Sunday lull

I'm fairly confident that I'm the only person awake on the island of Kosrae right now. Apart from going to church, on Sundays the island stops. Life moves slowly here, anyway. The days meander along, sluggish in the heat. But on Sundays, this is taken to another level. Work is illegal, shops and storefronts are 'CLOSED.' No swimming,no running around. You can walk, but make sure you are walking slowly. You can only get in the water if you have a bar of soap. Soap in hand, you can swim in the river on the premise that you are bathing.

Riding my bike home one night down the road in the pitch black, I hear people shout "Liora!" out at me. Some from a house, another from a truck. I can't see who they are, but I call back. I am so used to operating anonymously, trying to minimize eye contact as I walk around the city. It's bizarre to be recognized; even more bizarre to me to recognize people and begin to feel connected to this place. Everyone is connected; they are related, they adopt one another's children, they work together, they go to church together.

I put my students through agony the other day. I made them revise an assignment. That's right- that written response with the check minus on top that you instantly crumpled up and threw into the trashcan? Yes, you go get that and work on it.

Still, my students have been wonderful so far. They really do want to be in school and do want to learn, and I'm grateful to them for being so patient with me as I try to sort out this whole teaching thing.

I thought that it would be more tempting to be a lax teacher than it is. I was worried that I would just let them chat, let them not pay attention, slow things down. Instead, I've had the feeling that as long as they are in my class I want to be sure that I am giving them all that I can and that they are taking as much in as they can.

On the first day of my 10th grade world history/social studies class, I asked all of my students to pretend that they had a chance to write a letter to someone in the ancient world. It was really just an introductory activity, so I told them to choose a few issues and details about Kosrae to explain to their hypothetical ancient reader (a.k.a. me). At least 10 specified a strong concern about erosion, while most of the others just said that the island is beautiful and shaped like a sleeping lady (Kosrae is nickname "island of the sleeping lady"). Other information that is crucial to know about the kids and life here is that they like to go cruising with their friends and that they do their chores after school. So, I'll end on that, because that is what my students want the world to know.