dear my dears

so, nearly november, and I have so much to tell you and not an idea
how to do so. to begin, the setting, let's suppose.

October 29th, 12:12 pm, Fianarantsoa, Madagascar. I am sitting in the
PC house, which is currently a wreck due to "remodeling," waiting for
a car that is supposed to be coming down from Tana today. There are
rumors of packages and letters, and I will wait in this mess of a
sort-of-house until the umby come home to ascertain the validity of
the hesaidshesaid which makes up all the news-on-this-island. I've had
one letter from the states in the past month-and-a-week; eva, thank
you! ; and am really quiet desperate for the rest of them, as I KNOW
they exist. somewhere. (have I mentioned that I do feel over the
rainbow, at times? diametrically opposite of american life in all
ways, including the spatial.) however, my parents do call regularly,
so at least I know that america has not disappeared. yet.

I am in Fianarantsoa because it is the closest town with a bank, and I
ran out of money. Mada is a completely cash economy, so whenever I run
out I have to take a taxi-brousse into Fianar (Ally came to my site
yesterday; we woke up at 4 and were on the brousse by 4:30. I love
this country for knowing that day starts as soon as possible and ends
when it's dark) and spend two days away from site, trying to get
myself paid. And buying spices. because I really, really like them. I
miss spices more than chocolate or ice cream. I found cumin today, and
some cloves, and a few others, spent a ridic amt of money on them.
Totally worth it. You see, now that I am teaching about 350-400
students every week, I find myself in desperate need of a means of
relaxation, and cooking is the only one that comes easily to me. Why
not go running, rebekah? you ask. Well, because the boys watch me. I'm
easy to find, being blonde. And one of them has a blonde wig, which
they think is really, really funny. Oh, and did I mention that it was
hot? It is very hot. I do not want to go running anymore because I
sweat out my body weight every single class period, walk my legs sore
to and from class, and don't need any more encouragement towards
dehydration. Well, Rebekah, why don't you just listen to some music
and do some yoga? well, because my computer is broken, in fact it is
in America, and yoga is not something one as inflexible as me just
"does." tends to stress me out when I try it. And well, then, why not
just have a cigarette? Well, this is the clincher, my friends,

I Have Actually Quit.

Wait.

Let it soak in.

over three weeks, and not a puff has passed my lips. A moment of
silence, please, for the years of my mother's life consumed this past
week, when I cried over the phone to her for 1 and 1/2 hours after
walking out on my terminal class because they were so disrespectful,
and she verbally held my hand while I spewed up an entire set of
assumptions that I didn't know I had into the phone instead of just
smoking it off.

Thank you mommy.

and now, a moment for my parent's depleted savings account, having
paid for this phone call without a second thought.

So, the crisis.

I am the same age as some of my term students, but that does not make
it ok for them to call me barbie. We have now split the class in two,
and I'm going back in next week--but perhaps a more orderly version of
the weekly events is warranted.

Ok. So.

I teach 2 sections of 6eme. These kids are 10-15 and have never had
English before. They are wonderful. I leave each class so encouraged,
I don't understand it--they really, really want to learn. And
everything is a game. You should see them sing the "wheels on the bus"
song (rewritten to exhibit present continuous). They try so hard, and
I all I can say is that I wish that I could go back and teach the
first classes over again. My learning curve is vertical--and so much
of me wants to apologize to these kids that they have me completely
unpracticed. They deserve better.

There are also 2 sections of 2nd, A and B. They're about 10th grade,
not old enough to really be terrible yet. I teach them a total of 6
hours/week though, which is not enough. Then 1ere, and Term. The 1ere
class was really terrible at first. But, then they realized that I
simply was not going to talk unless they were quiet. I have no desire
to scream over 70 kids. Now when they get out of line I just stop
talking, and I refuse to start again until they shut up. Seems to be
working, cause the kids who want to learn make the others pay
attention. The Term. class has been a disaster. I'm over the maximum
hours contracted by the PC by 6 because there is no other English
teacher, which is fine. I mean, when the Term kid showed up at my door
and was like, please teach us, I couldn't say no. But then, when I got
there, they absolutely would not pay attention. To be fair, I thought
there were 7 of them (that's how many there had been the previous
week). But there were 88. To further explain my reaction, I, for a
various of unmentioned reasons, namely worms, was gastronomically
disturbed in a very bad way. I don't think that they (the kids) will
have trouble paying attention next week. (The worms, I think, are
dead. Let's hope.) I have explained to them that I will not be called
barbie, or beautiful, in class. I told them that I have a very tall
American boyfriend who doesn't like it (at times, this has been true,
so I'm not exactly lying), and that I may be young but I know English,
and if they want to learn it they will have to forget about the
teacher and concentrate on the subject. I really wish that I had been
able to figure out a way to still have taught the class, but, there is
next week.

