A New Teaching Adventure, Stateside

Oh hey there! Long time no see!

As you probably know, I've been accepted into JVC since my last post, "graduated" from Seattle U, and am now teaching at Paschal Sherman Indian School on the Colville Indian Reservation just outside of Omak, WA. I am teaching 5th and 6th graders in a 7th grade level reading class every day and grades K, 1, 2, 5, 7, and 9 in a Catechism/Reflections class throughout the week. I've been here about a month and am settling pretty well. Sorry, it's taken so long to post but it's been a long month. So far, I have merely been affirmed in my desire to work in the field of Indigenous/PostColonial education in some way. That's not to say that it hasn't been hard, it's been rough. The kids often come from rough backgrounds (like Belize), and know that the classes I'm teaching are mostly bullshit (kind of like Belize) and that I am mostly full of shit (right on the money). But, I feel like I'm starting to get to know the school and the kids and the cultural divides are not nearly as wide. I think it's going to be a great year. And I have a lot more confidence in myself teaching after the last PostColonial excursion, so I feel like I can at least fake my way through it.

Ironically, the slightness of the cultural divides has been fascinating, especially in watching my room mates. It's funny because I've mostly been in my element (though homesick for Seattle a bit), while they're in a whole different universe.

Julia and Jean

Jeana is from New Jersey and Julia is from New York. I'm pretty sure that Julia is convinced that all of Washington is like scrub-brush Omak. The town of Omak itself is pretty "Cowboys and Indians", with half the town being on the Reservation and half off. The first day we arrived was the weekend of the World Famous Omak Stampede and Suicide Race. And thus I experienced my first rodeo. I could go on for years about the rodeo, but in a word all I'll say is that it was fascinating. Stuff like this happens there:

Also, did I mention that Paschal Sherman is four years old and state-of-the-art? Yeah, it got built with 40 years worth of BIA money. There are SmartBoards (the most amazing invention since the spork). There is a dormitory. There is a beautiful chandelier of steel salmon hanging in the atrium. There is an atrium. There is funding from national grants. There are class sizes of no larger than 25. There is an amazing atmosphere of conviviality and professionalism between the staff. It is probably the best run school I've ever worked at. Did I also mention that it is freaking gorgeous:

?

So, in terms of atmosphere, Paschal Sherman looks to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from Claver School. There have been and will be challenges, but there will also be amazing moments to relish in the thrill of learning. Yeah Learning!

Oh, and I'm assistant coaching football. Ha!

Boodbye, PG

It's been a busy week trying to write lesson plans, finish my grade log, figure out some kinks in my JVC app, and try to get observed by a strangely busy Mr. Nolberto. So I haven't really had time to feel a goodbye to the place that's been my home for the last two and a half months. Nevertheless, my last lesson is in an hour and tomorrow I'm off for my Guatemalan adventure with Sean.





So, instead of some final thoughts (I'll probably write that once I get back home), i'll leave you for now with a story: One of my students walked up to me yesterday and asked if I would be back in September. I said I didn't know. She looked angry and then just told me that when I came back I would have to teach first Form at Toledo Community College (the high school) so that I can teach them again.

Nostalgia Time!

As I get ready to leave PG, here is a list I actually started on the last week of January when I was homesick and have been tweaking ever since:

Things I Miss about Seattle:
1. Josh Lee (read: old friends, seriously I miss you people like crazy)
2. High speed internet (read: youtube)
3. Microbrews!!!! (I would kill for a Black Butte Porter)
4. Hot showers
5. Tofu (read: Pho)
6. Scarves (read: Sunny and cold weather [Carrie Pillers knows!])
7. The Stranger
8. Not being thought of as a “rich American”
9. Not having ankles covered in bug bites
10. Not wondering if the bug bite I just got is malarious and thinking ‘I guess I’ll just have to find out in two weeks!’
11. Not finding gecko crap everywhere (thanks, Oscar)
12. Coffee that is not instant
13. Paseo & Honeyhole sandwiches
14. Recycling
15. Organic things and fresh vegetables (a salad that isn’t merely just an eighth of a head of iceburg lettuce would be nice)

