Shitting in the Woods, For Example

A while back, we Roskes borrowed a family tradition from the Eggermont clan, whose daughter, Ellory, married my brother, Ben, a couple summers ago in my favorite wedding yet. The tradition? When it's your birthday, you have to tell everyone something you've learned in the last year. The lesson learned can be of varying levels of profundity, from I learned how strong and independent I really am, to I learned how to shit in the woods! I know I'm a few days late, but it's mostly due to the fact that I didn't know what to say. But I'll keep it simple this year: I learned how important names are. Big whoop, names. Glad I looked at this post, JJ... Well, names are important for me in Colombia for two reasons. First, being a teacher means you have to learn a lot of names. Sure, you could be the ass that just says Hey you! when someone is misbehaving. But learning your students' names is pretty important because it says you give enough of a crap about them that you've learned their names. Even in my short stint as a wannabe teacher, I can promise that your students will respect you more if you know their names. I have learned around 90% of the names in my classes which total close to about 150 kids, the outliers usually being the quiet and/or the ones sitting in the far back. Another reason names are important is in greeting someone. In the states, if we pass someone in the street, hall, bar, etc, we can usually get by with a quick Hey, howzit goin'? In Colombia, I've tried this and sometimes get Do you remember my name? as the response. It didn't take long to notice that the other teachers greet all their colleagues and students with their names. Though it's normal for me now, it felt a little Tolkien-esque at the beginning (Gimli, son of Gloin, Aragorn, son of Arathorn, etc.)

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Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m not huge on birthdays, having always felt that I had to do more than survive another 365 days to warrant a celebration about my life. Indeed, it wasn’t with sadness that I spent my 21^st birthday cramming for an art and culture test in Chile, and my 18^th birthday eating pizza and watching basketball while my parents both had meetings that night (come to think of it, what more could a guy ask for??) So it was with some relief when I discovered that my birthday would fall after the end of the academic year here and I wouldn’t need to be bombarded at school. But as is the case with most plans made in Colombia, they were changed rather dramatically.

The monks really went all out with their announcement board.

It started when I decided to go to work early on Tuesday. There were no classes, and no finals. But everyone was there because that’s when the kids found out if they passed the year or failed, something that happens with uncommon frequency at this school because of their high, self-imposed standards of needing above 72% to pass. I get to school around 7:30, and find them all in the auditorium in the middle of mass led by Nicolas, a priest at the monastery here and also the principal of the school. I inconspicuously found a seat near the back, but Nicolas must have spotted me, because after the mass ended he said he had a few announcements. After some end of the year notices, he slipped in that since it was the last time this year that we would all be gathered together we were going to sing happy birthday to our volunteer whose birthday is approaching. So after an agonizing minute of standing and getting sung at, I then went through the next few days battling well wishers who thought my birthday was actually on Tuesday.

Birthday pizza, Papa John's.

On Friday, the real Dday, I went in to play some music with a student who had just graduated. When I was attempting my getaway, I was met by the horde of teachers returning from lunch who made sure I didn’t escape without another singing. Alex, the 6^th grade math teacher and one of the basketball coaches gave me a huge bottle of Corona for a present, and told me to stick around because some of the other teachers were going to the mall afterwards. We had the end of the school year awards ceremony that night, and a bunch of the male teachers were going to buy bowties to look real swanky. So after an hour or two of shopping like teenage girls (and avoiding getting sung to by midgets dressed as Santa’s elves) I quickly made my way back to the monastery to get my newly purchased dress shirt ironed. After I asked if one of the cooks would iron it for me (they also do the laundry, and if you’ve ever met a South American woman you probably know they don’t let you in the kitchen nor the laundry room), they all sang the dreaded song to me as well, and the head cook (Amparo) gave me a gift bag that had candy and a Colombian flag beanie in it. As if they don’t spoil me enough.    

Brandon, one of our best basketball players,
receiving the coveted Athlete of the Year award.

