Settling in

Did you know that lizards chirp?

I had no idea until this week, when I was at first convinced that there were mice living in my ceiling, and I was wondering, How on Earth do they get into and out of my ceiling?! Then I thought it was birds, but birds do not leave tons of little pellet-like turds in my bed and on my mosquito net and next to my door and in various other corners of the house. (Their poop tends to SPLAT! a bit more. That would be worse.)

Which is how I discovered that the squeaking/chirping racket that blares from my ceiling is actually lizards. And yes, they poop on my bed while I sleep (and during the day, too). And chirp a lot. What's even worse is that sometimes the bugs get so bad that I wish there were more lizards, because lizards eat bugs. Those are not such good nights.

But things are getting easier. I never expected that the first few weeks would be easy, and I really am so, so thrilled to have gotten to site (that scare where I thought I'd be sent home really put things in perspective!). I don't have anywhere to put my stuff-- while there are a couple of very welcome padded chairs in my house, so that for once I actually hang out in the living room and not in my bed all the time, there is not so much as a single drawer or shelf. So I just have to live out of my suitcases, for the time being. I think furniture, so that I can finally unpack, will have to be my Christmas present for my parents. (And man, was I excited when my mom reminded me that I have that coming. I'd thought that I would have to just live out of suitcases in a mostly-empty house for two years!)

They can send me the money easily, because there is a Western Union a mere 10-minute walk from my house. Yes, really. I don't have any running water and I use a pit latrine that is outside of my house, but there is a Western Union right next to my house. And internet on my phone. Africa is weird sometimes, y'all.

I won't start teaching until sometime in January, so right now all I really have to do is settle in and try not to make too bad an impression. It's been a bit of a rocky start, but I'm determined to be a great, dedicated teacher. Once I get more used to Tanzanian social customs and expectations, I'll do my best to start making friends and fitting in. The other math teacher at my school is a woman just one year older than me, so I'm hoping that a friendship will come of that.

One disheartening thing about getting here, though, is that I've realized how crappy my Swahili really is. I can form sentences sort of decently, as long as I go super slowly, and read and write OK, but I can't catch like a single thing other people say to me. And for some reason, even when I do understand, people think I didn't and translate into English. (This mostly applies to the other teachers at my school, of course.)

Anyway... this has been my first week. Does anyone know how to chase lizards out of one's ceiling?

So Yeah

I was supposed to be sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer this past Wednesday, and go to my site (and finally see where I'll be living and working for the next 2 years) this past Thursday.

Instead, I am sitting here in the city, in... a very nice hotel, actually. You can tell from the way I have wireless internet, see.

I actually feel pretty bad about that bit as well. I mean, the hotel is nice, but that makes me feel even worse, because Peace Corps could be spending its money in such better ways, but instead they're stuck spending it on me. They don't normally put Peace Corps people here, but (a) I couldn't handle stairs so I needed a hotel that had rooms on the bottom floor, and (b) I had to be near to the physical therapist and to headquarters.

So you might have caught on that I've been injured.

Well, I don't know if "injured" is the right word. I don't have any idea what I did that caused the back pain, but man, was it awful. I couldn't really walk for a lot of the week-- I could for short periods of time with shuffling steps, but I never knew when my back would just rebel and I'd be standing there, unable to take an other step.

Last Monday was really horrible, actually. That's when it started. So then I was lying in the infirmary, all alone, terrified because I couldn't walk and convinced that Peace Corps would send me back to the US. Then some of the staff came and said it was time to go home (to my Tanzanian family I mean). They had me sit up on the bed (which was, at that time, VERY painful), picked up my purse and then put it down on the other side of the room, and told me that they'd be back in five minutes. Then, they didn't come back. Not even to tell me that it'd be another couple of hours, or even to tell me I could lie down again.

I ended up having to sort of fall out of the bed and crawl across the room to go to the bathroom, and then crawl to where they put my purse (which had my phone in it) in order to, still sprawled on the floor, call people to figure out what was going on.

It was truly miserable.

