disappear day by day.) There were all these tiny daily symbols reminding me about the the march of days.
I've noticed myself doing that here, too... I think it might have to do with the weather, and how much it stays the same.
Every day is cool in the morning and warm in the afternoon. Light jacket needed for the trip to school, not necessary for the trip home. Sometimes it rains. Occasionally it is foggy in the morning. The trees are always green. The birds are always singing. But without seasonal changes like I'm used to, there's kind of this Groundhog Day feeling to being here. Every day kind of feels just like a carbon copy the one before. (This is why Nicole obsessively decorates for holidays... she says it helps her keep track of the passage of time and reminds her that the world is still turning.) Teaching can also be kind of repetitive, in that you follow the same routines every day in the same order, so the days start to blend into one another.
I remember back home, the final block walk towards PS89 was one of my time-measurement tools, because it was the just a little bit different every day... Trudging over icy lumps in snowboots in January, noticing the sun a little bit higher each day with the onset of spring, whizzing by on my bike with wind in my hair in the lovely lamb-days of April and May, and walking it in sandals in September and June, trying to judge just how sweaty of a day it would turn out to be based on the early morning temperature and whether or not I already had pit-stains before 8am.
Here, the bus stop looks the same every morning. I only sweat if I'm working out.
Here I'm measuring my time with different tools. I'm measuring in laps around Parque Carolina (usually trailing behind Nicole and her speed-demon pug, Lola.) I'm measuring with my growing stack of Supermaxi receipts, which I'm supposed to keep for tax purposes, and with bouquets of flowers on the coffee table, because it's hard to resist buying flowers for yourself when they are so cheap and easy to come by.
At school I have a jar of marbles, and the kids add one more each time they finish a book... watching it fill up and then empty at the end each month has become another time tracker. And I have this kind of circular wheel chart in the classroom that helps us keep track of the kids' Math Centers. Every time we turn the wheel its one-quarter clockwise rotation, it feels like the slow, deliberate turning of a gear. One click closer to conquering the beast that is fifth grade math.
I never thought I'd miss winter. And mostly, I don't. Every morning when I read the local weather report in the New York Times I kind of purse my lips and shake my head like, gee, windchill in the low teens, that's rough. Cold and rainy in New York again? What a shame. Sleet in the forecast? Bummer.
But there is a small part of me that might appreciate winter a tiny bit more when I go home, not for the discomfort that it causes, nor for its bulky and cumbersome additional layers. But the changing of the seasons makes time feel more cyclical and fleeting, and maybe more precious? Whereas here it feels kind of linear and unchanging. You show up at the bus stop and then you look behind you and somehow, five months have gone by. I realized there is a part of me, a very small part, that sometimes likes measuring time also in snow days and snow boots, and that misses that feeling of man vs. nature when you bundle up to go outdoors in winter.
But there's another part of me that is perfectly content with it being 65 and sunny here, again.
I've noticed myself doing that here, too... I think it might have to do with the weather, and how much it stays the same.
Every day is cool in the morning and warm in the afternoon. Light jacket needed for the trip to school, not necessary for the trip home. Sometimes it rains. Occasionally it is foggy in the morning. The trees are always green. The birds are always singing. But without seasonal changes like I'm used to, there's kind of this Groundhog Day feeling to being here. Every day kind of feels just like a carbon copy the one before. (This is why Nicole obsessively decorates for holidays... she says it helps her keep track of the passage of time and reminds her that the world is still turning.) Teaching can also be kind of repetitive, in that you follow the same routines every day in the same order, so the days start to blend into one another.
I remember back home, the final block walk towards PS89 was one of my time-measurement tools, because it was the just a little bit different every day... Trudging over icy lumps in snowboots in January, noticing the sun a little bit higher each day with the onset of spring, whizzing by on my bike with wind in my hair in the lovely lamb-days of April and May, and walking it in sandals in September and June, trying to judge just how sweaty of a day it would turn out to be based on the early morning temperature and whether or not I already had pit-stains before 8am.
