A few months out

For a while, I admit, it was difficult for me to even think of returning to blogging--not because of the support I receive through sharing my 'present moment' with you, but because I wasn't ready to confront, nor return to, the emotional place I was in March, when I last wrote. Nor could I believe, in good faith, I could continue blogging without returning to my previous (unresolved) writings.

For several months after I finished teaching in June I sat at my brutally un-optimistic window, and looked out (I think of Billy Collins' 'Monday'). Through that tinted glass, everything looked gloomy. Even with distance (time and space) between my experiences teaching, I still felt pain and disinterest (a strange combination).

And then, I started thinking about return.

This idea of 'returning' has always been fascinating to me--the tension I feel between the comfort of coming back--a familiar landscape, people, community, system, language. and the frustration of having changed, grown, morphed while away (and that this place, this community has also changed)--and then, here we are, trying to fit two puzzle pieces together that once matched perfectly, and now are just slightly off.

But I think, in this case, the reverse may be true. When I left Tetovo, my professional puzzle pieces didn't match any more, and I felt like I was trying to wedge a round peg into a square hole. and lord, was it difficult.

 I know my position, my role has changed in Tetovo--and that I can approach, remember, and interact with my students in an entirely new light--as I am no longer wielding that hammer--trying to just. make. them. fit. right.

And I think, I hope, that I'm also more free to see the strengths of my students--and the possibilities-- because I no longer feel emotionally drained by them.

They are amazing individuals--and I learned so much from them.

I think I'm ready to approach them again with the optimism young people deserve.

Is this sustainable?

Last week, I got a smile-splitting e-mail from a best friend, serving as a PCV in Uganda. In the middle of this letter--she asked, "do you worry about sustainability?"She, nearing the end of her service, working with agricultural NGOs in her town, she shared, is thinking a lot about sustainability--both environmental and programmatic: how does she prepare the projects she has been working on to continue (and adapt, and then continue) to function/provide services after she heads back to the States.

and in other ways, and in ways I never imagined, I too am deeply contemplating sustainability. And my role in enabling, preparing for a sustainable society.

One of the challenges I just don't know how to overcome, and to help prepare these students for 'their' generation, is the rampant apathy I see in my students.

For example--today is the 7th of March--the day that the first school for women was opened in Albania. and students weren't interested at all. Perhaps the documentary was really boring, perhaps they have seen it before. but it was just depressing to feel like I was forcing students to learn about what should be (or is that judging too much?) a valued event. especially within a community where the women in the generation of our parents didn't necessarily have the opportunity to go to school.  in this context, education, especially for women, feels all the more important.

maybe I am sexist--or more sexist than I think I am (perhaps the case)--but it bothers me especially when men--especially in such a patriarchal system--don't care about the history of women. and even more the history of 'their' women--women in their community, women speaking their language. these aren't women who I am asking, imploring, begging them to respect for their contribution to 'my' society, but to their own.

Especially in a society, in a community that speaks so proudly of their heritage, their culture, and what it means to be 'Albanian,' and then to then see men/the youth totally disinterested in their history (and the history of women), has just broken my spirit. How can anyone be proud of their heritage and not care about their history?

It's one thing to feel disrespected by students--human to human. but to see them then showing this kind of disregard for authority, society, history and their culture makes me question the kind of society that can come from this generation.

These are the students who have not shown any spark of interest in anything (which, I must say is certainly not all my students--but a healthy contingent). And it makes me wonder what will happen to them, without passion, without curiosity or interest in the world (or those) around them, without engagement, or desire to expand their minds, their worlds, their perceptions. It certainly is a depressing prospect for the future: a generation who doesn't even know, or care to know, what they are missing, or already have missed, through letting the living around them disappear into the glow of their touchscreen telephone worlds. Letting cell phones replace being alive.

sigh.

For if they don't value something, how can they care about it--or motivate themselves to do something to either preserve or change it?

and I fear that this is a fundamentally unsustainable generation, in their perspectives on life, the world, people. No sense of consequence for their actions. no sense of respect. honesty or sincerity. no sense of fear, or respect. no responsibility.

and this is what the future is made of?

