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 21st birthday cramming for an art and culture test in
Chile, and my 18th 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 6th 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.
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| 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.
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| 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. |
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