Here, the bus stop looks the same every morning. I only sweat if I'm working out.
Here I'm measuring my time with different tools. I'm measuring in laps around Parque Carolina (usually trailing behind Nicole and her speed-demon pug, Lola.) I'm measuring with my growing stack of Supermaxi receipts, which I'm supposed to keep for tax purposes, and with bouquets of flowers on the coffee table, because it's hard to resist buying flowers for yourself when they are so cheap and easy to come by.
At school I have a jar of marbles, and the kids add one more each time they finish a book... watching it fill up and then empty at the end each month has become another time tracker. And I have this kind of circular wheel chart in the classroom that helps us keep track of the kids' Math Centers. Every time we turn the wheel its one-quarter clockwise rotation, it feels like the slow, deliberate turning of a gear. One click closer to conquering the beast that is fifth grade math.
I never thought I'd miss winter. And mostly, I don't. Every morning when I read the local weather report in the New York Times I kind of purse my lips and shake my head like, gee, windchill in the low teens, that's rough. Cold and rainy in New York again? What a shame. Sleet in the forecast? Bummer.
But there is a small part of me that might appreciate winter a tiny bit more when I go home, not for the discomfort that it causes, nor for its bulky and cumbersome additional layers. But the changing of the seasons makes time feel more cyclical and fleeting, and maybe more precious? Whereas here it feels kind of linear and unchanging. You show up at the bus stop and then you look behind you and somehow, five months have gone by. I realized there is a part of me, a very small part, that sometimes likes measuring time also in snow days and snow boots, and that misses that feeling of man vs. nature when you bundle up to go outdoors in winter.
But there's another part of me that is perfectly content with it being 65 and sunny here, again.
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Leaving home to come back home
Last time I stood in the security line at JFK I was trembling. From excitement, from anxiety, from minor heartbreak, and the general overwhelmingness of truly and actually doing it, of leaving it all behind and leaping into the unknown.
This time wasn't so much a metaphorical leap as a metaphorical post-Christmas jog, heavily plodding towards an apartment with an uncomfortable couch and weird smells from the pipes and squeaky closet doors.
This time, after a beautiful, rejuvenating, soul-nurturing trip back to the States for the holidays, I was leaving home to go back to a different home - a known one, but whose homy-ness is still under development. Instead of embarking on an adventure into the unknown, I knew exactly where I was going... Sector Carolina, on Amazonas avenue near the mall El Jardin. (The building next to the dog that barks incessantly early in the morning, every morning.) This time was both less exciting and less nerve-wracking. I knew how to fill out the customs forms. I knew how to give directions in the taxi. I waved hello to the sleepy guard sitting the night shift in front of my building. I know what my classroom will look like when I return to it on Monday, and what my schedule will be, and who my students are and the quirks my co-workers have.
It's hard to put my finger on exactly how it feels to be coming home to a place that has been my home for such a relatively short time.
Certainly, my vacation reminded me what I love about New York/Philadelphia/the East Coast/the United States. First and foremost my family and friends. But also bagels with lox. And grabbing a slice of pizza. And over-the-top Christmas lights on every block. Efficient, reliable and relatively uncrowded public transportation. Nail salons with fancy massage chairs. The ready availability of delicious and diverse and easily accessible foods on every corner. Pedestrian crosswalks that are prolific and located in logical, convenient places and that are, well, easy to cross. And the affordability and familiarity of brands of certain products, like deodorant, face lotion, whiskey, shoes. Things I didn't know I'd be missing. And the freedom to walk around whenever - early morning, late at night, and knowing that I look like I belong, I don't stick out, and I'm not any more of a target that anyone else. Being away has taught me to appreciate these things more deeply than I ever did before.