And it's hard to stay focused, motivated, believing in a profession based solely upon the idea(l) of creating a new generation--shaping them, building them into independent people, critical thinkers, compassionate be-ers. And looking at this small group of students, I honestly, don't have a lot of hope. Because the behaviors they exhibit are not, and can not, be sustainable--environmentally, socially, ethically. and probably not economically either (at least in the long term. in the short term I'm sure this attitude will bring profit).

And this is the future? our future leaders? teachers? citizens? parents?

and what scares me is how, where will people who want to change the system, who can and will invest in society--not in their personal profit--where do those people come from? And where are they now?
and what will happen to them in this hostile environment,  a place where I, who, for 23 years, have have prospered--academically, emotionally, mentally--in a supportive, nurturing, and alternative educational system. and yet, even this does not seem to make me strong enough to survive this negativity.

and to top it off. today is Teacher Appreciation Day.

the ironies of life.

teaching cause and effect

There's a reason why I'm not a physics teacher (or a cop)--or really any of the hard sciences. I don't really like the idea of cause-effect. It's just too hard and fast--in a world which doesn't feel that simple. Yes, it's good to be aware of, but to structure my classroom around cause and effect even to me, feels like torture.

A few months ago, I wrote about the importance of trusting your students--and of deeply, wholly loving them. Which sounds great, and as a teacher--when it works--I'm sure feels great. But. it hasn't been working. maybe it's this age. maybe it's these students. maybe it's all these cultural differences--which to them justify their behavior, and to me totally confuse/annoy/disrespect.

Which as a new/young/excited/enthusiastic/I love teaching! first year teacher, has honestly been quite a blow. because how much do you learn when you are suffering? (well, maybe a lot, but not necessarily about what those making you suffer actually want you to learn--I know I'm certainly learning a lot this year, but I'm not sure it's about teaching). and it seems the emphasis in my classroom needs to shift from supporting/nurturing to punishment, rules, regulations. behavior and consequences.

when I think about my own education it was the respect/caring/interest from teachers which gravitated me to them. The tough-love Coach Pickering--well, he didn't click with me, and I was ready to avoid him like the plague (nor have I thought of him since graduating, which perhaps only furthers the point). whereas, playing 4-square with the social studies teachers--and feeling cared for, feeling treated like a person(!) that made me want to show my respect for them more. And when I was preparing myself for beginning teaching--it was these teachers, the ones who enriched me as a student/being--who I wanted to sit down with, to discuss, to learn from, and ideally, to emulate.

after five really difficult months teaching--from cat and other animal noises when I turn to write on the board, to rampant cheating (from homework to midterm exams), orgasm noises in class (during student presentations!), a constant war with them and their cell-phone addiction, blatant (and not so blatant) lying about any number of things, wild complaining ('if we fail this test it is your fault'--because I didn't postpone the *vocabulary quiz* by a day, when they had already had 1.5 times the normal amount of time. and he honestly believed it would be my fault),  to students saying all sorts of things--from swearing, to talking about their clocks or ajvar, to bitching about me--in languages they think I don't understand (and so therefore, think they can get away with it) but (unfortunately) I do understand enough to be hurt (and/or incensed) by their words, to students biting each other in class (need I continue?).

And my class rules--although not written and posted--were simple: don't throw things, don't eat in class, no cell phone use (all, mind you, school rules), listen to directions. simple stuff. and every day at least one person challenged these rules. It's been five months of feeling like every moment the students walk into the classroom--it is not I who is testing them about the knowledge they are supposedly here to develop, but them here to test me, to test my will and to test my strength.

