Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Preschool and the Mafia

The last weeks have been madness. From the blandness of my first weeks, slowly creeping by without a central theme, the last few have been a relative blur. I am a teacher now.

The challenges are epic. To teach English to overcrowded classes when they have sometimes as many as 12 other subjects and I get them for only 2 forty-five minute periods a week. Add to that no textbooks and poor English teaching in the past and I have my work cut out for me. At the beginning of the week my lesson plans bomb, only towards the end do they really shape up into quality lessons

But I don't want to write about that for now. I have two years to develop accurate pictures and generalizations.

In front of my house every day the mission puts on "Escolinha" or "little school" meaning preschool. There they learn Portuguese (remember that the people in my village do not speak Portuguese at home) and get used to the idea of being in a class and following a teacher's directions etc.

Escolinha just started, and there was a lot of crying. Moms had to stay and reassure their kids, and teachers had to coax them into the group. But the best part from a spectator's standpoint was not the crying kids, it was the children taking matters into their own hands...

Escape! There are perpetually a small group of intrepid four year olds who have no intention whatsoever of being subject to this Escolinha nonsense. They hover near the gate, and when it opens, bang! They're off. They sprint/waddle as small children do out of the mission and down the street. Do they know their way home? Obviously that concern is not as pressing as the idea of spending several hours among strange adults. It's hilarious how they watch the gate out of the corner of their eye, inching closer as a stranger approaches, praying that this will be the one. "Come back here right now!" The teacher shouts at them, but it only spurs them on in their furious sprint/waddle to freedom.

Secondly, the Italians. The Peace Corps presence in my village is dwarfed by the army of Italians doing aid work here. We affectionately refer to them as the Mafia, a jibe that they accept congenially. I've never met I real life Italian before coming here, but they are just about how they are made out to be. Lots of gesticulating when they talk, outrageous multi-course meals that we can never finish, and constant welcoming. "You are part of the family now" my friend Sam says over and over patting my on the back over and over.

They've all been doing aid work for years. Sam was in Sudan. Alberto has been here in Mozambique for five years. Others Kenya, Latin America--they're pros all. They add an interesting flavor to my life here.

Quick pause, a student just stopped by to say hi. Weird...

Anyways the Italians. Out here, far from home, just like me. But better at it than me, and welcoming to boot.

So life here is changing. The novelty of my life is wearing down, creating a new comfort and a new anxiety. There was a moment a few days ago when I thought about the career abroad like the Italians have had. A life of new languages and new peoples and new challenges. For a moment I thought about it. It passed just as quickly, but the fact that it crossed my mind I think represents something, a small checkpoint in my evolution.

No comments:

Post a Comment