Amy’s Thoughts

Every Friday afternoon, my students write a letter to a specific student in our class.  As far as my students are concerned, this special child of the week is chosen based on behavior and academic success.  Little do they know that every child on my list will eventually be chosen.

In any case, every Monday morning, before school begins, I collect these letters and staple them into a book for the child.  While arranging these letters, I often find myself amused by the things my students feel are especially important to share with their classmates.  Usually they are utterly random comments (”I like baseball.”) or questions (”Do you like macaroni and cheese?”)  Occasionally however, they are nothing short of unique.

This morning was a prime example.  I happened to notice one letter had not been signed.  As this letter was written in extremely precise handwriting that meandered down the page in an increasingly narrow triangle, it was not difficult to ascertain the author.   Shaking my head, I set it aside to remind the student to sign the letter, realizing I would have to wait until this had happened before stapling the pages together.  It was at this moment, as I was setting aside the letter, that a word upon this unsigned page caught my eye.  It was the word “squize.”

What on earth was a squize?  So of course I had to read what followed.  What followed was “your balls”.  Squize your balls?  This could not be good.

My eyes immediately jumped backward to the beginning of the sentence where I read:  “Be nice to me or I will squize your balls.”  Further down the page, the author continued to write “If you are nice to me, I will not squize your balls.”  I am sensing a theme here.

Did I happen to mention these were second graders?

Of course, at that point, I had to read the entire letter, which began with an eloquent statement of the recipient’s cuteness (”so cute, so cute”) and then a denial of being liked by that person (”I no you don like me, but I like you, so I don kare”) followed by the infamous “squizing”.

All I can say is THANK GOD I caught this BEFORE stapling the letter into a book and sending it home with my student to share with his parents and siblings and heaven knows who else.

God save me.  Is it Christmas break yet?

It is inevitable I suppose that when teaching the young ones, unwashed hands that recently touched a toilet seat, boogers and snot wiped upon every available surface, and an often seemingly endless supply of vomit become familiar trademarks of the profession.

Even so, gross.

Today was Friday.  Friday should always be a happy day, one filled with joy for the coming weekend.  Instead, it was exhausting from start to finish, as frankly, many Fridays are for teachers and their students.

What made today particularly difficult however, was the vomit spewed in giant bucketsfull upon my floor.  I swear to god that a child of that size simply should not have been able to contain the sheer amount of vileness that spewed forth.

And I also happen to think this particular child’s digestive system is on the blink, because in the hour’s time that passed between his consumption of our school lunch meat surprise, and its regurgitation upon my classroom carpet, not one single chunk of hot dog had been digested in the slightest amount.   I feel sick just envisioning it.

The worst part was that I was too busy trying to comfort my poor distraught student to realize I should instead be diving for the trash can and shoving it in front of his face.   Give me a few more years with the spewage and I’m sure I’ll get it right.

In any case, this happened around 2:00 this afternoon, and sadly our custodian was off campus at the time.  Being that our school has a 4:00 dismissal time, the rest of my class and I had to suffer through the smell of regurgitated school lunch meat surprise for a full hour and a half.  We were able to crowd into the classroom next door to my own, thus giving us a little relief, but given that Jill (the neighboring teacher) and I share a accordian wall, the smell was not far enough away to save us.

Thank god it’s Friday.  I can only hope if the rest of my class is also contaminated, they will get the puking all out of their system over their weekend and come to school on Monday all chipper and ready to learn.  Yes, I know it’s not kind to wish that upon their parents, but hey, at the very least, the parents probably feed their kids something a bit more appetizing than dead road kill, so maybe there’s a chance the vomit won’t be quite so… memorable.

Teaching is always fraught with disturbing images, endless fears and boundless hope.  You cannot teach without some sense of eternal faith that humanity is worth something, that we are each of us capable of infinite greatness, that we will accomplish much more than we ever dreamed possible.  You cannot teach, at least not effectively, without this true and utterly sincere belief that the children you teach will change the world in infinitely positive ways.  You simply hope that the future will bear out this truth in all its simplicity.

Which is why the bug was so very disturbing.  A tiny image, seared upon my brain forever.  I do not know how it came to end its life in our hallways, but I do know that its passing had such grave importance I shudder even now to remember.