We made our way to the award ceremony (called “noche de los mejores” = night of the best students) where we teachers got to hand out awards to the students who excelled in each subject or sport. I learned that another benefit of teaching is getting to see these overjoyed, beaming kids hop up the stairs of the stage to receive their plaque from their equally as happy teacher. Afterwards, we teachers had a private party (affectionately called “noche de los peores” = night of the worst teachers) where a presentation was made of funny photos, videos, quotes, and other gaffs from teachers throughout the year. Unfortunately, the video of our Single Ladies dance made the cut. After some food and drink, teachers started to trickle back home. I was a little bummed at first because some had expressed a desire to go out not only because it was my birthday, but because we were already dressed to the nines and together anyways. But I thought that the week probably couldn't have gone much better, so I made my way back to the monastery. I had just gotten to my room and untucked my shirt when Alex called me. "Hey, where are you, man?!" I'm in my room, everyone left! "Nah, I just had to drop some people off. We're going dancing, want to come with? I'll pick you up outside the monastery!" I tucked my shirt back in, grabbed my keys, and went to finish off the best birthday I can remember.

J.

Song in my head lately: A recently graduated student named Kevyn introduced me to Esteman, a Colombian pop singer. Even if you don't understand the lyrics, Como Vez Primera is a really smooth, lighthearted reggae-pop song that got stuck in my head real quick.

Spanish word of the day: Parce (par-say), or sometimes seen as parse, is used in how we say dude, bro, or man, when referring to our friends. So, since we've covered que hubo in a past blog post meaning "what's up" putting them together to say, "What's up, dude?" would be "Que hubo, parce?" Or, when some teachers and I showed up to the award ceremony wearing bowties, we were "parce corabtin" or bowtie dudes. 

The two troublemakers in the monastery, Gerson and Esteban.
These two can either be found doing art in the studio
or throwing rocks at my window to get my attention.

That's Why I'm Here

My schedule has steadily gotten busier since my arrival. I started with under twenty hours of work a week. Then I started helping coach the boys basketball team. Then I started after-school tutoring with some students on days I didn't have practices or games. Over time, other teachers approached me and asked that I help them with their English. So, I'd pull out my schedule and tell them to write their name in one of the dwindling blank spots. Now, I'm usually at school just after 8am and rarely get back to my room before 5:30pm. But don't let me get too dramatic; sure I might be busy with my time, but I'm rarely stressed because I have very few actual responsibilities in and around the school other than being there as a resource for others. In their unending kindness and consideration, many teachers will feel bad at giving me something to do because they have seen my schedule. But I just always give them another James Taylor line, that's why I'm here. Because, really, it is.

This week is finals week, and it's technically the end of the academic year, since they go in quarters and we showed up for the third and fourth. Now that I have a whopping four months of semi-teaching experience, let me sit in my student desk and report on what I've learned so far.

Sometimes, you just gotta nap.
Like Yerson here.

Hygiene is important. First off, for me, most of my kids are at armpit height. Therefore, they would be the soon-unconscious victims of my fragrance should I ever forget to deodorant up one morning. Also, it's best to keep some mints in the old desk drawer. I always dreaded asking a question to a teacher who I knew drank a lot of coffee because their helpful response would be accompanied by a whirlwind of rank coffee breath. With a few mints on hand, I can at least ensure that if the student gags when I talk to them, it's not due to my breath (side note, crop-dusting is also an ill-advised classroom habit). Overall, teachers have to be pretty confident in how they look since you have at least thirty pairs of eyes fixed on you throughout the day. And since you can hardly check yourself out during class, messy hair or an open fly can go unnoticed by you for a while, much to the delight of your students. The writer is speaking from experience on both accounts there.

Get as many of the kids involved as often as possible. This is especially true for classes on learning a new language, since their advancement depends on using it often. This means lectures and PowerPoints are usually off limits. If we're learning a new topic in our English class, we'll spend some time introducing the rules and some examples before creating a dialogue between the students, having them ask each other questions using the verb form we just learned. Group work is tricky at the high-school level since you're more or less gifting them talking time. But presenting in small groups has always been pretty effective for us.

Don't waste class time. We teach two sections of 8th and 9th grade, and each gets just over three hours of English each week. So when we're in the classroom with them, we try to waste as little of those three hours a week with them as possible. This means getting class started promptly, and using leftover time at the end productively. This means asking for volunteers but not waiting too long for hands to raise before simply calling on someone. This means having one of the kids write on the board while you keep talking so everyone's not waiting for you to finish writing and continuing.

