Yes, I do realize that it is now August and I left Guadeloupe in early May, but I really regret not having written about my last four months of time there because I had so many experiences and stories I wanted to recount on this blog that were never told. Probably about half of those stories and incidents have already escaped my mind, but I think if I can at least get some of them down in writing, I'll feel better. The time from Christmas to the end of my contract in April really flew by. I spent much of my three week Christmas break in Marie-Galante with Libe and two of her friends from Barcelona, Neus and Alfred. I really had a blast with them, and they made being away at Christmas time much less difficult. Neus is an English teacher in Barcelona, and speaks English nearly perfectly, (as does Libe for that matter) and she was so pleased to practise her specialty with a native and expert. They were really just grounded, nice people, and we all spent the days lazily, as one must do in M-G, by going to the beach, going for walks exploring, eating pizza in the evening at one of two restaurants on the tiny island, and talking and telling stories. I also spent New Years with them and my roommate Marina back in Guadeloupe. I am truly grateful to have had such great people in my life at this time. I don't know what I would have done without Libe and Marina; they were like sisters to me, and we had only known each other for a few months.
The first couple of months from September to about early December were pretty slow and frustrating at times (as you can gather from my previous posts), but the rest of the year was the complete opposite. I have so many bright little faces burned into my memory, the kids who made my life feel worthwhile, who made me feel glad that I had decided to apply to this program, and who made the really difficult days worth it. Like the day I broke one of the oversized protractors used to teach elementary geometry on a blackboard in half by slapping it with all my might against a desk. The kids told me to do it because it was the only way to get the class to be quiet. Wow I really learned a lot this year. Like not to always take a 7 year old's advice. It is actually a hilarious memory, there was a 5 second moment of silence after this thing snapped in half and flew in two jagged yellow shards across the room, then I burst into laughter and all the kids followed suit. I not only learned so much about teaching, but this job was really my first experience in the professional world, and it was a double whammy due to the foreign culture and job. I had to learn how to smile real nice and greet the secretary every day as if she were my best friend at one of my schools in order for her to make copies for me. Using the copy machine at my schools was much more stressful than I ever thought making copies could be. Which is why I avoided it at all costs, except for giving exams when I had to and very rarely using handouts in class. I had the learn various cultural nuances that made my professional experience quite interesting. Like learning the appropriate way to greet a professional colleague. The story with this starts way back in September, when I first got a tour of my schools from my contact person, Annie, who had been assigned to help me settle in Guadeloupe and show me the ropes a bit. On the second or third day, she gave me a lecture about my clothing not being appropriate, which although not completely deserved due to the circumstances, I took with humility. But she also mentioned that she noticed I was not accustomed to doing the "bise" (in France, when people greet each each other, they kiss each other on both cheeks, or "faire la bise") and had other foreign and therefore strange proclivities that set me apart. So I interpreted her mentioning that as a sign that I should try harder to embrace this new culture and their customs. I started doing la bise to everyone, even teachers I was meeting for the first or maybe second time. I noticed that some had a shocked expression when I did this, but I had been fearless, and was embracing their culture gosh darnit, so I was pretty pleased with myself. This went on for a while, and it wasn't until a good Guadeloupean friend of mine eventually told me, "you know, I've been meaning to tell you this, but you really shouldn't do "la bise" with people you're meeting for the first time unless they're family members of close friends, and especially not men". So after probably a month and a half of making an ass of myself to try to make a good impression and not seeming like a cold American, I realized that what I had started out doing, the American hand shake, was actually the correct accepted greeting among professional colleagues in Guadeloupe and people you are meeting for the first time. Thank you, Annie. This custom is fairly complicated and will still confuse me from time to time, and what I had learned when I studied abroad in Grenoble is to sort of wait for the other person's approach before diving in for a kiss. I have gone back to using this as the general rule. Some people who work together start to do la bise once they get to know each other and work together for a while, which was most everyone at my schools. Some people do la bise with roommates every time they come home. Some people refuse to do la bise in the winter because it spreads cold germs.
