My New Office

One of the hardest things about being a Peace Corps Volunteer is struggling with the feeling that you are not accomplishing anything by being here. An English Teacher Trainer- my official role- should “help teachers improve their command of English and the methodologies they use in their classrooms”. While that sounds like a noble cause (and it truly is) myself and Volunteers like me will rarely see tangible results of our effort. If you build a well and help provide better drinking water, you can stand back and look at that well in triumph. In teaching, there are very few opportunities to actually see the betterment you have created. (I always love making grammatical mistakes while writing about the process of improving the English language. But this is English not Latin, so I will split infinitives as I damn well please!)

Recently, well months ago actually but things move slow here, I was given an office. By this I mean, they were proud to have a computer room (complete with 3 computers that do not work) and told me I could use it as an office if I wanted to. That clearly shows they do not know me well enough because as far I am concerned, this room is mine now. I have spent a lot of time and effort fixing it up and creating an environment where proper learning can take place. And at the end BOOM, something tangible that I can reflect on and feel pride in!

Here is when I first walked into the room. Spiders probably outnumbered me 100-1. The first steps were: using an entire can of bug spray, washing the walls and mopping the floors. The entire time, school staff seemed impressed that a delicate “forenji” like me could properly clean! 

Once it was clean and I felt safe from spiders the size of my fist, I was able to start rearranging and putting things up on the walls. As someone who has never taught at a primary school, I stole many of the ideas from fellow volunteers. But there is something satisfying about the fact that if someone walked into the room, they would be under the incorrect assumption that I know what I am doing! 

 

 

Finally, the last note worthy thing about my fine new office is what I found while cleaning out old cupboards. I preface this with- this cupboard had not been opened for years, maybe decades.  The reign of corporal punishment has, for the most part, long since ended. But still, I could not help but gasp when I saw an old relic of that time. This is by far the most terrifying switch I have ever seen (as if I have a ton of experience with switches or something). It has a wooden handle about a foot long and then 18 inches of pure leather cut like a whip. This could, and I am sure did, do serious damage.

When things seem unnecessarily difficult and I just want to yell at the ridiculousness of some aspects of this place, this will be a nice reminder of how far they have come.