the menagerie.

it's no secret that my husband loves animals. and plants.

i think that the last seven years, stuck living in a third floor apartment sucked life out of him.

we joke about how the day after the big move, the house was filled with stacks of boxes, but all of the plants from the apartment were already lovingly planted in the backyard.

 

it wasn't more than ten days when henry and mickey came to live with us - and two japanese chickens that flew away (or were stolen) within the first 24 hours. the morning doves we had in the apartment came along, and soon we had a little dog, pongo, as well.

 

mickey the hen dropped some eggs within the first month, but they weren't viable and never hatched. when she started dropping eggs this time, amalio ran to the campo and picked up some that were sure to hatch.

 

he claims that mickey was depressed because she lost the last batch and didn't want her to be disappointed again. (i am not kidding).

 

welcome to the zoo, henny penny (yellow - and ä girl"according to amely), bambi and brownie.

 

up next? a rabbit for samil.

turn it off.

i just sat through three hours of... something. i'm still a little bit confused. but i'm not here to pontificate on what i learned.  i just sat through three hours of lecture, presentation and academia with people who were so obviously not prepared for it.

as the audience filtered in, i made a joke to my coworker about how i could pick out all of the public school teachers. it's kind of a game i play in my head when i need to waste time. or amuse myself. it's not a hard game, because it's so easy to pick them out.

the pants are too tight, the makeup too garish and the hairstyles too childish. even when in uniform, there's something that stands out as escuela publica.

it bothers me. because it's not just about the clothes. or the makeup. or the hairstyles. it's about respecting yourself enough to not be the laughing stock of the country. if we want to be treated as professionals, then we need to at least dress like it. our pants should not allow our coworkers to see the dimples on our butts. and bellies should always remain hidden by clothes. borrowing your five year old daughter's hair bows is also a little unacceptable.

as the presentation went on, i took note of all of the "publics" - every time an alcatel* rang, everytime it was answered and every time the group of ladies sitting behind me talked too loudly, i felt it. not embarassment. but disappointment. as the larger academic community turned and looked, only to see, that it was, in fact, not one of them.

amalio is a public school teacher. most of our friends are public school teachers. and it is something that we discuss frequently. we can't demand respect until we act like we deserve it - dress your age and turn your damn phone off.

--steps off soap box--

*alcatel- cheapest, little, disposable cell phone on the market

ring ring.

i am so bad at phones.

we had a house phone for a long time at our old place and it was the only phone id even bother to answer. i dont mind carrying a cell, but please dont expect me to answer it whenever you call.

not only do i not really answer my phone, im notorious for breaking phones. ironically the only phone that has ever lasted me more than six months was a little cheap alcatel that cost eight dollars. everyone made fun of it, but i loved that thing. i could drop it down the stairs and it would keep ringing.

i've had a blackberry for the past year and a half. it's falling apart and about two weeks ago, the keyboard malfunctioned. the little love of my life alcatel also decided to breathe it's last breath. i've been sans communication ever since.

on some level i hate it ... i can't call to check up on anyone, and i lost all of my contacts. but the freedom, oh, the freedom.

no phone ringing incessantly during class - only to figure out that it's not an emergency and my kids are alive. (seriously, if you call a mom you know she's at work more than once, you deserve whatever tongue lashing you get). no annoying telemarketers and no need to selectively screen calls.

sadly, my phone freedom is coming to an end, and tomorrow i will be picking up a little throw away (because, seriously, why waste my money on something that i'll end up breaking anyway). my number will be the same as it's been for awhile. it's just a question of changing up a chip.

happy chatting!

lockin'up

i've never had more than 2 keys at a time. now, the new house has about 8 doors that need locks and that doesn't even count the inside doors, the cistern or the shed out back. while it's not a dangerous neighborhood, it's never good to tempt fate, so each gate has a huge padlock and the doors all have deadbolts.

 

and now you probably think this post is about my housekeys. but it's not. when we moved, we also invested in a car (i know, 'we're really moving up in the world). the car came with one key. who does that? and because we're procrastinators by nature, we didn't get a spare made.

 

you can imagine what comes next.

 

on our way to work one saturday afternoon, we go to grab the key from it's place. it's not there. we look all over.amalio leaves for work in a public car and i take a nap. we had looked everywhere and nothing. i yelled at the kids. samil cried about how a thief came and stole it from the house and how scary that was. amalio sent a friend to help. i sat on the couch. i don't know why but i checked in the toy room and sure enough, the key was stuck in a toy truck.

 

you'd probably think that we went and got a key made.

nope.

 

just one week later, i noticed the car outside as i walked up the hill from work. then i noticed that it was on. so, when i reached the house, i tried to open the door to turn the car off. ha! it was locked. amalio had run in the house and was planning to just run back out. unfortunately it was lunch time and the locksmith/car electrician wouldn't come until he had finished eating.

 

and still.

no key.