To help you see this image, I must place you within my school setting.  I teach inside a three-floor elementary school building, with open doorways, a product of the open concept classroom of the 70s and 80s.  My classroom is on the second floor, and immediately across the hall from my doorway are two restrooms.  When my class takes a restroom break, we line up along the wall between the doors to the girls’ and the boys’ restrooms, girls on one side, boys on the other.  As the students exit the restroom, they line up on the opposite wall, right outside my classroom’s doorway.  These restrooms are used by three second grade classes and three kindergarten classes, each class made up of some 22-25 students.  Therefore, on any given morning, a full 150 tiny bodies may line up along those walls, waiting for their opportunity to pee.

I suppose if you are a member of the 5-7 age set, the moments spent waiting while 22 of your classmates attend to their bodily functions can be extremely boring.  It is hardly any wonder, therefore, that these children seek ways of entertaining themselves.  They know of course that talking and running and generally acting like its recess time can result in the swift fall of that consequence anvil teachers love to spout about.  Therefore, I suppose other opportunities must be sought, opportunities that are less obvious and as such, undoubtedly of greater value intrinsically.  After all, who can resist the danger of sneaking some revelry in right under a watchful teacher’s evil eye?

Despite knowing this, I will never forget the moment a child squealed “Ms. Culey!” and held out a tiny staple.  Staples in this hallway are a dime a dozen.  The hallway is lined with bulletin boards which we are required to keep filled with student work.  Sadly, bulletin boards do not belong on the walls of a hallway that is frequently also lined with 5-7 year old bodies, bouncing up and down, waiting for their moment in the restroom.  During any given restroom break, I will generally be offered anywhere from 1 to 6 items that have fallen from a bulletin board due to excessive movement on the part of my students.  And of course, as these items fall, so too fall the staples with which they were pinned to the bulletin board.

What made this staple so unusual was the tiny bug speared upon one of its spikes, looking much like some form of terrible scientific experiment, as if at any moment, the bug might begin to squirm in its death throws while its fascinated audience watched in glee.

I would like to believe that this staple simply fell to the floor at exactly the right velocity and angle, allowing it to spear this tiny bug in a moment of terrible timing and circumstance.  Sadly, the staple was found on the opposite side of the hallway from where the bulletin boards were.  In addition, the bug was so small that the spike of the staple had managed to move completely through its body, so that the bug appeared a permanent feature of the staple — or perhaps more accurately, the staple appeared a permanent feature of the bug’s body, with one side protruding from its belly, the other side from its back.

Perhaps the bug was already dead when a fascinated child decided to spear it so deliberately?  But even if this were true, would that make this any better?  Whether it represents a complete disregard for the sanctity of life or simply that of death, how can this not be a sign of a very disturbed mind?  Which child was it?  A child in my room or in someone else’s?  Is this child’s darkness even known?  Will he or she receive the care so desperately needed?  Will someone heed this child’s cry?  Or has that cry already been silenced by an uncaring system that ignores the plight of its children?

Where is the hope in this profession now?

I have been back in the United States for a while.  In the beginning and for a long time, I believed I didn’t really have much to say about my week in Buenos Aires.  While it was interesting and fun, it paled in comparison to the other weeks in Argentina.

However, having spent the past month working on the curriculum project required by the Fulbright grant (this is the price you have to pay when given a free trip to Latin America — they actually expect you to do some work when you come home!), I have discovered that I do, in fact, have a few things to say about my experiences in Buenos Aires.

Of course, there were the usual experiences that I’m sure everyone who has ever been to Buenos Aires has had — there was the small tango bar where we went to observe “real” people dancing tango; there was the youth hostel with barely functional plumbing and a really disturbing architectural design that made you certain at any moment you would be falling through the floor (or that someone else would be falling through the ceiling and landing on your head); there was the trip to the local soccer stadium; there was the Buquebus (ferry) ride across the Rio de la Plata (a river that was so wide it more resembled the ocean) to Colonia, Uruguay; there was snow our final day in Buenos Aires, snow for the first time in Buenos Aires since 1908, how did we get so lucky? and of course, there was shopping, shopping, shopping.