Things I’ll Miss about Belize:
1. Not being overwhelmed by the pace of anything
2. Looking out at the hills on the horizon and seriously wondering where Belize ends and Guatemala begins
3. Seeing white people I don’t know and wondering what the hell they are doing
4. The unadulterated taste of ginger
5. Drums. Everywhere.
6. Not having to care about recycling (I’m a terrible person!)
7. My nails being orange for a couple days after eating caldo (last night it was armadillo)
8. Fried plantains (holy damn, I can’t stop eating them!)
9. Power outages (I’m actually being serious, they just seem to add a little unexpected excitement to the day)
10. Seeing the European Union flag somewhat disconcertingly often
11. Every other house in the neighborhood anxiously awaiting the weekend to blare music loud enough for the entire block to hear (country, reggaeton, Akon, Cindy Lauper, and of course Punta Rock).
12. Watermelon juice
13. Alright, my students

Election time, again

So in November we all witnessed history. I’m not just talking about the fact that an awesome black guy was elected President of the USofA. What I mean is that for the first time in our lifetime, my generation actually felt that we had a stake in the election, that we could make a difference, and that our voices actually mattered for once. For the first time in our lifetime, young people were politically active in droves and played a vital roll in the election of the guy we wanted rather than just staying at home and then complaining for four years. Awesome. However, after two years of folks giving out empty promises like they were free pencils on Red Ribbon Week, November couldn’t have come sooner. The campaigning went about a month too long, and by the end I think we were all a little bit burnt out. I was glad for election time to be over. Boy was I wrong.

On March 4th, Belize had nationwide municipal elections and the politicians have been out for the past month with more of the same promises. Just like the Congressional elections back home, the municipal elections are important in their own right but are much more useful as a national political barometer. The two major parties since independence 25 years ago are the PUP (People’s United Party) and the UDP (United Democratic Party). The PUP was the first political party in Belize and though it played an immensely important part in the struggle for independence, it likes to tell people that it was the sole force behind the independence movement. The head of the party at the time, and the first Prime Minister was George Price, the Father of the Nation. I guess he was kind of like our George Washington. Was he the single most important person in the independence era? Yes. Would Belize still be a colony today without him? Who knows. Anyway, the PUP doesn’t let people forget it’s place in Belizean history. The two party system here isn’t really broken along the traditional lines of leftist or rightist. Both parties claim to be for the poor and there is no discernable party platform. The UDP actually only seems to be there as an alternative option for people to tell the PUP that they feel like a change.

That change came last year in the General Election when Dean Barrow was elected Prime Minister after ten years of PUP power and, more important, blatant corruption. Former PM, Said Musa, and his top advisor are now under house arrest pending corruption charges that they funneled $10 million of aid into Belize Bank funds. What Dean Barrow inherited was crumbling infrastructure, millions in debt (not easy for a country like Belize to pay off), and a ton of hopes that he could set Belize on the right path and untarnish its image abroad. Now, a year in, the UDP got to find out what people thought of how they were handling the situation.

The political atmosphere is strikingly similar to that of the US. The PUP is playing the part of the Republicans, the broken former power that has no discernable leadership but is trying to be as opportunistic as possible by pointing out all of the things that the administration isn’t doing yet or is doing wrong. The so-called “old guard” of Musa and Price was actually suing the new party head, Johnny Briceño, for financial control of the party’s assets. My favorite PUP add was complaining how much food prices have gone up in the last year and blaming it on Barrow, despite the hike in food prices worldwide (has anyone seen how much Hannity is blaming Obama for the dive in stock prices? Talk about opportunists!) and how little work has been done in infrastructure. Dean is playing the part of Obama simply saying, “look what was handed to us and look what we’ve already done so far.”

