Let's Learn English! (underwater, if necessary)

At the risk of sounding unoriginal, I must write another post about my current frustrations at work. However, part two of this story starts with rain. A whole lot of rain. To put this in perspective, I have lived my entire life until March 10, 2008 in Western Washington, and I have never seen this much rain or water in my life.

My first altercation with rain in Chile came on Saturday. I was in nearby Concepcion with Steph and Sarah. We had stayed the night and were having some sort of volunteer hangout day with some other WT volunteers in a different program. Our director had planned an outing to see this warship that was captured during the war with Peru. I was actually kind of excited about visiting the boat, especially when I discovered we could board it and would be supervised by (in my mind) beautiful Chilean navy men. Unfortunately, the weather interfered.

Before I left for Chile, all I heard about Chillan was that it rains a lot here, so imagine my shock when I had passed almost two months here and only seen rain twice. However, Friday night it started raining. Hard. The kind of rain that makes you wonder how flimsy clouds that float in our atmosphere can hold that much water. It didn't really stop all day. We could not board the boat because of the inclement weather, and had to forlornly look at it (and my navy boyfriends) from the shore as the rain and wind pounded us. By the time we were on a bus back to the city, I was soaked and my hair was doing that irritating curly thing that always happens when it is exposed to moisture and that without fail makes me look idiotic. There is no worse feeling than wet feet, mangled hair, and cold puddle water creeping up your jeans. We managed to make the best of it, though, stopping at the mall, consuming hamburgers and ice cream and passing the afternoon bowling and shopping for some essentials that are more difficult to come by in Chillan. I really liked the other volunteers we met, btw; they seemed really down-to-earth and interesting. But by the end of the afternoon, I had had enough of being out and about, wet and dirty...and I was in one of my cranky moods, just wanting to go home and relax.

So Steph and I left and were walking to a bus near our hostel when I was assaulted by rainwater for a second time that day. A damned SUV drove past us a little too close to the overflowing gutter and I was splashed from head to waist with gutter water. Boo! I thought that only happened in the movies! So, on top of being cranky, I was wet and cold for our transit time of 1.25 hours back to Chillan. I have never been so happy to see my family around the table with tea and a fire blazing in the stove.

Even though I was not thrilled to have passed most of Saturday in a soggy state, it wasn't really that big of a deal. However, it continued to rain. All weekend. Consistently dumping thick, heavy raindrops on my little town. It quieted once or twice on Sunday, but for only half an hour or so. I didn't leave the house on Sunday, but spent the day curled up with Anna Karenina and my guidebooks, planning my next escape. It was actually quite pleasant to nap to the sound of heavy rain pelting our roof and drink tea while staring out the window into the greyness. A couple of times, I even felt like I was back at home.

Then, I got up this morning and headed to work. I walked one block uneventfully, until I came to the corner and realized there was no way to cross it. The streets had transformed into small rivers, with several feet of water filling the clogged gutters. I ended up walking halfway around the block in the other direction until I found a good crossing. This routine continued for several more blocks, until it became clear that there were no more crossings and I was stranded on the corner of Maipon and 18 de Septiembre. To solve that crisis, I began climbing through the back of pickup trucks parallel parked on the streets to get through the worst of the deep water. However, after nearly 30 minutes in the streets and a few late-game, poorly timed leaps for the curbs, I was soaked. I arrived at school just in time for the announcement that classes had been cancelled. Wonderful. I was not nearly so artful on my walk home, and slogged calf-deep simply to get home as soon as possible.

I was surprised to find classes cancelled on account of the rain, and I was a little disappointed because I had worked really hard on some lesson plans I was excited to try out...but let's be honest, I was not thrilled by the idea of teaching classes all day in chilly, wet conditions. I guess some days like this, students and some teachers just don't show up, so if classes weren't formally cancelled, as happened at my site, they were cancelled de facto, as they were at Steph's school. Anyway, we were told to wait "ten minutes" for a call from the Ministry to see if classes would be cancelled tomorrow as well. Having extensive experience with a Chilean ten minutes, I told Ruby I would call her for information and headed home. Upon arrival, I saw I had missed nine calls and a text message from my coteacher, who was irritated that I had left because she wanted to plan classes together. I rejoiced that I had missed out on our planning time, as it usually involves her demanding my input on her lesson plans. Generally, after an hour together, her plans are complete and I am no closer to completing mine than having a rough idea of topics or themes. I have explained several times that it is her responsibility to plan her lessons and then our "planning time" is really more of a time for her to communicate her plan to me so I know what to build my lessons from. However, every week I end up watching her plan and puzzle through the intricacies, which wouldn't necessarily be so awful if she treated me respectfully, which she doesn't, so it is painful.