Eventually, after a couple hours, I made some calls and finally got people to come and help me home.

On the other hand, the staff driver who drove me to the city (3 hours away; everyone was going, not just me, but I was in a separate car) was *wonderful*. He heard me squeak in pain once when he went over bumps, and after that, without my having to say anything, he went super slowly whenever there were bumps of any kind-- even though sometimes some of the other cars honked at him. I was so grateful-- that car ride could have been torturous, but instead it wasn't bad.

So now I'm in physical therapy. I really started feeling better Friday, and now I can pretty much do most regular activities with, well, there's still a little bit of pain, but it's manageable. The only things I can't really do now are leaning over and lifting heavy things.

They're moving me out of the nice hotel today (it was supposed to be tomorrow, but I really don't want Peace Corps to spend the money here when there are SUCH better places it could go), and will move to one with stairs and without room service. I'm REALLY hoping that I'll be able to go to my site sometime this coming week, though. So keep your fingers crossed for me!

Life as a Peace Corps Trainee

Habari za leo?

Well, considering that training is almost over now, I figure I should tell you a little bit of what Peace Corps Training was like.

I live in a home with my Tanzanian family. I've got a Bibi (grandmother) and a host brother and-- sorta-sister, sorta-aunt? She's two years younger than me, but she's my Bibi's daughter. (She also has the same name as my American aunt: Joyce. Weird, huh?)

Anyway, my Bibi is pretty awesome. A couple of weeks ago she won an election, and now she's the Women's Rights council member for our ward. She's basically fluent in English, so we have to try pretty hard to only speak Swahili (Trainees aren't supposed to speak any English at all in home stay). She used to be a primary school teacher, but she's retired and now has a little duka (shop) in front of my house where she sells all sorts of useful little odds and ends.

As I think I've mentioned, our house has electricity (though it's out at least a few nights a week). We've only had running water once. My host family used the opportunity to stock up on water, but the only way it affected me was that the shower started dripping during my bucket bath. I tried to turn the knob (didn't care if I was turning it on or off, I just didn't want it dripping on me). But the knob came off in my hand and water started spraying at me horizontally from the spot where the knob used to be. So, overall, I was pretty content when I found out last week that the house where I'll be living for the next two years will have electricity, but won't have indoor plumbing. But more on that soon.

We had class all day, Monday-Thursday and Saturday, at our CBT (Community-Based Training). It's a secondary school, so for the last three weeks we also taught our subject there; but mostly, it was lots and lots of Swahili training. Then on Fridays, all the trainees meet up for training in Tanzanian culture, safety/security, teaching techniques, health issues, and so on. Then on Sunday we get a "day off," which generally involves doing chores.

My school was a 30-40 minute walk from my house, so most days I biked to school, exchanging greetings with locals as I passed.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, we recently found out where we're headed to for the next two years. I'm not allowed to say publicly where I'm going-- though there's a very interested, largely undocumented UNESCO site I'd like to, well, document photographically, so I don't know how that will work in regards to this secret-location thing. Eh, there'll be plenty of time to figure that out.

What I think I can tell you is that I'm in an actual town, so I'll be right by an internet cafe. Thus I'll be able to update a lot; probably more than I have been now, as training is hella busy and you have to go downtown to get to internet. I've been so exhausted from every day and my brain is rebelling from too much Swahili jammed in there. (I get internet on my phone so you can email me, but I'm not good at typing on a normal phone pad yet, so I rarely respond, lol.)

So now, we've all gone to stay with a current volunteer. This way we get a taste of how Volunteers live, what it's like, etc. Right now we're in a fairly big city; we're going to the village today, and staying there for a few days. I'll try to let you know how that goes in my next post!

Until next time!

Kwa Heri!

TZ

Well, I've been in Peace Corps for a month now, and Tanzania almost that long. I'm only just starting to get a feel for the culture, but that's okay, I have a long time I can learn. :)

My homestay house is much snazzier than I'd expected. I didn't think I'd have electricity, but in fact not only do they have electricity, but also a television, and satellite TV. (No, it doesn't get American channels. But STILL.) There's no running water, but I think that's just because it's the dry season.

