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SPRING STREET INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL |
Related pagesSpring Street International School Excerpt 9 - Calcutta and Mother Theresa’s Home |
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Spring Street International School "Dispatches" from the fieldSpring Street International School Travelers Kai Wilson, Chelsea DeCouteau, Alex Freeman, Sonja Anderson, Ingrid Carlson, Evan Anderson, Zack Milkis, Gabe Colburn and Grant Schwinge Experiential Education journals and tales from afar... Excerpt Four – Remote Village of Mo Ti Ta – Northern Thailand The people all around are making us wonder - is this some sort of joke? The yellow powder smeared on their grinning faces? Some have finger lines on streaks, others in circles, others totally smeared in for a ghostly look...and yes, it’s a for-real tradition - a natural sunscreen. Aside from the hot pink or deep red sarongs worn by everybody over 30 or so, the people are dressed in cast-offs from the western world in various degrees of filth and rags. Everyone’s face that isn't smeared with the yellow powder is dirty, lots of kids have runny noses and everybody over thirty who smiles at you shows a mouth full of rotten teeth from all the beetle nut they chew. We sat on the cement floor of the school and ate lunch spooned from huge kettles by a wrinkled man in a hot pink sarong I have walked through other hill tribe villages, but never had the opportunity to look inside the houses and now we not only peeked in, we are sleeping and eating with various families. I have to say I am SO PROUD of these students. They seem to be rolling right along with the punches like its no big deal... Karen homes are built of wood and raised on stilts so the pigs and chickens have shelter below. The rice pounding tools are below. When you walk along the only color you see is the clothing hanging over the railings. Everything else is varying tones of brown dirt or wood. Clean really isn't high in their reality. Once inside, no real surprise, its just empty space. Not one stick of furniture, only a fire pit with a hanging pot, a bucket for dish washing and a dirty wood plank floor. That's it. Joanna Leff and Rebecca Mason and I were together in our house with three kids and mom and dad and not one word of language we could understand. On the wooden floor is a stack of blankets. The girls set work, cheerfully making us a bed for three. At night it was around forty degrees, our breath turned to mist. Cold hard nights, not to mention noisy! After all the human sounds of the village settled down, there were the animals with loud conversations of their own and then like clockwork 4:30 every morning starts the pounding of rice. They have these long wooden levers to step on and at the far end is a wooden bucket of rice still in husks. Step-step-step, pound-pound-pound and the little rice kernels are broken open. When everybody is doing it, it sounds like a wooden machine of sorts, and it goes on for hours. That’s only the first step. They then sift it for hours in those shallow round woven trays. Men and women share all work. Everybody is skinny and strong! The next afternoon, Alice Haefele, Rebecca and I were taking a nap stretched out on the floor when Becca said, "I can’t believe we are here. Can’t even fully take it in!" And it was amazing in the moment to realize we were actually living alongside very primitive people. This is the most remote place I have ever been. In a few years with Western contact no doubt they will become greedy like the rest of the world, but these people didn’t know enough to know we have things they might want. They have really nice woven shoulder bags, but nothing for sale. The only store in the village is a 4 by 4 foot locked closet with 5 bars of soap and some shampoo, matches, lighters, and a few plastic trinkets. They just smile and make gestures like eat and eat some more. Oh My! Eating was a struggle for me. Alice and Joanna were GREAT, politely smiling and finishing off whole bowls full while whispering "I wonder what in this..." We knew their primary protein comes from rat and dog, which appears as flecks of meat in the broth. But what was most difficult for me was seeing crabs the size of a quarter and then, on closer inspection, a centipede and a fat white meal worm in my bowl. Liza Michaelson Dispatches from the Field – Mexico
Excerpt 5 - February 14, 2007 Sonja Anderson is going to continue assisting in the English classes at the school. If we had more time we would start our own English classes, but with such few evenings left and Carnival coming it won't work out for this year. Since she spends so much time at the school, she has become something of a local celebrity. Everywhere we go there are kids who recognize Sonja from school. Ingrid Carlson is wearing a huipil (traditional Mayan dress) standing head and shoulders above her Mayan coworkers. They love her at the restaurant. Last time we were there, her coworker told me, animatedly pantomiming her story, about the day before when Ingrid made her first tortilla by hand. Not only is she learning a lot, she gets to try all of the dishes on the menu too--yum! Alex Freeman, a perfectionist, sometimes worries that she doesn't get enough work done during her time in the restaurant. But just yesterday Wilma, the owner, told Adam and me what a great worker she is and remarked how she keeps herself busy the entire time. Sweeping even