It came to a head on Thursday--after the orgasm incident the day before--where I had them each write about what they thought respect was--what makes you feel respected, how it makes you feel, and how you feel when you are disrespected. the classroom was never so silent.

and in those moments my heart swelled--they were saying the most profound things (other than the ones who needed to wikipedia it. because why?): there are two kinds of respect, respect from caring and respect from fear; respect is when you are treated the way you want to be treated; when you don't do things to hurt or harm others; being respected makes me feel valued, makes me feel cared for, makes me feel like I am in the right place. Feeling disrespected makes me feel worthless, makes me wonder if I am doing the right thing, makes me question humanity, it makes me feel empty.

I know I'm not supposed to have favorites, but one of my students (the one who called me 'mom') who is super shy--and whose English isn't at the same level as the other students (which I think makes him even more shy), wrote "respect is being cared for and it is the best feeling in the world." as as I am reading this--how can I not think, 'so I want to treat you with more respect, so that you feel worthy of your place in our class, and feel appreciated'?

and reading their responses: I felt like I was having a break-through: I just need to ask them questions where they need to reflect upon themselves--they understand what respect is, and therefore, if they know, If I treat them with it (and they feel it), then they will act with it too (because they understand how painful disrespect is).

how naive I am.

I think for some of my students: they feel entitled to my respect. no matter what they do, what they say or how they behave: I am here to serve them, and must respect them. If they do poorly on an exam--it is a reflection only of me, not of them. If they want to talk about their extended families (a major topic of (side) conversation in my class) or about what they want to eat at home, or god knows what else--I am supposed to let them, because this is their class. If they want to use their phones, who am I to tell them no? (and their parents tell me that I need to discipline them because their mother's can't at home. hmm). another one wrote in large letters at the bottom of his page "but respect can be lost and must be earned!" that's a subtle message, but thank you for informing me.

After this writing about respect--we moved on to the actual lesson of the day--and almost instantaneously they were back to their same old selves--disrespecting the class rules, not listening, paying attention, or showing any regard for me/my classroom/learning. so I stopped class again, and wrote back up on the board what they had just told me about what respect is--how it feels, how we practice it, and how it feels to be disrespected. and I asked them why I wanted to discuss respect with them. and even while some of them are trying  to answer this question, they're talking over each other, talking about a wide array of topics (in Albanian--so they think it's ok) not even remotely related to class. and finally one asks me, "don't you want to say something too?" and of course I do--but I respond 'but tell me, why should I tell you?"

and some smart aleck from the back pipes up 'why not?'

and with that, I leave the classroom to let them answer that question themselves. and to cry in the hallway.

I think I let myself care to much about them ('is that possible?' the optimistic part of me that they haven't killed yet pipes up)-and about how I was teaching them, about how they treated me. and rather than that caring strengthening my relationship with my students, I feel abused by them. five months of having my sense of worthiness, my sense of 'doing the right thing' fundamentally shaken.

and unlike other kinds of relationships: I can't take distance from them, can't place the ball back in their court, because I am stuck with them. and have to rebuild an entirely different relationship with them, with teaching.

day one: dictation of the class rules.
day two:? we'll see. 75 more days of law enforcement. behavior and consequence. behavior and consequence. sigh.

I can already feel that this new environment is going to be exhausting: it is everything that does not rejuvenate me as a teacher, everything that exhausts me, that does not fulfill me. and it's hard to imagine this as being my profession.

But...

When I was a student in Belgrade, there was a street artist who signed all of her pieces TKV. It was always a small treasure, finding a new wall graced with her work. One of her pieces which stayed with me was titled "unconditional love"

In 2010, when the photo was taken, I'm not sure I quite understood what it was that she was opening for public conversation--perhaps because I have been incredibly fortunate to have grown up with parents who unconditionally loved--and saw no need to label it as such.

and I'm realizing that the crux of this idea of unconditional love, to me, has to do with eliminating this pesky little word from my vocabulary of love: but.

