The Great Rain Adventure

Greetings friends,

I know it has been awhile since my last post but things have been ridiculously busy. School is going VERY well—we’re finally on our midterm/Easter break, and it’s SUCH a nice, well deserved break for the four of us. My students are AWSOME, and I really feel like I’m starting to connect with my class of third graders. They are so funny and we’re able to joke around with each other more than we were in the beginning. After school a few weeks ago, a boy named James who has made up a handshake with me already, was holding something in his hand and motioned for me to come over. Without even talking, he did that thing with his eyes that said “Teacher, I have the COOLEST thing to give you, you’ll never believe it, come here and give me your hand, this gift is going to be EPIC.” Extending my open hand, he grinned slyly and placed something in my palm, closing my fingers around it and then laughing hysterically and high fiving his friend. James gave me a rock, accented with some clumps of dirt. Teacher got SERVED. I couldn’t stop laughing with these third grade boys, the trick was so silly and juvenile but it is EXACTLY something that a kid would do in the states and it just made me feel good to get that kind of humor here in my new home.

So yeah, things are pretty awesome but I have never felt more exhausted. Don’t get me wrong… in college I had a habit of biting off more than I could chew, running frantically from one event to the other and constantly answer emails and writing papers and yadda yadda. But here’s it’s a different kind of tired. I’m in a routine that I am still navigating and figuring out. As a new teacher, lesson planning does not come easy to me in the least. At school, I’m spending my free periods marking exercise books and trying to remember what I planned for my next lesson and helping students who are confused, so that leaves all of the “next day lesson planning” to when I get home. My responsibilities at home also include cooking twice a week, dishes once or twice a week, laundry when the need comes (and like I mentioned before, laundry is almost a full day’s work), and spending time with my community during community night, spirituality night, and just general presence with each other. But with all this work, I still feel more balanced than I have in a long time. If I spend all afternoon cooking, it’s that much more awesome to eat it with my community that night. Lesson planning takes me a long time because I want it to be GOOD, and there are tons of kinks I need to work out until being “good” at teaching comes more naturally. My community and I just returned from a 4 day retreat in Morogoro and I had the opportunity to reflect on how I’ve been spending my time… and I think I’m ok with it. Teaching will get easier as my feet get wet, so to speak. And I want to be as present for my children as possible.

SPEAKING of feet being wet, it’s raining right now, and my feet were wet just a few minutes ago as I was finishing up a load of laundry outside (my clothes are getting a second rinse in the rain which means I didn’t have to work as hard scrubbing… WOO). But the rain and the dampness of Mabibo today reminded me of a story that I want to share, something that happened a little over a month ago (I know I know, I need to be better at posting frequency, but I guess my style is going to be one MASSIVE post every month or so. Accept it).  The rainy season is just kicking off this week, but during late February, we got a GIANT, flash rain storm one early Thursday morning. I was extremely excited to go to school on this particular Thursday, because the night before I had written a song about prepositions to the tune of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, and I was eager to teach it to my English classes. The rain woke me up at around 5:20, just minutes before my alarm, and I sprung into action throwing things from my desktop into my drawers. Heavy rain + wind = pretty substantial quantities of water flowing into my room and getting anything left on my desk nice and damp. After I had storm-proofed the room, I began covering my soft guitar case with plastic bags to protect it during the 15 minute walk to school. I also was planning on bringing my ipod and speakers to school that day because Thursday afternoons I teach a dance club period, and it’s always more fun with music. I wasn’t going to let the rain ruin my plans, so I also threw the electronic things into a plastic bag and then into my school bag with my many exercise and lesson plan books. Slinging the bagged guitar over one shoulder, my school bag over the other, and wrapping a Khanga (cloth that is used for pretty much everything) around my back, I was ready to go. I looked ready to climb a mountain with the amount of things I was carrying. Cat and I grabbed an umbrella to share and we were on our way.

