Nancy’s Big Adventure

Today the kids are on a trip to the seashore and most of the foreign teachers have opted to take a day off.  It is too hot here to do much of anything mid-day (currently 107 F / 42 C  and sunny) so I am seeking relief in a coffee house, finishing my lessons plans for the week, planning my itinerary for the weeks following camp, and consuming massive quantities of java.

Earlier today I decided to walk around the city.  And (of course) got dreadfully lost.  I knew I had wandered into an area where the “whities” rarely roam when I got the fully-extended-arm point (as opposed to the stare and finger point) and children were running away from me, screaming in terror.  I managed to get back to the center of town and familiar territory after some further directional trial and error, none the worse off than when I began.

Oh, while I think of it, I should describe the reaction to the presence of the foreign teachers.  There are 12 of us (11 Americans) and 9 of us are white.  When we travel as a group, we stop traffic and cause traffic accidents – we generally try to avoid that.  If we walk in pairs or small groups, the reaction from adults is the stare (as previously described), the single-finger point and an occasional wave “hello”.  Children either wave and laugh, or hide their faces and cry.  One extreme or the other.   However, if I am walking alone, children are more likely to come up to me and touch my skin or pull my hair.  We do have the occasional “stalker” as well – usually a young person who will hover near just to listen to us talk. Totally harmless  – you just get use to it.

Later in the day –

The kids have returned – it seems the day trip to the “seashore” was more of a day trip to the mud flats.  Most of the boys are covered, head to toe, in dried mud and sand.  Oh, and several children were throwing up incessantly (motion sickness) during the 2-hour bus trip.  Gee, I am really sorry I missed it ….

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 6:04 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.