But.

all it does is make trouble.

because with this little word we can unravel a sentence of heartfelt caring, hide our true feelings, or perhaps just our real concerns behind our professed unending love, confusing what I hope is the true message: love, with the details, the 'but's. and not have to acknowledge that--at least for me--unconditional love (if it is indeed unconditional) has to take the upper hand over any 'but' statement. of course, growth, self reflection and criticism all are a part of love--is it not a dynamic feeling? but I'm learning, perhaps  'but' is not the best route to broach those topics.

It certainly is a challenge: I use 'but' all the time to describe my love-frustration relationship with my high school students.
but I guess, this is what the second semester is for.

We come from a land down under...

(This is from a few weeks ago when Tetovo was shrouded in what felt like an eon of fog--but was perhaps 2 sun-less, smog-full months).

First: a little griping about the weather. (and no. no kangaroos).

Driving up the mountainside outside Tetovo, there comes this point where it looks like the view has bi-polar disorder: above, blue blue blue skies with unbelievable visibility. Rarely have I seen the sky so clean around Tetovo. And below, well, it looks like the perfect setting for a horror movie where something ominous is about to emerge out of thick fog. Climbing a little further up, we stood looking down into the valley. Usually Tetovo stretches out, from the base of the mountains into the plains surrounding the city, with the highway, winding through some hills to Skopje. But today--it was an entirely different landscape. As if the entire valley--across the valley well past Skopje, up the valley to Gostivar, and down the valley towards the Kosovo border--had been completely  filled up with grey soup--the kind of fog in J. Alfred Prufrock which curls around our street corners and falls asleep. The tops of mountains were reduced to the archipelago in some strange, new ocean, and Tetovo, a submerged city (Atlantis? perhaps a bit of a stretch). Across this 'sea' from us was a spectacular panorama of mountains, seen from a distance.

and the city had disappeared. completely.

a little fount of cloud/smog/fog above the Jugochrom factory (controversial neighborhood polluter) just east of town, was the only indication that there was  something under this sea. (and, no doubt, doing its part to add to the rising sea levels.)

as we broke the mjegull (fog) barrier, I could feel our spirits skyrocket; laughing, we shed layers--usually necessary for the damp cold of the fog--positioning ourselves, stretched out like cats, to capture the most sun. Up, above the fog, it felt like an entirely new day, totally unconnected to the day we had began below, sugmurged in fog.

Crossing back through the fog, on our way home, was painful. Again, within the span of 15 m, the world changed completely. Vibrant colors were replaced with hazy, muted shades of grey, the car ahead of us became two parallel red lights winding down the hill.

Sitting in our apartment, I can't imagine weather less inspiring than this grey. There's plenty of natural light. but no sun. no variation. no passing of the day. an absence of time--or at least natural time. the mechanical time counts off each second. not eagerly. not patiently. just counting.
and perhaps with much less predictability, I too am counting until we can reemerge from under the curtain of fog for another reminder of what color, light and liveliness are all about.

the neutral zone

At college, we voted on which bathrooms, which dorms would be gender-neutral.

How strange, how dream-like the past sometimes seems. Iowa: a far-off place.

I think, as a Grinnellian, I saw these decisions as purely logical--they were the conversations we needed to be having as a college campus about what not only our individual but our collective approach to gendered space would be: we were ready to have these conversations, and there was a need for these conversations to move forward. And the beauty of these conversations didn't really hit me until this weekend--nearly a year and a half past graduating.

I think for the past year living here, I've noticed--and in some ways been exposed to the gendered-ness of society here. but without living with a family, and without spending significant time within a family, it's hard to really see the extent to which gender norms are enforced/at play within the private sphere. Within the public it's an entirely different matter (and one which I could and most likely will speak at length on for the rest of my days).

 in my observations, oftentimes men and women occupy separate social spaces--even within the same room: sitting or congregating around different centers--even if the conversation transcends these boundaries. Last weekend, visiting some family, it was almost as if there were a line drawn across the room--or an unspoken rule guiding us each to our seats. Often, perhaps because the language barrier is greater with women of Zeko's parents generation, sitting with the other women--sharing this space with them (and yet rarely truly following conversation)--feels somehow intimate ("Woman Space"), as if I am witnessing (and sometimes stepping into) their private conversations, which  (for all I know) they don't have in the presence of men. (But, I guess, every conversation feels private when you can't fuly understand it, instead just watching it flow along--and can I really judge what topics are tabooed by gender?). However, watching women talk together--there's a manner of speaking, intonation, smiles and gestures which I don't see nearly as much when women and men share the same conversation.

