Week 92: A Compliment

Change takes time. I have been living in Moshana village for 19 months and working regularly with 14 teachers. Many of these teachers have come and gone, left to have babies, and returned, however there are a few that I have been working alongside since I arrived. After my initial push to get to know my co-workers and my new community, I identified people that I felt I could work well with and simply tried to keep up a polite relationship with the others. One teacher specifically appeared to only ever want to talk about my physical appearance and although I also think about my physical appearance, I wish I didn’t and consequently I have tried to keep my distance. I did not feel like this affected my performance since how I look on any given day did not appear to me to be of vital importance to the education of her students. However, in recent months, this teacher has started to bring her kids to the library regularly, where I teach reading comprehension to them for one hour a week. Even more exciting is that this teacher has started to stay for the lessons which gives me hope that she will continue to utilize the library after I am gone. I know she is there of her own volition as it has taken her over a year to decide that the library is a useful place for her kids. This week the teacher even complimented me on my teaching style and told me I am doing good work. Those few words took me months to earn and felt like the biggest victory. I wanted to sing and dance and say, “see I am more than this week’s pimple or yesterday’s cute outfit.” Which reminded me, I may be doing some good things in the classroom but I still need to work on not taking it personally or being vindictive.