03.10.05 - 1:54 p.m.

Wow. I was just reading Miss Brazil`s diary and it send me into a bit of a spiral. I was on the bus here in El Frijol this morning at 6am and it is just amazing. I really do love mornings. Here it`s cool (80`s and breezy) and so incredibly green. The birds are going nuts at that hour and the bus is quiet and moves along on decent roads. I was thinking about how I have such a crappy work ethic and how I really don`t want to work and how I`m probably going to grad school for that one very reason alone. And then when a few teachers got off the bus and I saw all the kids in their uniforms I started thinking �Could I really, really do this again?� Could I really go back to that public school in the Big City and be �on�for so many hours a day? Never having energy for much of a social life but really getting into a group of kids in a way you can`t imagine if you`ve never had a classroom? I got to the school of two of the interns and watched them teach random English information about colors, letters and �My name is�and was bored silly and had to provide constructive criticism (which was pretty easy because they are pretty good for first time teachers) and just felt kind of lost in the world.

Last night I was in my room (still waiting for a toilet seat, gas for the two burner stove thing and a refridgerator) reading a book (Really good crap read called The Life of Bees- Read it Ms. Brazil!) and the fan was blowing a little and it felt like home and summer and I thought �this is real, this is life�and going to random schools in random Frijolero villages wasn`t amounting to much in the end.

But then to hear about kids and death and gangs- it just makes me so fucking sad. So fucking desperate that I wouldn�t be able to deal again. I also really loved my last class, more than any class I had previously had and I wonder if I could get that kind of connection back again? That`s a fear too. Not to mention all the stupidness of Big City Public Schools. Forms and deadlines and folders and general ibeciles. I often think that if I had a partner I would be able to deal with the pressure of teaching full time in Big City again or living in some random place to go to a really good grad program, but as it is I just want to be on the road in constant travel, constant escape, constant newness.

Sigh. This entry isn`t much fun. Here`s a tidbit though- I think I mentioned in my last entry about some 30 year old bachelor guy who was goodlooking and had lived in the states for a while. The bachelor at 30 is completely unheard of in El Frijol. Anyway we found out that he used to �have girls�meaning he was a pimp. Niiiice. El Frijol is NOT the country to make boyfriends. Especially because the ones I`m meeting are all poor, butt poor. And there really aren`t that many men anyway. They`re all in New Jersey working illegally -and that`s no joke, there`s one village that had interns that had 10 out of the 15 dads gone in the U.S. for $- that`s a phenomenon that really interests me.... There are like these women filled villages and STILL the few men that are left or in and out make all the descisions and run the way things are. The women are still cooking and cleaning and just waiting around. Argh! That life would kill me. So I guess I would rather go back to Big City for that reason alone...

I have to pee. So that`s the end of this installment!
Bye.
Paleta (starts with P)

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