However, when God decided to answer drought-ridden Region Eight's prayers with some heavy precipitation, He also decided to deliver me from my current suffering. I found out last Friday that at the end of August, my coteacher is being sent to China for a year to teach Spanish. I am not totally clear on why or how, but it did come as a bit of a relief to know that I have only three more months to navigate our tenuous relationship. On the other hand, I worry for my program, as it is not clear who will replace her, if my students will remain with their classes or be folded into other classes, and how we will make this transition. Finally, I feel this incident highlights another issue I have been confronting while trying to teach here. Sometimes I feel like there is not a lot of urgency or consideration given to education in general, and my program in particular. It is highly disruptive to the learning of my students to send their teacher to another country and possibly break up my schedule and classes. Again, I feel like I have a lot of creativity, energy, and knowledge to share with my students, but the wildly irratic implementation of my schedule and classes and the general attitude of the administration toward the program makes it almost impossible for my students to really learn English. Sometimes I feel underappreciated; the school has a huge opportunity to use me for the advancement of English education, and they are missing it! Sometimes I wonder, does anyone actually care that I am here to help?

I will tell you one thing they do care about at my school: the fact that I am never present for the 20 minute breaks in the morning and afternoon for tea in the teachers lounge. Would you care to know why I am not present at those times? Usually, I am preparing for my next class, organizing my materials and going over the lesson plan so I know what direction to take my classes in. And yet, the colleagues find it rude that I do not come down for forty minutes a day to bullshit with them. I tried to explain that my cultural viewpoint of work is very different from theirs, and that I am not accustomed to people caring if I have a chat with them or not. Really, what I want to tell the teachers is that I am here for the students, not my colleagues, and that maybe if some of them used recreo to plan, or perhaps even left recreo on time to go to their classes rather than stay chatting for ten minutes after the bell, the integrity of Chile's educational system would increase exponentially. Of course, every time I feel a snotty and superior attitude creep into my outlook, I try to check myself, make sure my feelings are obscured so as not to offend my colleagues, and in general reflect: is my attitude proper and justified or if I am thinking about things too much from my viewpoint as an American? It is very hard to tell. I never want to be pompous or condescending. All I want is to help students learn and work hard, but I feel like so many things prevent me from fulfilling these goals, such as teachers wanting me to be more social. In general, Chile is a very social culture, way more than I am used to. I like to come home from work at the end of the day in America and not talk to anyone for an hour while I unwind. This is never a possibility for me here, as usually I get home and there are at least one or two guests over. Our late onces can last several hours, and my weekends are spent around the table with family and friends, talking or listening to conversations. This is way more socializing than I am used to, and I feel like I am trying really hard to participate, even when I am not in the mood. However, I feel sort of protective over my recreo time...I cannot assimilate totally! I will not give in! But am I wrong? I don't know. I am definitely missing the opportunity to bond with colleagues, but to be honest, that is just not all that important to me.

My final near temper-tantrum of the day happened right before lunch. I was in my jamies, in bed reading, and my phone rang. It was Steph, informing me that our supervisor had called everyone to let them know we were expected at a city-wide monthly English teachers' meeting at 3 p.m. this afternoon, where we would be expected to give a presentation. I thought my heart was going to explode, Chaiten-style, in my chest, I was so pissed. This sort of last-minute requirement is typical here, especially from our Ministry supervisor. In addition, I cannot stand that no one would consider to give us advance warning to prepare a presentation that I would be expected to give. I comforted myself with the thought that if they weren't going to warn us, they couldn't have very high expectations, but I can't help but see things for their potential and thus am disappointed when they turn out differently than I know they could be. I had failed to be informed of the meeting since our phone line was down at school, and was raging that I had been informed by Steph and was thus expected to go. Thanks a lot Steph! Anyway, I hit the meeting, and the damn thing lasted for three hours! It would be one thing if it was useful for our purposes, but it is more tailored for the regular English teachers, and thus I spent the time shivering (since I had again been soaked on the walk to the meeting) and pissing and moaning inwardly. My only reflection at this point is that it is so hard for me to be patient with the administration here. I keep reminding myself I need to learn to be patient at some point in my life and it might as well be now in Chile, but I don't really know how to relax when I am feeling tense and impatient. It´s a mystery.

Oh. And classes were cancelled tomorrow. We have a holiday on Wednesday to commemorate the Battle of Iquique, which was decisive in winning Chile all that lucrative mining land in the north. So, here's to another week of "teaching." If my kids learn anything from me, it will be a miracle.