We all encounter it now and again in our various sites: You are just hanging out, minding your own business, when someone you barely know will come up and say, "Hey, you're the Peace Corps person, aren't you? Why don't you teach english?"
Responses to this are numerous:
1. You don't know me, so what do you know about whether I'm giving english lessons.
2. If I'd wanted to teach english, I'd have gotten real money to do it elsewhere.
3. Even if I do offer lessons and take time out of my day to hold a lesson, I might get the occasional visitor, but I will not get anyone to come in succession every week, and therefore any progress that could be made with people would be almost nonexistent.
Despite the validity of these arguments, I have been bullied into offering lessons. I refuse to go sit somewhere at a scheduled hour, but I tell people that they can come to my house any time, and I'll offer them a lesson. Usually no one takes me up on the offer. But the other day, I had my first student. It was a humble beginning, what with both the teacher and the student being inexperienced at playing school. But I managed to make her repeat the alphabet until she could say all the letters. Then I taught her phrases like Good Morning, My Name is ____, etc. She was fighting the derisive comments of my neighbor (this is typical Elsa) and the attempts at conversations being made by this other dude (that was just rude), and then we paused the lesson for a good while to argue with the guy about some event that happened at least ten years ago. But my student bravely soldiered on through the adversities of learning english in the jungle. If she ever comes back, I'll make her go over what I taught her the first time.
I am chalking this one up as a win. It's going on my trimester report.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Sunday, April 1, 2012
In-Service Training
Hello Everyone!
I have come to the city for In-Service Training. The SUR 16's (those who came to Suriname a year before I did) had what is called their Close of Service Training. Their departure is so close they can smell it. When the 16's leave, there will be no more replacements, so there will be only 20 peace corps volunteers in Suriname left. We 17's are not thrilled about this, but I guess it will bring us closer, so that's nice. In any case, it'll be a huge transition for me. Unlike most other volunteers in Suriname, I have what I like to call a Site-Mate. There's another volunteer living about a two minute walk away from me. We have dinner every day. In addition, there is a couple who is employed by the Peace Corps as response volunteers, whom I also see almost every day in my village. All three of those people will be leaving around June. After that, I spend my next year being the only Peace Corps Volunteer in my village. That is generally the norm, but will be a new experience for me. I think I will find myself taking more trips up and down the river to go see my coworkers in other villages.
And now for a little tribute to my cat. As some of you might know, I have a cat named Milk (aka Meiki) living with me at my house. He has been my best friend, and occasionally my only consolation when I have felt all alone in a strange place with nobody to listen to my complaints. Milk is my buddy. We spend the evenings cuddling. He likes to annoy me by jumping onto the lids of my meat buckets (buckets originally meant for exporting meat, but now used to keep rats out of my food) right as I am about to open them. He likes to sit on my lap when I'm eating breakfast and he enjoys surveying the land from the highest vantage points in my house. I didn't realize how much I like having him around until he nearly died. Recently, my cat got extremely sick. He had eaten a poisoned rat. He was fine in the morning, and all of a sudden, he began throwing up. Then he threw up only bile, and then he was retching without having anything to throw up anymore. By the end of the day he was motionless, hiding under my bed. Later that night, he stumbled pathetically outside and fell into the weeds. When I tried to force him to eat things, he whined at me and moved further away. I got the hint and left him alone. That night he didn't come back. In fact, he didn't come back the day after either. Or the day after. I was certain he had died. That's when I realized how much I love the little bugger. I was in serious distress over losing him, and (I will admit), I cried quite a bit that day. Then, at 11 PM on that second day, he stumbled in and cried at me to wake me up. He was skin and bones, and he slept on the floor, which he never does. But he proceeded to recover! I got to laugh at him during those days of recovery for being an old man and not being able to jump onto my bed anymore. But in the meantime, he's back to his old self, and all thoughts of losing him have faded into the background.
I hope everyone back home is passing the time and making the best of it! Thank you to everyone who has spent precious time and effort to send me a package. Getting a package is one of the most exciting experiences of living here.
I have come to the city for In-Service Training. The SUR 16's (those who came to Suriname a year before I did) had what is called their Close of Service Training. Their departure is so close they can smell it. When the 16's leave, there will be no more replacements, so there will be only 20 peace corps volunteers in Suriname left. We 17's are not thrilled about this, but I guess it will bring us closer, so that's nice. In any case, it'll be a huge transition for me. Unlike most other volunteers in Suriname, I have what I like to call a Site-Mate. There's another volunteer living about a two minute walk away from me. We have dinner every day. In addition, there is a couple who is employed by the Peace Corps as response volunteers, whom I also see almost every day in my village. All three of those people will be leaving around June. After that, I spend my next year being the only Peace Corps Volunteer in my village. That is generally the norm, but will be a new experience for me. I think I will find myself taking more trips up and down the river to go see my coworkers in other villages.
And now for a little tribute to my cat. As some of you might know, I have a cat named Milk (aka Meiki) living with me at my house. He has been my best friend, and occasionally my only consolation when I have felt all alone in a strange place with nobody to listen to my complaints. Milk is my buddy. We spend the evenings cuddling. He likes to annoy me by jumping onto the lids of my meat buckets (buckets originally meant for exporting meat, but now used to keep rats out of my food) right as I am about to open them. He likes to sit on my lap when I'm eating breakfast and he enjoys surveying the land from the highest vantage points in my house. I didn't realize how much I like having him around until he nearly died. Recently, my cat got extremely sick. He had eaten a poisoned rat. He was fine in the morning, and all of a sudden, he began throwing up. Then he threw up only bile, and then he was retching without having anything to throw up anymore. By the end of the day he was motionless, hiding under my bed. Later that night, he stumbled pathetically outside and fell into the weeds. When I tried to force him to eat things, he whined at me and moved further away. I got the hint and left him alone. That night he didn't come back. In fact, he didn't come back the day after either. Or the day after. I was certain he had died. That's when I realized how much I love the little bugger. I was in serious distress over losing him, and (I will admit), I cried quite a bit that day. Then, at 11 PM on that second day, he stumbled in and cried at me to wake me up. He was skin and bones, and he slept on the floor, which he never does. But he proceeded to recover! I got to laugh at him during those days of recovery for being an old man and not being able to jump onto my bed anymore. But in the meantime, he's back to his old self, and all thoughts of losing him have faded into the background.
I hope everyone back home is passing the time and making the best of it! Thank you to everyone who has spent precious time and effort to send me a package. Getting a package is one of the most exciting experiences of living here.
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