Don't pick on your kids. This comes with a story I'm not exactly proud of. One day in English with 9A, we were playing a vocabulary game. With two teams, one member from each team went to the board and when I named a category the first person to write four words within that category got a point for their team e.g. when I say "objects in a classroom" they write things like desk, pencil, notebook, teacher etc. During one round, in an effort to learn more about the dancing scene, I said the category was types of dance. The boys team was the first to have four different dances all spelled correctly. But I was caught off guard by the girl's answers which were Urban Dance, Reggeaton, and Balls, the last one inducing a sort of stifled laughter on my part, the kind you'd get if your sweet, sweet grandmother said something that came off way more racist than she'd intended. After conferring with the young girl, we figured out she meant Walz, "balls" being the very phonetic way of spelling it from a Spanish speakers point of view. I tried to use the paper I was holding to cover my face which was red from laughter, but the damage was already done: the little girl's face got bright red and she didn't participate the rest of class. I made sure to apologize after class, but felt pretty shitty about myself for the next couple of days. Though the story's resolution made me feel a little less guilty after she asked to join my tutor sessions the next week. But the point is, high-schoolers deal with enough shit from peers and from within, they don't need it from those they may look up to as well.

Let's be real, Maria, no way a father
would let a strange woman take his children
into the Austrian Hills during WW2.

Always have a positive attitude. Many teachers will say that their kids give them "so much energy." And while that's true, the road goes both ways. If my teacher dragged his feet into the room, yawned all through class, and could be frequently spotted staring at the floor or wall, I probably wouldn't give two craps that day either. I'm not saying you have to take kids on adventures and sing like Maria Von Trapp. But I've found that even just walking around the school with a smile and a bounce to your step goes a long way in letting the kids know that you're happy to be there, even on days when you didn't get enough sleep, burned your tongue on your coffee, or stepped in what you're hoping is dog poop on your way to school (all very likely in Bogota).

Finally, much like the rest of life, It's the little things that matter: Show up early, even if you don't have class for a while. All of us teachers have a desk in one large office space, and I've found that just being there and chatting not only helps my Spanish, but I also get to know the other teachers better. Stay late and make yourself available for tutoring. If you leave school right when the bell rings, that's letting people know you have somewhere else you'd rather be. Whereas if you linger and chat with students, it gives others the chance to ask you questions. Who knew a Minnesota goodbye would come in handy in Colombia? Say yes. I used to give my dad grief for not being able to tell people no, unless of course I was trying to abuse it by persuading him to let me go to a friend's house, borrow the car, money, etc. And it took me until college to figure out how important saying yes to people can be. And it's no different here. Whether it's correcting another teacher's assignments, reviewing other students' resumes in English, or helping a student in another subject that isn't even English, telling people yes lets them know you give enough of a crap about their lives as individuals that you want them to do well in everything, not just the subject you're there to teach. Also, it tells people how reliable you are. Some call it brownie points or karma, most might call it trust. But don't get me wrong. I can still be insensitive, lazy in the classroom, and smell terrible.

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You know those saps who say teaching is the most rewarding thing ever and you just nod and think, sure, whatever helps dry your wallet's tears? Well I'm beginning to see what they mean. On our last day of class, Wilmer, the teacher I assist in English classes, brought a chair to the front of the class and told me to sit down. This wasn't abnormal, since often class can turn into more of a conversation between the learners and the gringo. But Wilmer said, "Okay, guys, tell JJ what you think of him and how he's done as a teacher." First off, wow is that giving kids the chance to strike! They were taken aback almost as much as I was. After some awkward silence, all one girl could stammer was "I like your hair" before Wilmer told them they could use Spanish just for this. Thus commenced a few minutes of getting some of the best compliments a teacher could receive, from "never gets mad" to "makes us laugh" to "always says what I tell him to say in Spanish so we can laugh at his accent."
Throughout, I felt like the Grinch when his heart starts biggering and biggering until it grows three sizes and breaks the scale. And the grin on my face must have looked just as silly. As someone who's very new and unexperienced in the business of having control over another's education, it was nice to hear that I'm not doing such a shitty job after all. Finally, they were done, and the next student followed, and we took turns saying nice things about each other. And for eighth graders, they were incredibly heartfelt and profound thoughts that you wouldn't find expressed in many American college students. Needless to say, it was awesome to see my students come together, celebrate each other, and slowly turn into some kick-ass human beings. That, too, is why I'm here.