I think a lot of these thoughts/conversations about the organization of the private sphere stem from starting to visit the bevy of aunts, uncles and cousins (oh. my. lord. how do they ever keep themselves straight?) and feeling that I am stepping into a rhythm of living which I am markedly unaccustomed to. And--it should be noted--that these comments on gender are very much colored by my own 'guest-ness' in most of these instances--but if anything, being a guest often times gives me a (sometimes uncomfortable) window into both worlds. As a guest--I am often treated like 'a man' (read a guest) even while, in actuality, occupy another role and thus set of norms. In some ways, I'm learning to think about, feel out and act in space in an entirely new way, because I don't remember feeling this divide, seeing this separation between men and women within the home, back Home. Yes. I understand (to some degree) the cultural/historical reasons which created these spaces, but no. I still don't know, truly, how to behave in them.

an example: visiting friends/extended family in our generation, young. I sit down with the other people around the woodstove--all of whom are men. and I only start to feel out of place after drinking half a glass of beer--and realizing that there are no other women sitting with us (they are taking care of babies, doing dishes, in short: being Women), and certainly no other women (there were only two--so perhaps statistically speaking, I need a bigger n) are drinking beer. In this moment, I feel like I ended up in the wrong space all of a sudden, following the wrong norms. behaving like a man.

With Zeko's family, it's getting easier: I no longer feel like a guest with a capital G--and can (usually) with relative ease assume a seat with the women and eavesdrop on their conversations unashamedly, and sometimes am allowed to help in the kitchen. But there are other times when I hesitate when we walk into an unfamiliar livingroom. Will there be women in this room?  (not always). Do I enter into this woman space, in which I sometimes feel like I am intruding through listening intently to other people's conversations (the awkwardness of which is added to by never really contributing to said conversations, only absorbing), or do I sit with Zeko (and thus with the men) in what feels like the "guest" seat (certainly a seat of honor), know that I will have access to translation should I need it, and still feel markedly out of place because of my gender (and thus the codes and norms tied up with that)? (which perhaps begs the question, does the term 'guest' have gender in and of itself?)

I'm curious to return to the States--because I can't tell if my memories of home--especially around this issue of gender--are accurate anymore. Is gender really not as important as I remember it to be? (without meaning to imply that gender is not important in the states. of course it is). Is the blur between gender norms quite as rich as I remember? do men really do the dishes and straighten up the house on their own accord, or am I dreaming?  and how will I see Home differently now, after feeling my gender to be such a large determinate of my social being here? What are the new norms I will now be able to feel out upon returning?

or another day, going with Zeko and a friend to a pizza place in a village and walking into the bathroom to realize that they only had a men's room (gender neutral? not exactly but...) because, I assume, only men (or very few women) frequented the shop.

This episode, standing in front of the only bathroom door--wondering if I should indeed enter it, reminds me of a precious line from a classmate of mine in elementary school "maybe girls just want to be boys for a day." and this idea keeps haunting me--because it's so applicable to my life here because I feel in so many ways constrained by (rather than celebratory of) my gender.

Time-Slips: Another Type of Homesickness

A few nights ago, Zeko asked me "so where did you think you would live when you grew up? where did you imagine living?"

and the question stumped me just a bit--in part because I have immense difficulty imagining the future (my response was "well. I don't imagine growing up--so the city was always irrelevant.") But giving it a moment's thought--I realized that the answer (if not growing up is not an option, as I am realizing it, sadly, is not with each passing day) would in some way be, 'well. outside the US.'