Now, a typical classroom.

The kids have no books. No dictionaries. I'm not going to try say any
of this well. I'm on my friends computer, and have so much to say that
I can't really worry, for now, about saying it in the best manner.
Just, here is a typical class:

Three kids to a bench. Not very much of the ceiling is still a
ceiling. I come in, put a review exercise on the board so that they're
busy while I copy the vocab up, and the lesson--everything that I want
them to know has to be put on the blackboard. There is no way, at the
moment (but I'm working on this) to give them even print-outs of
vocab. You should see how they treasure the few hand outs they
have--everyone shares them, wrinkled and taped. Then we start, doing
the review exercise together. Everyone wants to come to the
blackboard. (which is very, very hard to see.) Kids literally climb
over each other. Sometimes they don't have any idea what the answer
is, and then everyone starts in--oh, he's not smart, teacher, I know
the answer, teacher, pick me. Gradually the kid turns to me, nothing
but sheepish, and says, heh, yeah i'm not smart. and sits down.
Unembarrassed. He's just not smart at English, it's not his fault.

How do I motivate a class that does not operate off of a competitive
system? I have lived in America for so long.

Malagasy has no word for "to be," by the way. Just to start things off easily.

Each class is an entire life. So many of you on this list are either
teachers or students--to those of you whom have been on the other end
of my learning, thank you. I am slowly learning what bad teacher karma
I must have, and begging the gods to be kind in returning unto me what
I have dished out unto you. I love love love teaching, every class I
love it more. But it is hard. and I'm not very good at it yet.

Whew. Other news? Um.

I'm healthy. Well, I mean, when I showed my thumb to Ally (the
closest volunteer to me, and a truly godsend of a site partner. I
don't know what I would do without her) she was like, "yeah, that's
probably a fungus, but I think it'll be ok til December. Do you wanna
go hike up a mountian?" I read Moby Dick, and immediately started
reading it again. I cannot believe I went so long without reading that
book. Cooking is my favorite time of day. Living alone in a village in
Madagascar is wonderful, but it would be much less so if my mother did
not call me once a week. I think of all of you so often. Oh! I nearly
forgot. I made you a list the other day. Here:

Thinks I don't like missing:

Philadelphia
Pillows
Schedules
Libraries
Used bookstores
hugs
being rude to strangers
cooking with Matt and River
Oatmeal
Fall
PennSound
wine with Valeria
things that smell good
Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Recorded music

Things I love:
teaching
my 11 year old student who is smarter than me
cooking and living alone
wearing lambas
saying hello to everyone
market day
being more financially secure than ever before on 4 dollars / day
the palm tree in front of my house
the mango tree in front of my house
being quiet, all the time.
reading, reading, reading, reading
not smoking
not having any mirrors
fruits without English names
owning just enough clothes for four teaching outfits and teaching five
days a week
losing all traces of my hypochondria
my watch
malagasy fashion. lol.
street food
not dealing with the impostor complex anymore
journaling and not worrying about how that fact "seems" to other people
teny malagasy
waking up as early as i want (normally before 5. . . yesssssss.)
sleeping as soon as my work is done (normally before 10. . yessssss)
getting mail
sending mail
writing every thing by hand. recording grades onto graph paper and
praying it stays intact. no such thing as a hard copy. (this i hate
too)

Things I just really don't like:

watching the rainforest disappear
Malagasy men (terrible)
being hungry all the time
peace corps bureaucracy
not teaching well
being called fat by all the Malagasy women
being stared at
not having any mirrors
being asked for english lessons by every single person in my village
not having a dictionary


This is quite the leviathan of the email. I think I'm done with it;
I'll leave you two alone together. Please do write me--I am becoming
quite good friends with my postman, who is always saying. . "efa lasa!
tsy misy taratasy Rebek, azafady, efa lasa! mantany ny Proviseur
anao!" But I keep asking. Send me lists of good words. I miss you all
dearly.

all my love,

Rebekah

PS I have four tomato plants. And I am staying here for 3 years.