As soon as we left the house, we started laughing with amazament. The rain was INSANE. Monsoon was the first word that came to mind, and it was difficult to see further than a few feet. I took one step onto to dirt-path-turned-river and immediately resigned myself to the fact that we would be walking through about 6 inches of rapidly flowing water the entire way. Unable to hear anything above the pounding rain, we began our journey. We ran into two coworkers of ours on the walk there, and after about 5 minutes of waiting out the worst of the storm under a lean-to of sorts, we continued, getting wetter by the minute. Our group soon welcomed one of my third grade students, Matthew, who was walking to school as well, with a rain jacket on and carrying his shoes so that he wouldn’t get them ruined. We trudged along, and soon our two coworkers were picked up by a car belonging to a number of our students. It was just Cat, bare-foot Matthew, myself, and a few others students walking the final leg to school. We had to wade through a particularly deep area of road, a narrow strip of about a foot of water, and Cat and I heard a wince from Matthew when we reached the other side. Not a scream or a cry, just a little boy looking down at the bottom of his bare foot, out of which stuck a long, rusty nail. Not really knowing what to do, Cat gave her bags to some students and scooped Matthew up on her back. I could not believe how optimistic Matthew was—I would have been screaming and crying, but he just sang right along to “Old McDonald” when we began a rousing chorus of “Moo Moos”  to take his mind off the fact that he had a big nail stuck deep in his foot. A few minutes later I felt a sinking sensation and realized that I was stuck in the mud, about a foot deep. I was able to pull my legs out pretty quickly, but lost my shoes in the process. Fishing my mud-caked shoes out of the ground, I completed the journey, guitar and giant bag still flopping by my side, holding dripping wet, muddy shoes, and looking pretty comical I’m sure. We reached the school about a half hour behind schedule, and one of the Sisters who ran the school casually plucked the nail out of Matthew’s foot and wrapped it in a bandage. Still, not a tear left this boy’s face.

Gonzaga is a two story building, with class rooms facing into a central courtyard. The classes of the youngest students are located on the bottom floor. The rain was still coming down strong, and the courtyard had already flooded about 6 inches. Grades Pre-Standard  1 to Standard 3 were taken upstairs in case the rain continued to flood, and since my class was included in that mass, I went to join them in a large empty room as soon as I peeled my bags off my back. If you can imagine a room with about 100 students ranging from age 3-9 all dancing, singing, and playing drums to try to be louder than the rain outside, imagine it just a bit louder and just a bit cuter, and that might give you an accurate picture. Still a little confused and flustered about the events of the morning, I took my guitar into the room and just sang and danced with the students for another 10 minutes or so, until the rain stopped and the sun came out. Students were able to return to their rooms just in time for the first period to begin, and the day continued, completely normal. The only difference was that a few students were later than usual, and some did not make it to school.

When a rainy day like that happens at home, our cars can protect us. Our roads are paved to prevent excess flooding. Our windows have glass to keep whatever we have under our roof safe and dry. Walking usually is not considered a viable option. But here, for me, and for many of my students and coworkers, walking IS the only option. Rain can shut down a full day of work or school. No one asks for an excuse if you’re extremely late to work on a “rain day”. Rain can wreak havoc on houses, roads, and feet, in the case of Matthew. Rain can sweep piles of trash into neighborhoods. But rain also is a source of joy. It relieves us from the stifling heat, it provides extra water for planting, drinking, and washing clothes, and it’s a little reminder of how POWERFUL and beautiful nature is. The walk to school that day was nothing like I’ve ever experienced, but when I got to school, the very first thing I felt was the contagious and overwhelming JOY given off by the singing and dancing students. Cat and I agreed later that day that the morning’s adventure was unbelievably rejuvenating, exciting, and peaceful (albeit a bit scary at certain moments). Rain reminds us that we CANNOT control everything as humans, as hard as we try. Nature is just going to go on doing its thing.