 

a few weeks ago i headed to the hardware store to pick up a few other things and by chance remembered to get a key made. i know! it should have been on my list.

it might be because i knew that this would be a huge long process. it took the kid about 15 minutes to even find the right key. after he messed up one, i left him alone to try again in peace.

he never got it. when i got back another guy was working the machine and this guy was nowhere in sight. luckily the key worked and hopefully we won't have any more problems!

balancing act.

on my kitchen table there is a pile of already graded midterms. in my bag, another stack of ungraded tests. i've got unit quizzes and writing assignments on the side burner waiting for a few minutes of my time.'i need to fit in time to visit someone elses class at the uni as part of our professional development, get my students to finish their evaluations.

and then there is a list eight miles long of things that need to get done at school - made even longer by the virus that ate the students' data sheets from the memory stick. plus the serious and not-so-happy side of being a principal that needs to happen on a few occasions this week. we need to visit the other school plants and have a leaders meeting.

it's a busy week. sometimes it's hard to figure out how to lay it all out so that everyone gets what they need in the end. the priorities change from week to week and in the end, what matters is not necessarily whether it gets done or not, but whether all the balls stay in the air.

sometimes it means putting a movie on and marking papers while everyone is quiet.

i want to be korean.

these past two weeks have been a lot of scurrying about trying to get our students information in order - we have a shot at joining part of our program to a much larger international organization and in order for it to happen, we need data. who are our kids, where they come from, why donors might be called to help pay for their education.

at the last minute (i'm a slacker) i had to bring all of the folders home and finish the data sheets for the kids i hadn't gotten around to. except, when we got home, we discovered that a horrible virus had deleted everything on the memory stick and left us some trash called "porn" and "sexy". nice.

it was a long saturday - and thanks to the help of jewel - it all got done, just in the nick of time.

sometimes, when the pressure is on like that, i lose the fact that these are children - not data. it becomes a rush to get things together and type things in and answer all the right questions, it's no longer about forming relationships and getting to know our kids so that we can answer the questions.

in the transfer from the computer i wasn't just left with lovely porn apps and erased files, i had lost most of the heights and weights we had taken and the "dreams" of our kids. so i got to do it again - and i'm so glad that i did.

in the three-year old room, the kids want to be lightning mcqueen and "trucks" and some of the girls want to be mommies. their dreams are the dreams of so many others - not really understanding what it means when you ask them what they want to be when they are "big." a little guy told me, "but i am big. i take care of my baby sister."

the four-year old room was similar - i want to be a car. i want to be a truck.

and then it got sad. a kindergardener told me she wanted to be a prostitute, mouthing the word with no sound and then changed her mind and told me, "no no, i'd rather be a teacher." one of the boys told me nothing. when i dug a little deeper he said he doesn't want to work, he'd rather stay at home all day long. he lives with a dad and an aunt and mom sends money from some foreign country to maintain them all - just barely not-in-poverty.

the little girl who wants to be a nurse that gives needles and the boy who want to work in a skateboard shop were overshadowed for a minute by those dreams. we want these children to know their potential - and while that might not mean becoming a doctor, it's not impossible. and if the girls want to be mommies, that is more than fine.

my favorite response was from one of my favorite students (i know we're not supposed to have favorites but....) he's been with us for two years now, and we've been able to see such an amazing transformation in not just him, but his family as well. where dad was only semi-present before, he is involved now in many processes of this boys life - from paying for school and doing homework in the evening. mom stops by to chat. and the interest they've re-taken in their son has made all of the difference. but, this sweet boy has an identity conflict - his mom is haitian and his dad is dominican, and he just doens't know where he fits into all of that. he explodes when the other kids call him haitian at one moment and defends his haitian roots at others. he tells me he can't get a birth certificate because no country wants him (it's really way more complicated than that, but that's what a child sees).

so, when i asked him what he wanted to be when he grows up, i had to suppress a laugh when he responded, "coreano." he wants to be korean. what? he says that it would be better for him - he'd know where he was from and that he could help kids like him, just like the koreans have helped him so much.

on the list of things we want to be when we grow up, that has to be the most profound. this child who doesn't know where he belongs, knows that he wants to help other kids who don't belong.

not data. children. with dreams.

looking toward the future.

 i had planned to begin another series of pre-natal classes in cienfuegos this morning. things got out of control this week, though, between a short-term mission group staying with us and some unnecessary pressure about my schedule from the university and i just wasn't able to make it around the neighborhood in search of the ladies.

it takes so much more than a poster on the wall or a mass email to past members. in order to really connect, it takes foot power - and honestly, at noon, when the sun is highest in the sky in the hottest month of the year, i'm not looking forward to walking streets with little shade. and beyond that, i hate having to face the poverty - to look at people in their eyes and keep walking.

 while i feel like our humble little school can change lives, i know that it is a long term plan and now, right now, people are still living surrounded by garbage, breathing in toxic fumes of burning plastic and tires. and it is ohsomuch easier to stay in our school, where i don't have to confront the truth of this place.

 i dread looking down into the valley filled with trash, to see children bathing in contaminated canal water, drinking from the water where others relieve themselves. to see men and women and children carrying packs in the hot sun, working harder than i ever will to provide for themselves and their families.

but. once i begin to walk, i remember how much i love to be here. men sit in a colmado playing dominoes, stop their game to shoot the breeze for a few minutes, giving directions to find women they think might be pregnant - sending me ways i've never been before to meet new people i might never have had the chance to come across. women offering to spread the word, god bless you! 

and in the midst of all this lack of material wealth, i find hope. friendliness. joy. 

 this guy, felix, wanted us to take a video of him running up the hill with his sack of plantains. we talked for a few minutes - he's 35 and has a 19 year old daughter. teenage parenthood is a generational epidemic. his smile met his eyes, and it wasn't just because he'd met a group of sexy gringas.

 i hate that i have students who suffer from chronic respiratory problems, who have rotten teeth from lack of clean water and toothpaste. i hate that i can't turn on computers and pull up educational games - because they don't exist and there are so many barriers. this is not an equal playing field. but then.

i see that it's not the end of the world. there's still love and community and hope. , we've got the whole future to look forward to.