New Story: The School

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  Asuncion, Paraguay
Sunday, September 24, 2006

So, the other day I go to my home school in Yataity to work on setting up the library with the ninth grade class. The principal told me the previous week how jealous they are that I'm spending all of my time at the surrounding schools. To which my unspoken response is "hmm. Last semester only one teacher was available to work with me, was obviously annoyed by my presence, and did no work to support the project. Now, there was a meeting last week where all of the teachers at the other schools were talking about what great work we're doing and you are embarrassed. Hee hee hee." My out loud response was "Oh, great, what projects can we work on together?" So, here I come, ready to work on the library (a project inspired by all of the lovely books I received from you all in the States, not by any community iniciative) and listen to all of their great new project ideas.

During recess, all the teachers float over. One of the teachers brings the "Acta" an official book used to record meeting notes. Very official. The principal, Mimi, begins to tell me about how I have been neglecting them and I am their volunteer and they really want me to spend more time here in Yataity. I say, great, what project would you like to set up? She says, Simon works with us so well here at the school. And you know, the work you have been doing in San Ramon, teaching English, is illegal because you arranged it with the school and not the higher authorities. I say, well, at this point I feel responsible to the students and I can't abandon them when we've only got a month of school left. But I would like to spend more time here, working with you all on this new project you're ready to present to me today. So, what is it?

She says, it's against the law and the teacher who is in the book has to be responsible for the class. At this point I cut her off and say, So, Professor Felix, you wanted to work on a little project to fix some old books, right? He says, yes, we were going to work on it on Fridays. I say, yeah, that's great. Who else has some project ideas? Mimi says I hear that you are teaching kids to read and working with older kids in the other schools. We want you to do that here, too. This is technically true, but within the context of a different project which is definitely my job definition. I'm not supposed to just take over teaching for the regular grade school teachers and I don't have training for teaching 4th-6th grades and 7th-9th grades are so different here, I don't feel real comfortable with that either.

Despite this, I say, well we might be able to do that, what specifically do you have in mind? She says, we want you to work here two or three days a week. I ask, Doing what? She says, how many days are you working in the other schools? I say, well, two days in San Miguel and one day in San Ramon and I started working there because your teachers kept putting me off when I asked when we could next work on our project, putting me off for an entire month more than once in fact, so I had to find something to do with my time. She says (making sense for the first time), we must have miscommunicated. We misunderstood you and you misunderstood us. Thus concluded the meeting and the teacher who had been taking copious notes in the "Acta" read it out loud.

It had everything that Mimi had said and nothing that I had said. So it reads something like this "Principal Mimi informs the Volunteer Jessica Garcia that she is neglecting her work at her home school. Her work in San Ramon is illegal. Simon Garcia is a much better volunteer." Everyone starts signing the "Acta." I was so mad I could have spit. I decided to sign anyway, that no one ever looks at these things anyway, and two teachers have told me during the meeting that they will propose new projects to me, and that is all I really care about. So I sign it.

Half an hour later I am still mad enough you could have used my cheeks for an example of the color "rojo." I decided to sneak into the office and revise the "Acta." I wrote in in tiny letters at least some of my comments between the lines, emphasizing that I can't do projects by myself, some initiative has to come from them.

So, the next week I come to school with lesson plans on using library books in the classroom for all ten classes. I'm all ready to work with the kids on how to check out and take care of library books so that they can really go to town on the reading contest we started the week before.

When I get to school, not only have zero teachers given their classes opportunities to use the library and read for the contest, not only has no one given me anything vaguely resembling a project proposal, there is actually no class at all that day because it is Youth Day. Never mind last month everyone partied for Kid's Day, now we all have to take off to party for Youth Day. And all my lesson plans go down the drain, and no one bothered to tell me. Not at the Very Important Meeting last week, telling me what an inadequate volunteer I am. Not even the day before by my next door neighbor, Principal Mimi. Sometimes I am amazed that this is my life. I need an instant replay button. Did that really happen?

Well, at least we got a new garden fence. Wasn't it Voltaire who said "just cultivate your garden?"

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