J.


Spanish word of the day: Listo means ready, but in Colombia I've found it can also mean something similar to okay or understood, as in "Can you guys come in early tomorrow?" -Ah okay, listo, adios.

Song in my head lately: Last weekend the monks watched a Bollywood movie about a young boy who has Dyslexia. He is just told he's lazy and stupid and goes undiagnosed until a substitute art teacher understands because he had the same learning issues growing up. In this song, Bum Bum Bole, the class meets the new teacher, who shows them that learning is more about being creative and opening your mind rather than filling it with often useless information. Though a bit unrealistic, his attitude obviously has a good effect on his students. You might have to click CC on the bottom of the player for English subtitles. But even without the words, the song is pretty rad. Check out the movie, too.

Also, I apparently promised some classes I'd play them a song at the end of the year.
So that happened. This, however, is from a sunporch outside a classroom I practice in.

Two videos here. One is Wilmer's attempt to get some energy in the classroom. The other is from our English and French day (the same one where we danced to All the Single Ladies) when each grade had to prepare a dance as well. These are one of my 8th grade groups, 8A. The dude with the lightsaber is Felipe, and he's the kid who always asks me to repeat things he says in Spanish.

Peru Part III: A Swarm of Butterflies

Walking through Peruvian jungle on our way to Machu Picchu, we were forced to keep our attention focused on the train tracks we were walking along so as not to trip over the wooden beams. After a few minutes the gray gravel between the rails had given our shoes a seasoned dusty look we didn't yet deserve. We were talking with some of the other hikers in our group when we started noticing flecks of orange interrupting our otherwise dull walkway. I gave the butterflies a mental high five after our guide told us they eat the black flies that gather on the tracks to feast on hikers. We saw many that had been crushed under the feet of the very tourists they were protecting, until we came upon a horde of them gathered in a fluttering pile like orange stained glass shards that had been swept up. The crowd was so heavy we couldn't see what all the fuss was about, but Broly said casually that they were probably just finishing off a carcass of one of their own. For me, somehow, that desperation and ferocity gave their wings a more violent shade of orange.

  

The crew.

Initially, we weren't even going to go to Machu Picchu. We had heard about the crowds, wept when we saw the prices, and I had my own personal vendettas against intensely touristy locations. It wasn't until we were entering the week before our flight when we decided to just suck it up and do it. There are few assured things in life; we were lucky enough to be going to Peru, who knows if we'd ever return? The one condition I had was that we had to do one of the treks to get there. I was already being touristy, but I'd be damned if I was going to shell out a couple hundred dollars to be one to simply bus up to Machu for a view. Plus, the prices for trips are relatively similar whether it's a 1 day or a 4 day hike. This is because most of Machu Picchu's cost is in the transportation to get there. So the added costs of more food and lodging is essentially evened out by taking less of the monopolized private transit. The trek we chose was the 3-day Jungle Trek trail.

Day 1: Don't get me wrong, we didn't just walk to Machu Picchu. After flying into and staying in Cusco, we woke up at 4:30 and were taken by bus up through the morning fog into the Andean mountains an hour away. At over 14,000 feet, we strapped on what were probably old hockey pads, clipped on BMX helmets, and sped 10,000 feet down the mountain the opposite way we'd ascended on mountain bikes. After two hours of white-knuckled coasting around cliff turns with the wind whipping water from my eyes, we arrived at our lunch spot where our group split up. Devon and myself found ourselves in a trio with a girl from Holland named Fieke (though she just told us to call her Sofi, her nickname). The three of us caught a ride and checked into our hostel for the night before checking out some nearby hot springs, where we met up with our guide and the other two members of our group, Zach and Sirena, a newly wed couple from California whose honeymoon was traveling the world for a year.

