Placed for Kara due to poor connectivity...

Per email:

So apparently my internet is too slow to use the blogger.com website, which means I cannot post onto my blog. Here's the entry I would have posted there for any who are interested.

 

Written Sept 24:

 

The weather is changing, and I can feel the mood turning lighter, as the sun burns away the morning clouds everyday. No longer does it stay gray and dreary 24 hours a day, and no longer can you count on a daily downpour. The sun comes out, and the air warms our skin again.

            My interactions with the community are also slowly changing. All over the school, even to those I do not teach, I have become very well known, as well as my unusual teaching style. This has been my first week going to each of my assigned classes (I have seven classes at the school, each with around 30 students, and will start two classes at the clinic soon, each with 10-15 students). It's been amusing, because when I walk into a classroom for the first time, students clap and giggle, and I hear them whispering to each other in Shan, “The foreign teacher!” It's kind of exciting to be so happily anticipated,

            In fact, my students' interactions with me have truly tickled me pink. Everywhere I go, students respectfully wai me (fold their hands and give a slight bow with their head), as they do every teacher in the school. Before each class, they stand together and welcome me, and after each class they stand together and thank me for teaching. We laugh and joke together in class, but there's an extraordinarily high value of teachers, giving me a place of honor in the eyes of the students. I shudder to imagine what these children (or their teachers) would think of their American peers.

            While my ego does not require this constant petting, I am realizing what a gift this value is to the students. Since they are not constantly battling their teachers, they are able to laugh with and enjoy their teachers. Since they generally trust their teachers to be trying to do the right thing for them, they follow instructions and are able to be trusted with greater responsibility. Since these students honor and respect their teachers, they want to learn what their teachers know and so receive a better education.

            For now, I am enjoying this strange new feeling of utter delight every time I get to see my students. I realize people can rightly label this the honeymoon phase and that, of course, teaching will remain a lot of work, but, right now, when I see my students, I can't help but smile. And when one shouts out at the end of the class, “Teacher, where are you from?” or whatever small little phrase from the past that they want me to know they've learned (regardless of whether or not they understand the answer), I laugh with enjoyment and answer their question with gusto. It's a good feeling.