Frankly, Buenos Aires seemed to me to be like many other big cities of the world — noisy, corrupted by McDonald’s, extremely busy and easy to get lost in.  I much preferred Salta, Jujuy, Tucuman and Villa Maria.  Somehow the real culture of a place never seems to be found in the largest of its cities, but rather in its smallest towns and in the homes of its people (and it’s always easier to gain access to these homes when away from the big cities).

My one lingering impression from Buenos Aires however, remains the image of the peaceful march of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo one quiet Thursday afternoon.  I suppose there are many who are unaware of the history of the dirty wars waged throughout Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s.  I do not really want to go into a full history lesson here, particularly because it would become so easy for me to derail into a discussion of our own country’s culpability in these wars.

I will try to restrain myself.

In Argentina’s case, in 1976 a military coup d’etat was waged and won.  What followed was a military dictatorship that maintained its power through torture and murder.  From 1976 to 1983, the military dictatorship waged a “dirty war” against all known and suspected dissidents and subversives.  During this time, thousands of innocent people were disappeared in the middle of the night.  They were taken to detention centers where they were tortured and eventually killed.  Reported casualties range from 10,000 to 30,000.

Many of those disappeared had young children.  Others were pregnant.  These children were disappeared as well, in most cases adopted into the homes of the very people who tortured and murdered their parents.

On April 30, 1977, fourteen women gathered for the first time at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, in front of the Casa Rosada, or presidential palace.  They marched in protest, demanding their children’s freedom.  This was the first march of what would later become the organization of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo.  These fourteen women became its founding members.  Of these fourteen women, three were eventually disappeared themselves.

The Madres de la Plaza de Mayo continue to march every Thursday afternoon.  They wear white scarves on their heads, as a symbol of the white dove of peace.  They march in complete silence.

I suppose the facts speak for themselves.  I have never seen anything so eloquent or heartbreaking as these elderly women marching in complete silence, demanding justice for their lost children, los desaparacidos.

I am humbled by their suffering, their dedication, their unswerving love.

4 July 2007

10:15 p.m.

Happy 4^th of July!

I spent the morning of the fourth of July traveling by plane from Salta to Buenos Aires, but that’s really the beginning of week four. Week three we spent traveling in some very rural areas of northern Argentina.

We left Villa Maria on Tuesday, June 26th and traveled overnight from the Córdoba province to the Tucuman province. We spent Wednesday traveling through Tucuman. We visited the Quilmes ruins, climbing the most amazing cliff to look out across miles of mountains and the ruins of an ancient civilization.

Thursday was an even more amazing day. We began the day in Cafayete at a local winery, where we taste tested a variety of wines, an experience I am certain others would have found much more enjoyable. Personally, I was more interested in the cat that kept wrapping itself around my legs than the wine everyone else thought was wonderfully light and smooth (whatever the hell that means). I’m sure this does not surprise those of you reading to know that I was more interested in the animals than in the wine. I am assured however, by the wine connoisseurs of our group that this was a most amazing experience (personally, I would have been happier with a giant vat of salsa and a book!)

After happily tasting as many wines as possible, we then proceeded to tour the countryside where we waded through streams and climbed a variety of mountains (all quite drunkenly I am sure). First, we stopped by a riverbed, where we had the amazing idea to remove our shoes and socks and wade through the ice cold water, just to see what the experience would be like. I suppose it wasn’t any different than any other time you would wade through a river in wintertime, but somehow to us, it was amazingly creative and fun. Like all spontaneously stupid ideas, we neglected to consider the consequences of having muddy feet upon exiting the river. As a result, we spent a good ten minutes attempting to remove mud from between our toes and attempting to dry our feet without getting our socks dirty. This was an exercise in futility. Ultimately, we boarded the bus, much muddier yet somehow extremely content. Those who were party-poopers and chose not to participate have no idea how much fun they missed.

After our wading experience, we traveled through the Quebrada de Cafayate. This was a very large canyon system with multi-colored mountains and ridges to climb. First, we visited “El Obelisco” or the obelisk. This was exactly what it sounds like: a giant obelisk that of course we had to climb. It was steep and ended at a point. We climbed and settled ourselves at various points along the way, creating one of those perfect Kodak moments.