Plus all the pageantry, oh the pageantry. The PUP came out with a brand new, sharp logo with the same appeal for simple symbol as the Obama “O”. They also hired a couple Punta Rock artists to record songs that were nowhere near as subtle as will.i.am. “The UDP has got to go. Dey doin nothing for the country man.” Seriously. PG has had a PUP mayor for six years but has been wrestling with a UDP town council for a year or two now. That means that nothing has really gotten done around town and the few things that have been done have had folks on each side taking credit. But for the last month there have been countless rallies and debates blaming each other and praising themselves, making promises, and arguing over such nonsensical things as the merits of a Tilapia farm in the area (in order to criticize the other’s plan for a farm, one candidate claimed that Tilapia would eat the other fish in the area). Basically, they’ve all been making different versions of the same promises “less crime, more jobs, rebuild the sports complex” and then criticizing each other for each other’s versions.

No one really knew how the elections were going to go, though we had our guesses. Most people here are staunchly for their party and wouldn’t leave if they were held at gunpoint. The PUP organizers were almost rabid in their attempt to regain prominence for their party. The mayor was going from house to house giving out drums in an attempt to buy people’s votes. The UDP displayed cautious optimism. A new party, the People’s National Party, came out of PG this year with a young mayoral candidate and a following of disenchanted PUP devotees. One guy was running as an independent who ran last year and got 35 votes nationwide. We had a mock election at Claver School last week, which would be a good indicator since we figured most kids would vote like their parents. UDP won handily, but the PNP got a surprising turnout, which speaks to its resonance with younger people and hopes for the future.

So, March 4th came and went and at about midnight the UDP caravan was going around town honking in victory. The PUP got romped. PG got a UDP mayor and town council. Throughout Belize, not a single PUP mayor was elected and only three PUP town councilors were elected IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY. If that isn’t a mandate I don’t know what is. The election was actually close in PG, but the PUP lost just enough votes at the hands of the PNP to get pooched. In Belmopan, the PUP came in third to another third party, the VIP (Voice in the Interest of the People). So I guess the people haven’t forgotten the corruption and cronyism of the last decade quite as easily as we all thought they would. That’s a good sign for good governance and a terrible sign for the PUP.

Ugh! California!

Let me tell you about something that has been a thorn in my craw for the last couple of weeks. In each of the classrooms, there is a bookshelf of neglected, irrelevant textbooks and half complete sets of encyclopedias that have either been donated by Belizean book companies or well-meaning folks from the States. How do I know the books are neglected? Well, first off, we never use them. More graphically, though, I got one of the encyclopedias out one day to try to find Korea in a map to show my class and was surprised to find a very prosperous ant colony had decided to make up camp within the cover. Within seconds, there were ants everywhere, quite perturbed that someone had had the gall to tear the roof off their home. Good luck trying to refinance now. How do I know that some of the books are from the States (and here’s the part where I get to my point)? One of the books on the shelf was my old 4^th grade California social studies textbook, “Oh, California” (and here’s the part where I tell you how I really feel)! What the hell?! Why would anyone ANYONE think that it was a good idea to send a California history textbook down to Punta Gorda, Belize? When would a Belizean fourteen year old ever have to or want to know about the history of missions and railroads in 19^th century California? I try to justify it in my head by thinking that maybe it could teach the kids about similar struggles of colonialism, but the colonial experience was completely different in both places. Belize never had missions, California was rarely neglected by whoever controlled it, and Belize never had an industrial revolution or at least not to the extent of California. I still wonder how this book got here. If it was just jumbled amongst an old pile of books put together by some fourth grade class hoping for Karma points, whether some poor dupe actually thought it would be useful in some way, or whether someone just wanted to get rid of it and thought that donating it to Belize was just as good if not better than recycling it or throwing it away. I think this brings me back to my original point (remember back in December?) that good intentions don’t count for much. Someone must have felt really good about donating a textbook to an “impoverished” (I’m willing to bet that’s the word they used) community in Central America, but that selfsame book is doing little more than providing a cozy home for ants and termites. Yeah, we need books here, but we need relevant books that can help the kids to read AND to understand their place in the world as Belizeans, not to find out the role of the Chinese in building the railroads.