when the floor is clean! She says that Alex is learning a lot and that her Spanish is getting better every day. Zach Milkis is working in the library now. We just saw him there this morning. The library here in Izamal is not as popular as the library in Friday Harbor. Nonetheless, he helps out with the computers and practices Spanish with his coworkers. He comes to Spanish class with lots of questions--so we know that he is getting lots of conversations in at work. Chelsea DeCouteau is working at a cafe. She has quickly made friends with her coworker, and the two help each other out when there are no customers by exchanging English and Spanish vocabulary. Her SSIS classmates stop by frequently to visit Chelsea and have a slice of cheesecake--the only place in town that offers such a familiar treat. Gabe Colburn is doing a great job taking photos with the local newspaperman. He is lucky because he gets to see a lot of the surrounding area (small villages around Izamal) and learn about local issues. We are keeping copies of all of his published photos. He ended up staying with Evan Anderson for the homestay. We searched for a solo location, but we were not able to find one close enough to the center of town. Their family is welcoming, easy-going, and loves having the two boys with them. Plus, strange but true, they have their own ancient Mayan pyramid in their backyard! Grant Schwinge and Evan say that the work they do checking people into the hospital is hard. Hard because they are really busy for the entire time and they have to interact with the public constantly. Plus they report that the newly computerized system is very confusing. Since it is the free hospital they see a lot of the poor population--some only speaking Mayan (they have a coworker that is helping them out with the Mayan language). We went to Merida last night to watch the Baile Folklorico (traditional dances). It was fun to see the big city, and Adam and I restocked our peanut butter supply since the kids often stop in during the afternoons for a pb and j sandwich. Carnival will be celebrated from Thursday to Tuesday. We don't know exactly what to expect since neither of us has been in Mexico in February before. We think there will be a circus, based on a truck that was traversing town towing a trailer with two goats and a monkey loudly announcing, via huge speakers, their forthcoming arrival. We will see. That's it for now! Angie and Adam Erickson (SSIS Faculty)and the SSIS Adventurers Excerpt Six - Varanasi – India Feels strange to be here in this sacred place with thousands of Pilgrims arriving by the hour for the three days of celebrating while all we seem to be thinking about is buying bangles and silk. We are physically here, but we have brought so much of our culture with us, that in some ways we aren’t really here. I have to say though, that I am really proud of our students. They have done a good job of "wandering like cows" as Ted Hope puts the assignment. He says if there are 25 of us there should be 25 different stories at the end of the day, and indeed we all had TONS to talk about. We are taking it in, but I am not at all sure that we come anywhere near to "getting" this unique and powerful place. Nikki and Corwin Waldron spent lots of time all alone wandering and meeting people. Justin Blevins and Jacob Dubail shared their knowledge of the best shops with everybody. Jonathan Balise bought a guitar. Justin went to a classical music concert and videotaped it. Ted arranged a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges for us all. Jacob, Justin, Cameron, Bethany and Alice Haefele all had clothes tailored for them. None of us need any silk, but when a scarf is two dollars, it’s hard to pass up, and everybody is happy with their purchases. The most interesting of all for us was the opportunity to meet and talk with the real sadhus, holy men. Some of them are phonies: anybody can dress in orange and grow out their hair, but this week is like a convention and they have come from many distant places to gather here for the first time in six years, so there aren’t many fakers here at this time. Today we were lucky enough to have a special invitation with one of the most highly respected Gurus present in Varanasi. He was hidden away up a hundred stone steps up the ghats and into a tall old house with many floors and rooms; which we later learned is an ashram, a place where a whole bunch of Sadhus live. We were taught how to introduce ourselves including bowing and touching his feet, then sitting near, but not touching his mat. He was dressed in a big wrap and had long greying hair and deep brown eyes and three white stripes across his forehead and one red dot in the middle. (This is how most of them looked, the only way we could know he was special was the introduction by Cynthia Gould who lives here, a friend of Petra Borhani’s mother). Unfortunately, we didn’t have much time and were eyeing our watches and sneaking peeks at one another as we had to be back at the hotel in time to catch our train to Agra. We will all be touring the Taj Mahal tomorrow. Fantastic! We will LOVE it. Now firecrackers or something are going off outside amidst much shouting in the street, and the guy next to us is inviting us to the free all night concert, "Its very special, you will like the celebration" but we are not comfortable running around after dark, so will turn in now. It’s late. Liza Michaelson |
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