After sliding down the obelisk of death, we ventured further into the Quebrada and visited “El Anfiteatro” a point at which the mountains loomed so close together, they created a natural cavern. The result was an amphitheatre with natural-occurring acoustics. We had the opportunity to sit and listen to some local musicians perform a spontaneous concert at the center of this cavern. The sound was incredible.

Finally, we ventured to the “garganta del diablo” or devil’s throat. This was the first time I almost died in Argentina. (For those of you who are unaware, the first time I almost died in Latin America occurred four years ago in Brazil, while river rafting. This was mild in comparison, but the fact remains: I ALMOST DIED.)

Due to the fact that I refuse to allow my lack of athletic ability and coordination to dictate the activities I will participate in, I decided that I would attempt to climb devil’s throat just like all those other crazy people, who actually had athletic ability and coordination. This was a mistake. Everyone knew it, but this did not deter me.

With reckless abandon, I attacked the 75 degree angled slope headed upwards. Amy and up should never be used in the same sentence, especially when rocks are involved, nevertheless, I forged ahead without regard for my own personal safety. I also failed to consider the nerves of steel required by my companions while witnesses to my impending rock-climbing disaster.

I should insert here that this is in fact Latin America, which meant of course that the rock-climbing we were participating in did not involve any form of safety nets or harnesses or special equipment. Rather, the only equipment necessary was a hard head and an unlimited supply of stupidity.

And so I climbed. I will have you know that I did not fall on this climb. Nor did I get stuck. However, I did make use of Sammy getting stuck to delay my eventual climb downwards. Yes, our fearless leader climbed even higher than the dumbest of us would go and promptly got stuck. In his words, “it was a lot easier getting up here.” Thirty minutes later, he had finally climbed down to the point the rest of us had climbed up.

Unbeknownst to me, at the bottom of Devil’s Throat, the majority of the party waited, not worried about Sammy, who had been stuck for thirty minutes, but rather, obsessing about the fact that I had not yet fallen to my death. They waited, with bated breath, cameras perched, searching in vain for that first glimpse of my graceless arrival at the bottom of Devil’s Throat.

Once Sammy was down, this of course meant that the attention was now fully focused upon me and I was of course now required to venture downward. And so, I flung myself forward and slid on my ass straight down that mountain, like the ass-sliding pro I was.

The second time I nearly died in Argentina occurred on the following Monday. The days between my Devil’s Throat experience and the Death Slide experience were relatively uneventful. We attended various outdoor markets, took a couple tours of local towns in Salta and of course took endless pictures of the gorgeous mountain scenery surrounding us everywhere we went. Then, on Monday, we had what I can only refer to as hell day. We arrived in the small town of Iruya on Sunday night. We had traveled lightly, leaving the majority of our luggage in the town of Salta, as Iruya was a mountain town and we were required to walk from the outskirts of town to our hotel where it perched at the very top of the town. This was a straight walk upwards and was not exactly enjoyable, but it was worth it. The hotel was gorgeous and the view from our rooms was absolutely stunning. Monday morning, we got up early and set out for the small town of San Isidro, another small mountain town, set high in the mountains. The only way to arrive at this town was to walk, which is exactly what we did.

We began the walk at the base of the town of Iruya next to a small park. We waited there for the entire group to arrive, and while waiting, became quite enchanted by a slide which appeared to be straight out of a cartoon. It stretched high into the sky, seeming to rival the tallest of mountains, and was a straight shot down. The slide ended with a slight tilt up, set for launching some unsuspecting victim into the atmosphere. Miriam, one of our fearless leaders, decided to climb this slide, but not being the venturous sort, she slid down the slide at approximately 1.2 miles per hour, clinging to the sides and slowly pedaling her way downwards. I of course had to show her the correct way to utilize this marvelous invention.

And so, I climbed the 4000 steps into the sky (okay, it was more like 40, but it seemed terribly high) and after perching at the top of the slide for that perfect Kodak moment, launched myself downwards. I was quite surprised at the speed with which I hurtled downward. I felt like I was in a wind tunnel, I moved so quickly. The ground hurtled toward me at alarming speed, necessitating a shriek of girlish fear.

