Footware

I've spent the last mind numbing hour looking at shoes. I'm forever wishing for a more stylish pair that might somehow offer comfort as well. I'm not shopping, however. Instead I am sitting through an infamous Monday meeting inspecting my colleagues' footwear. Their crisp, clean fashions leave me feeling dowdy and un-chic. I move on to noticing hairstyles and skin quality, trying to arrange people by age. I follow the conversation loosely, focusing more on accents and word formations than content.There is a certain way you must shape the mouth to get those French sounds out correctly and I notice the subtle differences. Perhaps it has to do with region of origin. France is a country after all, and my colleagues weren't necessarily neighbors there and they don't all come from Paris.

I know nothing about France and so I can't begin to sort them by geographical locations. Instead, I move on to jewelry. And eye wrinkles and laugh lines. I try to sort them into cliques and wonder who hangs out with who and what their differences are. I begin to notice some subtle (or, subtle to me at least. Everything is subtle coming through the haze of another language) signs of disagreement in philosophy and perspective. A rife among them. It is smoothed over with jokes and laughter in an attempt to ease rigid temperaments and restore professional harmony.

I tune back into content for a bit. This particular meeting is called the counseil du cycle and it involves teachers from each cycle meeting to discuss the students in their grade. Teachers present concerns, strategies attempted and propose solutions. In concept a great idea, in reality it risks turning into a complaining fest. The division occurs because a pair of teachers have recommended a student skip a grade and went ahead and got director and parent approval before the counseil had a chance to review. Members are not happy about this breach in protocol. Humor restores the collegiality but not before I've had a chance to witness who's who in each camp.

I spend some time trying to discern the different learning disabilities they speak of- this being my concentration. The super regulated Frech system of education appears to have a prescribed series of interventions for each dys-.

While it's all fascinating, I feel useless. I don't contribute to the conversation and have long since stopped  my inner commentary on the matters. No one asks for my opinion, nor is it ever expected. I ponder my desire to participate. Does it stem from having something new and genuine to contribute or just from a need to feed my ego? I spent the first half of the year nurturing my humility and stifling my natural tendancy to jump in with ideas from past experiences. I was overcome with the distinct sense that nothing I tried to share would be met with merit.

The second half of the year I have found myself feeling more disspirited by my uselessness. The Monday meetings are hard to sit through when I think of all the more efficient ways I could be using my time. While there are few expectations of the English teachers, I have implemented my version of best practices and programs - though I know students will not continue them the following year. I rejoice in gains students have made- and that are clearly shown on the assessments- but there is no one to share them with.

Contrary to popular image, teaching is not really me in my classroom alone, but me in a group of colleagues developing a continuum of learning that students follow- like a path through a forest of knowledge. Except in this case, my path is an ill used short cut, over grown with weeds and tangled briars. We've chopped our way through to a fairly decent clearing but there is no one to lead them on from here.

I turn back to the footwear. There is an assortment of high heels, cushy soles and flip flops. All that's missing is a decent pair of hiking boots.

year five

Things seem to be going wrong in that colossal way that leaves no room for doubt about future direction. If I was waiting for a theme to emerge this year, irony appears to have shown herself from head to tail. If I had hoped and prayed for signs to guide me, they've been succinctly answered.

I am trying to remember when doors close, windows open and every opportunity begins with an ending. And actually, it's no longer feeling suffocating but liberating. I am learning to laugh at the turn of events and bizarre predicaments my life is bringing forth. Perhaps all of those capoeira classes meant to find find balance and inner strength have paid off.

Despite the departure of my kickboxing instructor, Kinshasa has come through and provided a vast new array of exercise activities to fill my evenings. I wonder how I will have time for classroom planning and homework.

I have vowed (again) not to let my working life take over, but any teacher will tell you how nearly impossible that is. It's not a neat and tidy job that ends at a precise hour when all the papers can be stacked and declared finished. Rather, it is a never ending search to improve, to motivate, to enlighten and to cherish the process of learning. I find myself at a moment when my own personal learning and growth is offering up new pathways and possibilities. 

Salue, year five. I embrace the challenges and new directions you are offering.

 

Refugee in Reverse

"She's living out of a suitcase. She had all of her stuff shipped back home." The conversation came on the heels of a premonition someone on campus felt about the security of life for us ex-pats in the DRC. I was catapaulted into a state of shock for entirely different reasons.

Congo is full of aid workers and 'helping' agencies. I've been reading and learning a lot about the real effect this kind of work has on a country. In addition, MONUC is a huge presence here in the capital as well as in the east. It's complicated trying to weigh the cost/ benefits. But because we are already living in such  high tension, I had difficulty imagining an event that would warrant evacuating the foreigners.

Nevertheless, my neighbor and I continued to contemplate. What would our contracts cover? Where would we go? And what would happen to any of the things we left behind? She contemplated how to best provide something for her nanny- who would certainly be in dire straits without a job. And I wondered what all of the Congolese who depended on foreigners for their livelihood would do.

But mostly I thought about myself. I felt caught in the dilemma of nationhood. Where would I be shipped off to? I simply can no longer imagine life in the U.S. and feel no desire to go back. For an instant of panic, I felt that familiar, weightless, floating sense of being without a home- no where to go. There are plenty of people I've encountered recently who have lived in the Congo for a decade or more. I wonder precisely at which moment does a country become home and when does the birthplace become abandoned, or if not abandoned, replaced as the country of identification?

While my neighbor continued to make decisions and lists about which of her things would be most important in an immediate evacutaion, I continued a stubborn resistance. I'm not going. Can I really say I'm not going? But I don't want to go. I have nowhere to go. Why should I go? This one track questioning played over and over in my mind as I compared myself to the Congolese--- who had no decision to make. I've long struggled with this ability to fly out of conflict. A privilege? A curse? A point of confusion if nothing more. Suddenly I felt like a refugee in reverse. I fully realized that someone else may very well be making this decision for me. And I realized it is not a hazard of teaching in many places. But in Africa, at any moment, the government could go south and things could get, well.....tricky. But I really am not ready to give up what I have found.

I am still clinging to the idea when you're home, you're home. And I don't feel able to fly off in the face of danger. I have never felt more content in my life, in my being, in the way I am greeted by each new day.