Day 2 started with some more adrenaline. We had the option to do some zip-lining in the morning. It cost a little bit extra, but we decided to stick to our trip's theme of why not? or, more colloquially, f@#k it! So after five lines back and forth across a canyon, and a suspension bridge on which the five of us made an uncomfortable experience for those not in our group since we jumped and twisted and shook the bridge the whole time (hey, we were all wearing harnesses), we found our way to the train tracks to follow to Aguas Calientes, the town just below Machu Picchu. There isn't a whole lot of wildlife at high elevation, but the black flies knew where to find fresh tourists. I think in writing this, four weeks after hiking, the fly bites have finally gone from my arms. After an hour or two, we finally arrived at Aguas Calientes, which is the launching point for everyone to hike or bus up to the Machu ruins. We got to our modest hostel tucked behind the ritzy hotels and settled in, an experience vastly improved by the symphonies emanating from the shared bathroom after many had contracted some form of bug or other stomach problem.

We awoke on Day 3 long before the sun, as we wanted to beat the rush from the gate at the base of the mountain that opened at 5am. After we tourists swarmed in, we quickly spread out as our hiking speeds allowed. Devon and myself found ourselves near dead after just an hour of climbing what was probably a 57 degree angle (never forget your protractor when traveling, kids) to get to the Machu ruins, where we were greeted by hundreds of others who had slept in and hopped on a bus up in order to be fresh for hiking. Where the clouds had shrouded the scenery from us as we climbed, the late morning sun blew them all away and exposed the jungled mountains and ruins. The actual Machu ruins are on a plateau in between quite a few other mountain peaks that the indigenous people called their guardians. So, being the strapping young lads we are, we made the wise choice to climb some more, and made our way up Machu Picchu Mountain. While the views of the surrounding area were phenomenal, I was gassed. This was before hiking all the way back down the entire mountain later.

Why does everyone on top of a mountain
smile for the camera when they're dying inside?

As soon as our group went from five to five hundred at Aguas Calientes and at Machu Picchu, the question on my mind was What would the ancient Andean people have thought about this? I know, I know, screw me and my hypocritical self-righteousness when I was part of the problem myself. And like many other parts of Peru, I know tourism is huge for the locals. But I should mention that almost none of Machu Picchu's revenue is given to Peru. Apparently, the president of Peru a while back sold rights to British, Canadian, and American businesses to create the monopolies of hotels and transportation that make up the heavy, heavy majority of the sites earnings. So that discomfort kept nagging me, and pinged even more when I would notice what looked like tiny shacks jammed behind hotels and realized that those are where the locals live, or when we stumbled near the edge of the town and found ourselves in a local, not touristy market with women sitting on stools in front of bags of nuts and fruit while their children played on the floor with string, or when I saw a huge storage warehouse that wouldn't have felt out of place except for where it had been empty when we arrived yesterday afternoon, after one day it was overflowing with trash again. My one souvenir from Macchu Picchu is a patch showing the mountain's outline with four Peruvian women seated at its base looking up at it, as if reminiscing that it used to be theirs. It was, literally, the absolute least I could do to remind myself.

Parts of Machu Picchu you don't see in the ads,
 trash accumulation.

Yes, Machu Picchu was great. But I was glad we took our time getting there, because my favorite parts were the little things: all the different people we met at bars and in traveling, joking about how sick we all were on different days, the rush of adrenaline from racing down a mountain on a bike in the rain or down a zip line upside down, playing a never ending card game at a random bar in a tiny town along the way with Broly, Zach, and Sofi, eating guinea pig with Devon, Canadian Henry, and Israeli Dan, and many more events that aren't photoed but were lived pretty damn well.

Finally done with the Peru posts, now I can get back to annoying everyone about my time in Colombia.

JJ

Spanish word of the day: Bailar means to dance, something my hips and knees do not let me excel at.  This weekend was full of dancing, as the school had a dance on Friday night for the kids (side note, high school dances in Colombia are way better than in the states) and last night (Sunday) for the parents. So, basically, I danced with the vice-principal and moms until finally getting to dance with someone's cousin who was closer to my age.

Song in my head lately: It hasn't exactly been in my head lately, but Red Grammer's Listen deserves some attention. If you weren't aware, last week marked the anniversary of Jacob Wetterling's abduction from St. Joe 26 years ago, an event which affected many a Joetown native, not just those who also cruised the streets on their bikes as a kid like I did. Red Grammer became popular in our house after Jacob's disappearance since Listen was one of his favorite songs and my parents were friends with the Wetterlings. It deserves a few listens. What with the supposed new evidence coming to light recently, let's hope closure can be found.