I've been fortunate enough to spend significant parts (and episodes) of my life abroad: with all the joy/pain/delight/culture shock that brings. While sometime exhausting, the stimulation of being surrounded by new languages, cultures, histories, ways of being and thinking delights and fulfills me.

However. there are passing moments when I see (and thus realize) the pitfalls of being part of a community (spiritually/emotionally/somewhat socially)  which I am physically absent from.
 This morning I got a facebook friend (oh how I loath how they have co-opted the word friend. but that's another conversation) request from the parent (T.) of a kid I grew up with (D). D. (T's son) and I were always one age group apart--growing up with younger siblings of my friends, but still a member of our childhood cohort--and someone whose path I cross every so often back home. Since I've been gone, T and D lost their wife/mother W. to cancer. The first photos I saw of T.s on fb were of the sign at the gate of the cemetery in our village, just behind the church. followed by flowers, with her name, inscribed on the grey granite just legible beyond the petals.

 As kids, we would play among the gravestones, or walk there for gossip or talks, or just to run and shout out child-energy. in elementary school, on memorial day, we would walk from the school to the cemetery to look at the graves of veterans, racing to find the oldest grave; to read the tombstone which a white pine has grown up against, blocking the inscription; to find the grave of the freed slave, laid to rest in our valley. Later, in high school, those stones marked the long walk home from the bus. as an adult, my mother and I have walked countless loops, starting and ending in front of this cemetery, with those stones marking the end and beginning of conversations, seasons, years.

This morning I realized, this place--however overlooked--is an integral part of my sense of place--my feeling of home.

Westminster West is an small enough community that births and deaths are rare--although as the community ages, and the young people (myself included. myself included) move away, community members passing is becoming more frequent. But W. wasn't aged and my childhood was full of her broad smile, her laugh, her Thai food, celebrating Loi Krathong and the dancing lights of our pumpkin lanterns drifting down the Connecticut carrying our blessings for the future (a far cry from the lights on the Mekong, I imagine, but still a beautiful sight).

Although W. passed a year ago this next week--her funeral was this summer, and stumbling across these photos of the family, friends from West West, a landscape so familiar--except for the name on the grave, which, even though I know she has passed makes me gasp, for just one second. Scrolling through these images in a kitchen 4,500 miles away from that little cemetery surrounded by pines, with the square steeple of the church against blue August skies, I weep. For her passing. For T. and D. and for the hole she left in their lives, in our community. For all those missing W.s presence.
and part of me cries for me too: for this absence of home--which I don't feel daily, but rises up out of these photographs, these moments when something changes--permanently. and I am not home to feel it, to experience it, to internalize it, nor to support (and be supported by) these people I love.
and it's a variety of homesickness for which there is no antibody--not to be cured with comfort foods.

(interlude while men come to change the window in our apartment).

It's moments like these where I notice the passage of time, in nearly quantifiable ways. More specifically, I notice the progression of days in places where I am not physically, but still feel integrally connected, spaces which still comprise a fundamental part of me. and where I feel 'slippage' between the present (or at least my present) and the present of places I cannot (and would never want to) let go of, I feel slightly disoriented--as if my north star(s) shift their position in the night sky. These places: my home, in many ways, remain unchanged in my memory, preserved in some internal time capsule; an exhibition in a museum; sounds, smells, movements captured by this novice anthropologist, collecting the traditions of her own life, compiling them into an archive. And when I miss home--these are the relics I paw over, the stories I revisit, the tastes I savor. but this place, this community, this Westminster West is a living tradition. and contained within that life, that vivacity (as it must be) is also death.

The problem--at least as I see it--has little to do with resisting change, but being unaware of it. being excluded physically from so many of the processes which make a community a community, which give it color, texture, substance, and (I think we can argue) meaning. and how to straddle two communities divided by language, culture, space, mentality (although what exactly that means--although it gets used oh so frequently to explain how/why things are the way they are--still puzzles me) and 4,500 miles.

This is not to say that I regret choosing to live abroad. but sometimes, that I wish that these two homes were just a little closer together.