what i've learned

I'm halfway through my month of exams for my diploma. On Friday I took the exam that I was convinced I was going to fail...and I might have passed. It could go either way really; which is a significantly more positive position than I faced the test with. I have one more exam, an interview, have to finish two projects, give a presentation and 3 more teaching observations and I'm done.

I'm miserably sick from a combination of the pollution and a thing that's been going around, but I'm not feeling negative (unless you're speaking about my feelings towards my throat and nose and incessantly watering eyes).

I'm quite happy to be here in my beloved city, but I realise that it's probably never going to be "home" again. I will return, I will visit, but I don't think it is for me to live and plant my garden here; proverbial or otherwise.

I have another year in the Maldives before I'm free. I don't know where I will go next, but I'm quite certain it will be "exotic". The funny things about exotic places is that they are only exotic when you've never lived there. So far I've lived in Spain (mildly exotic in a romantic ideal); New Zealand (at the ends of the earth exotic); Cusco, Peru (in the Andes Mountains, near to the lost city of the Incas which wasn't found for 500 years or so); the Maldives (so small and exotic that only people with money have ever heard of it).


What have I learned? The places that are too homogenized with globalization don't interest me. Even those that retain their very unique flavor...if they're too modern, I get bored. I was born an explorer. Perhaps I was born too late: the world has been thoroughly explored, and even those living in the farthest corners of the world drink Coca Cola. I remember lunching on Taquile, an island in the highest navigable lake in the world (Titikaka, half in Peru and half in Bolivia), and climbing up one side of the island to get to the village I noticed there was a Coca Cola sign in the window of a mud hut.



In the jungles of Borneo while staying with the tribesmen, I noticed that during the course of my stay in the longhouse, two of the young men had a Coke, although it was a special thing because it cost money (I believe the young men were home on holidays from their jobs in the city). In the local islands in the Maldives, when I was given a Coke at someone's house, it was explained that she had Cokes to give us because she had just been married the week before. Alcohol is illegal in the Maldives and Cokes are quite a treat, especially because it is expensive (and costs money).

So, where will I go next? God knows. I have nearly a year before it's really going to come up.

I saw a very interesting job online as a Teacher Trainer in Guatemala for a non-profit organization which trains volunteers and has three local communities where they work with the leaders of the community to solve problems and promote literacy both in Spanish and English among other things.

As I saw this, I knew that that was the kind of place I wanted to go. I want to be somewhere which can still involve adventure; somewhere the people aren't shallow and fashion motivated. I don't want to remain in a Muslim society. Although Indonesia was lovely and very free in comparison to the repressed Maldives...I just prefer to live in a freer community. I'm not Muslim. I like speaking Spanish when I'm not working. I'd like to do something that I feel will be helpful for others. Of course, teaching English is always helpful because it's a new world and English is the international language of business and travel. For people to get decent jobs, it's increasingly a requirement.

As for me, I like to think of English as "the common tongue". Rather than a language that is "owned" by any one or indeed any five or more countries who speak it as their mother tongue, it will be the language that facilitates relations between people. I've loved the idea of Tolkien's world where everyone had their own distinct language,culture and history but they all spoke the common tongue. In my teaching of English, I like to think that at the very least, i'm opening channels of communication between the peoples of the world. I hope this can plant the seeds of understanding and co-operation.

But, where will I be next?

Above all, someplace interesting and far from the Madding crowd...and with internet. (Ok, so I've got one modern hangup...but it's friend and family motivated. Without it, I would disappear into jungles never to be seen or contacted again. Besides, how else would I write my web pages?) :-P