I slowly but surely became comfortable and was able to talk with a few of the teachers I worked with, but some never warmed up to me, for whatever reason. But I also grew (almost) immune to people not liking me or being prejudiced against me, and learned to give less of a shit. Excuse my French. I really used to care about people's impressions of me; I was super nice to everyone because I really wanted people to like me and think positively about Americans and not think I was some racist ignorant haughty patronizing pot-bellied idiot from that country that started that pointless war our countrymen are dying in. But I slowly began to realize that if people wanted to dislike me or where I come from or the color of my skin, they could go ahead, because with some people, no matter how hard I tried, there was just no getting through to them, and I can only keep smiling for so long. Then I start to become kind of a b****. I also have come to realize that I need to be more of a b**** sometimes; I'm too nice sometimes. I'm not saying I'm Ghandi or anything, I just have realized that sometimes you have to not be nice. A few people have told me this before, good friends of mine who have seen me make mistakes in my life, but I never really knew how bad this problem of mine was. One example where I learned to be not so nice: telling on a teacher to the principal, in true elementary school style. Now I have to admit, this guy really drove me to my limit, and part of the problem was that I had been too nice at the beginning to him. If I had addressed the problem with him earlier, I don't think I would have had such an issue. I just became angrier and more frustrated until one day I couldn't take it anymore. This teacher was always late, would always leave class during my lesson (the teachers are strictly forbidden to do this), and would not help with disciplining the class the few times he was there. To top it off, this was by far my most difficult class to control. It's a real shame too because I had a few kids in there that really wanted to learn, I just couldn't control the roudy kids in the back. I remember at one point having like 10 kids in the corner being punished, and they would all be chatting back there together. So one day I was trying my best to teach them, this teacher finally came back to the classroom, and started grading tests or something. As usual, I couldn't get the kids to be quiet and I turned to the teacher and asked him if he could please calm them down. Without looking up from his work, he raised a finger at me, as if saying, "wait one moment while I finish this". That did it for me. I gathered my things, left the classroom and went straight to see the principal, a woman who told me to come see her, not Annie, if I ever had any issues. I calmy told her the situation with this teacher and that I felt like I was not advancing at all with the lessons because of discipline problems. She spoke to the teacher and the class, and although they weren't perfect angels afterwards, the teacher did stay for the lessons and was involved.
Not caring so much about whether or not people liked me, or more importantly, respected me, was really refreshing by the end. And I do have to say that I established great rapports with some of my teachers, some of whom even would talk to me after class and one invited me to meet her family and come over to her house twice. Then there was one male teacher who I had a bad feeling about from the beginning. He ended up hitting on me, asking me about my plans for the weekends all the time, kissing a little too close when we did la bise (I eventually just got too uncomfortable with this and just completed eschewed it), and then asking me out to dinner over the Carnivale vacation. He was also the teacher who I saw hit one of my (well, his) students during class. That was disturbing. And that was my student who would write me little notes and give me drawings after every class, two of which told me, "Mimi, je t'aime de tout mon coeur" which means,"I love you with all my heart". Yes, I guess Kevin maybe had a little crush on me, and he was such a sweet kid and seeing that awful teacher hit him broke my heart. I had a little girl in that same class who would also give me little notes after every class, some with little drawings, and many with the sweetest words like, "Tu es une bonne prof d'anglais" (You are a good English teacher) and "Tu es la plus gentille du monde entier, que tu restes avec Jesu"(You are the nicest person in the whole world, may you stay with God). I still have these notes, I'll always keep them, they make me smile and make me think that maybe I had an impact on some of these kids. I know that some of them really loved me, or at least they loved English class with me. They would literally scream my name when I arrived at the door and it would take at least 5 minutes for them to calm down. When we played games, pandimonium broke out in the classroom as every kid jumped up and down and reached their hand to the sky so they could be chosen. In my favorite class, which was a group of youngsters who I adored, every last one of them, they would give each other high fives when they got a right answer and would exclaim a satisfied "Yes!" if I told them they did a good job writing down the date. I had a few moments where these kids made me laugh so hard I cried. One of the students, Peter, was this little round ball of cuteness and energy, but he could not speak a word of English for the life of him. I had taught the kids this "Hello" song I actually learned working at Frick Park summer camp (thank you, FEC). I had them sing the song to me without me helping, and Peter sang with such ebullience and passion, I lost it in the classroom. Tears were streaming down my face. In one of my other favorites, I had a little boy named Chris who was a huge Michael Jackson fan. Every class, he would beg me to let him he perform an MJ song at the end of the lesson. And I let him do it a few times. And he even made up dances to some of the songs I taught them, including the famous hello song. Here was a born performer. I wish I could have videotaped those moments, but I guess I'll always have them in my mind. If I made at least a small impact on some of those kids, or made them interested in learning English, or opened up their world just a little bit and make them realize that the world is so much bigger and more exciting than this tiny island, I feel like I made a difference. And that was my goal in going there, to make some sort of small impact on these kids, and improve my French and learn about this culture.
 |
| My favorite class |
 | |
| Another great group, but also the one that witnessed my protractor breaking incident |
 |
| some of my kids celebrating Carnavale |
 |
| Carnavale party at school |
Carnivale is a worthy event to note here too. My dad came to visit me over my two week vacation for Carnavale, and we did all kinds of fun touristy stuff. My next post will be about Carnavale and other life lessons learned in Gwada so stay tuned!