Then again, I was verbally harassed by a stranger within minutes of stepping out of the airport in NY (home sweet #%& home) and that hasn't happened to me at all here in Ecuador. And I was also reminded that people in New York, true to their stereotype, often can be aloof, or rude, or both at the same time. Then there are the panic-inducing crowds if you accidentally stray into a tourist area, especially during the holiday season. And I had just a hint of a reminder about what the weather can be like in winter, which is to say, unpleasant. And of course I also remembered how expensive it is to eat out, or to do just about anything in New York. Also, Donald Trump.
Here in Ecuador, it's a beautiful day. A sunny 66 degrees. The birds are singing, as they do every day. Pichincha mountain is standing sentry outside my window, green and lush as always. I came home to an apartment that is spotless (for now) because I can afford to have a cleaning guy here. And I have a lot to look forward to this year... a mid-winter barbecue in Parque Metropolitano (because we can), Galapagos in February, Machu Picchu in March, a visit from friends in April and family in June. And as hard as it always is to transition from full-time leisure back to full-time work, I have to admit that I am also looking forward to seeing my students' goofy smiles, hearing their stories and climbing back up to the helm of the ship that is 5A International.
This time wasn't so much a metaphorical leap as a metaphorical post-Christmas jog, heavily plodding towards an apartment with an uncomfortable couch and weird smells from the pipes and squeaky closet doors.
This time, after a beautiful, rejuvenating, soul-nurturing trip back to the States for the holidays, I was leaving home to go back to a different home - a known one, but whose homy-ness is still under development. Instead of embarking on an adventure into the unknown, I knew exactly where I was going... Sector Carolina, on Amazonas avenue near the mall El Jardin. (The building next to the dog that barks incessantly early in the morning, every morning.) This time was both less exciting and less nerve-wracking. I knew how to fill out the customs forms. I knew how to give directions in the taxi. I waved hello to the sleepy guard sitting the night shift in front of my building. I know what my classroom will look like when I return to it on Monday, and what my schedule will be, and who my students are and the quirks my co-workers have.
It's hard to put my finger on exactly how it feels to be coming home to a place that has been my home for such a relatively short time.
Certainly, my vacation reminded me what I love about New York/Philadelphia/the East Coast/the United States. First and foremost my family and friends. But also bagels with lox. And grabbing a slice of pizza. And over-the-top Christmas lights on every block. Efficient, reliable and relatively uncrowded public transportation. Nail salons with fancy massage chairs. The ready availability of delicious and diverse and easily accessible foods on every corner. Pedestrian crosswalks that are prolific and located in logical, convenient places and that are, well, easy to cross. And the affordability and familiarity of brands of certain products, like deodorant, face lotion, whiskey, shoes. Things I didn't know I'd be missing. And the freedom to walk around whenever - early morning, late at night, and knowing that I look like I belong, I don't stick out, and I'm not any more of a target that anyone else. Being away has taught me to appreciate these things more deeply than I ever did before.
Then again, I was verbally harassed by a stranger within minutes of stepping out of the airport in NY (home sweet #%& home) and that hasn't happened to me at all here in Ecuador. And I was also reminded that people in New York, true to their stereotype, often can be aloof, or rude, or both at the same time. Then there are the panic-inducing crowds if you accidentally stray into a tourist area, especially during the holiday season. And I had just a hint of a reminder about what the weather can be like in winter, which is to say, unpleasant. And of course I also remembered how expensive it is to eat out, or to do just about anything in New York. Also, Donald Trump.
Here in Ecuador, it's a beautiful day. A sunny 66 degrees. The birds are singing, as they do every day. Pichincha mountain is standing sentry outside my window, green and lush as always. I came home to an apartment that is spotless (for now) because I can afford to have a cleaning guy here. And I have a lot to look forward to this year... a mid-winter barbecue in Parque Metropolitano (because we can), Galapagos in February, Machu Picchu in March, a visit from friends in April and family in June. And as hard as it always is to transition from full-time leisure back to full-time work, I have to admit that I am also looking forward to seeing my students' goofy smiles, hearing their stories and climbing back up to the helm of the ship that is 5A International.
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