Speaking of cultural competency (are we speaking of cultural competency?), an interesting project I saw recently from the STD VI science teacher was to make a poster with the food pyramid on it. You would think that basic nutrition is something that is fairly universal considering we all need the same vitamins and nutrients to keep ticking, but what came back later that week was a lot like this:

The most important staples are at the top of the pyramid, rather than the least necessary sugars. That is beyond the obvious fact that the different categories are completely different. Do you see whole grains anywhere on there? Obviously availability and access to certain types of food is a huge issue here.

Two twos

This is what a birthday looks like in Belize

The National Tour

So this past week, me and 55 students from Standard VI went on the annual National Tour to get some experiential learning based around the Social Studies section of the PSE. We left on the bus at a little after two in the morning and six hours later we were in Belize City for a whirlwind tour that would take us up the country, across the country, back across, and then down again.

The Met Service
Our first stop on the tour after breakfast in Belmopan was at the Meteorological Service, where we got to see their old equipment and new radar that they haven’t learned how to use yet. This was funny because our joke here is that the weathermen on TV seem to be telling you today’s weather as if it is tomorrow’s and hoping no one will notice. It was fun to see there stuff, though, even though the kids were already exhausted from staying up on the bus all night.

Oren checkin out the crafts at the HOC

House of Culture
Our next stop was at the House of Culture, which was cool because it used to be the Governor’s Mansion while Belize was still a colony. Now, it’s somewhat of a museum and art gallery displaying different kinds of art from around the country. The kids were far more excited about the two giant cruise ships that were parked out beyond the reef on the sea. I don’t blame them, though. Mostly it was old gubernatorial furniture and china.

The Museum of Belize
The Museum of Belize was our next stop and may have been one of the highlights of the whole trip. The Museum used to be Her Majesty’s Prison (talk about a name that asserts colonial power) all the way until 1993 when it was converted to house some amazing collections of Mayan art and jade, old relics from 19th century Belize City, stamps, and a collection of old woodcutting supplies. They had done a masterful job of remodeling the historic building and had even kept one of the old cells to show just crappy it was to be a prisoner at HMP. Another fun thing was that I had just gone over a story about Marcus Garvey with my students and they were able to recall it when they saw a picture of him on a trip he had taken to Belize. Yay for retention!

Old Belize
Finally, we went to Old Belize for a much appreciated lunch and rest. Old Belize is a fantastically strange tourist attraction built for people coming straight off of the cruise ships to “get a taste of Belizean history”. It is home to a beach with a zipline and a waterslide, a bar and restaurant, and life-sized replicas of a rainforest, a Mayan house, old nineteenth century industrial supplies and a recreation of a street in nineteenth century Belize City. The crown jewel in this collection is an actual old locomotive used to carry logs to Belize City. It was a fun way to get the students to see history as not just some artifacts behind a glass. The kids loved the restaurant, which is one of the only restaurants in the whole county big enough to house a group of 60. The other tourists there looked a little offput by the sudden influx of locals, which I found hilarious. The kids were weirded out by the historical recreations of their ancestor’s homes. At the “Garifuna exhibit” of a wooden shack with a dirt floor one of the students said “that’s not what my house looks like!” and one of the others replied “no it’s what they USED to look like!”

And Then,,.
By the end of the day we were all exhausted and took the bus halfway across the country to stay at the Belizean FIFA headquarters in Belmopan. It was an unimpressively small building with an unimpressive football stadium behind it. Actually, for Belize it wasn’t that unimpressive considering that football largely takes a backseat to basketball here. After we showered we took the bus across the rest of the country to have dinner at Hode’s (ho-dees) in San Ignacio, another one of the only restaurants to hold 60. Hode’s however, also had a video arcade and ice cream: pleasant treats after a hard day’s work. So we got back and the girls went upstairs to sleep in beds while we slept on cots on loan from the national disaster relief organization. I crashed hard and Mr. Nolberto was left to manage the 20 boys as their sugar rushes died into sugar comas