The best part was my landing. I am told it was worthy of record books. The way it happened was that I landed on my feet. It was absolutely unbelievable that I would land on my feet when moving so quickly, but land on my feet I did. I am told that I literally shot from a sitting position to a standing position and that my entire upper body ricocheted slightly backward from the force of my landing, but that gravity then pulled me forward. For one split second in time, my entire lower body was still, while my upper body swayed backward then forward. Sadly, gravity was a powerful force that jerked my body forward and down, so that approximately 3 seconds after landing on my feet, I landed on my knees with a horrendous thud.

I did end up with a scraped up knee for the adventure, but also with a series of Amy photos that are worthy of awards. I am particularly fond of the shot of me on my knees laughing hysterically.

The third and final time that I nearly died in Argentina was on the hike from hell. As I mentioned, we were staying in the small mountain town of Iruya and were planning to hike to the “nearby” town of San Isidro to visit an elementary school there.

Two and a half hours later we finally arrived in San Isidro. Those hours can only be described as non-stop torture. Two and a half hours hiking up the mountain, following the rocky riverbed of death… whose great idea was this? We crossed the same river at least twelve times (NOT an exaggeration), rock-hopping across the rapids, which of course filled me with memories of flying down a Brazilian waterfall for my very own special rapids experience. Luckily on this trip, my only close encounter with the rapids involved a misplaced foot that landed in two feet of rushing (and freezing cold) water.

The trip up the mountain was nothing less than torture, a test of our endurance, and it was only sheer stubbornness which kept me pressing forward, especially when the group had a tendency to spread out a bit too much, leaving a couple of us alone at key points of the walk. Good hiking rules were not being followed!

Eventually we arrived within sight of the town. This meant that if we looked up, we could see the town sitting at the edge of a cliff, just waiting for us to climb the final 500 feet straight up.

I of course was more inclined to climb into the back of the ambulance sitting in the middle of the path and take a nap. You might be wondering (as I was) what on earth an ambulance was doing on the side of a mountain. Well, if you looked up in the opposite direction of the town, you could see men standing on the edge of the mountain, swinging picks at the mountain because they were building a road. Presumably the ambulance was there so that if one of these road-builders were to fall off the side of the mountain, first aid would be available on scene immediately.

Despite the pressing need to avail myself of first aid, particularly in the form of an oxygen mask, I pressed onward. We walked uphill quite a ways before arriving at “stairs” leading upwards. These stairs were more like a jagged ramp etched out of the edge of the mountain, headed straight upwards, with the steep drop of death at your right, and the side of the mountain stretching upward to the left. And so we inched along the very edge of the mountainside, bracing one hand against the side of the mountain in the hopes that this tactile connection would prevent an unfortunate stumble across the threshold of death.

Finally, finally, we arrived at the town, visited the school, interacted with kids and promptly took a nap on their playground. This sounds as if we did not enjoy our visit in San Isidro. We did, we were simply so exhausted from our climb, we needed a small power nap to recover.

I suppose I should mention that I left San Isidro and Iruya feeling quite amazed at the fortitude of the inhabitants of those towns and the neighboring mountains. Some of the children we met take walks similar to our hike up the mountain every single day in order to attend the school we visited (they of course make these walks in a fraction of the time it took us). Some children literally climb up and down the mountain several times a day, just to receive an education, or to tend crops or for some other mountain business. These people are strong and endure living conditions the likes of which I cannot even imagine. Many of the houses we saw were no more than four feet tall, with three walls and a tarp stretched across the roof for protection from the elements.

After walking two and a half hours to arrive at this school, witnessing these people’s simple lives, then making the return journey (in more like three and a half hours), I am quite simply struck at how fortunate a life I lead and yet, how these people do not even seem to worry that their lives are not what mine are. They are happy, they are living a life upheld by centuries of tradition and they are certainly more entwined and connected to their roots than I will ever be. And yet along my walk, I was disturbed to note the occasional evidence of corruption from the outside world: the two-liter sprite bottle abandoned on a mountain trail (after filling my backpack with several of these, I had to give up the battle and remain content that I had done my small part to clean their mountains) and the woman with a child on her back who was willing to allow us to take a picture of her and her child for a small propina (tip) to name only a few.

Of all of my experiences during this trip, my visit to San Isidro was undoubtedly the most profound and enlightening of them all, the unending climb over rocky terrain included.

And now I am in Buenos Aires, ready to witness the other end of the spectrum of the lives of the Argentines. But that’s a story for another day.