I've been learning lots of Swahili, and this week I started teaching math at my CBT (Community-Based Training) school.

I'm sure there's tons of interesting things I could mention-- I'll have to start jotting down the funny/bizarre things that happen so that next time I'm at the internet cafe, I'll have a list right there to jog my memory.

Oh, you should know: I have internet on my phone! I know, wild, right? I didn't have that in Korea or America. It's very cheap here, and by the information sent through, not by minutes or whatever. So if you email me, I'll receive it! I can answer too, but generally short answers, as I have to type them into a regular keypad-- I don't have a super fancy phone, the cheapest kind that can get internet actually.

Also, since Tanzania is south of the equator (barely), I arrived right at the beginning of spring, and it's steadily getting hotter. Man! I can't wait for the rainy season to start, because it's very dry now, and I've just been parched all the time.

Well, this was probably not as informative and interesting a blog entry as I could've written, but I figured I should put up something. I promise to try to be wittier next time and to write down the anecdotes I want to remember!

One week to go

Well, one week from now, I will have registered at Peace Corps Staging. (Registration is 1:30 PM, Monday, September 21st.) I'll be at the hotel with all the other new Trainees.

It'll feel a little silly, almost, since Staging will take place in the city I've been staying for the past two weeks, in the city where my parents live, in the city in whose suburbs I was raised. The hotel we'll be in is right down the street from where my dad works. We were even considering grabbing dinner downtown that evening-- Orientation is 3-7 according to my Reporting Instructions, and it doesn't mention any activities after 7 pm. But ultimately, we decided not to meet up-- once I've registered at Staging, I should stay there, get to know the other PCVs who will be with me in Tanzania, and so on. It makes sense, but I'll feel a little guilty that I've already said goodbye when my parents are actually still in the same city.

One week.

Considering my circumstances (you all remember, or if you don't you can check my recent archives, how my passport was stolen in Shanghai, I had to go through all this red tape to be allowed to leave China, then I had all this stuff to wrap up in Korea, and only have 3 weeks in America total before I leave again?), I haven't procrastinated that much. I've been going around, buying stuff I'll need, packing stuff, getting things together. Learning Swahili on the Rosetta Stone they sent me. There's a lot to do this week, to finish everything up, but I don't feel particularly behind or anything.

I'm meeting with a Brownie Girl Scout troop tomorrow. Trying to come up with cool cultural exchange things for them to do. Hopefully the leaders will have some good ideas in mind, being in possession of the Badge Book and all of that. Still, I'm having trouble coming up with coherent things to say to them. Peace Corps is just so unpredictable that I have no idea what sort of projects might end up making sense to do with the girls, so it's hard to plan in advance. Well, maybe that's what I should say to the leaders.

One week. Wow.

So yeah. Packing. Studying Swahili (still 4 and a half hours from the required time amount). Picking up some last minute things. Waiting for my solar panel to come in the mail. Still need to get my hair cut.

Trying to figure out whether I should just bring my Durabook with me to Peace Corps, buy a netbook and bring BOTH, or buy a netbook and only bring the netbook. There are lots of pros and cons and all that. I know I can only bring things to Tanzania that I accept may be stolen. The Durabook is more expensive, but I've already had it for a year, so it has a lot of my files on it-- files I may want in Tanzania, especially of the media variety. It takes up more power, though, so it will last less time on the same amount of charge as a netbook. And the only internet I'll have will be in regional capitols and larger towns/cities, which means that I'll probably be bringing my computer with me whenever I go to banking town, so for that smaller is better. Aaargh! Decisions.

One week!

Chinese Acrobats- Photo Post

8/17/2009

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8/17/2009

The receptionist at the youth hostel stopped me as I entered the lobby. (Insofar, anyway, as youth hostels have receptionists or lobbies.)
"I called the doctor*," she told me. She was a very nice Chinese lady whose English was only so-so, but she made up for it with friendliness and an earnest (and often very patient) desire to help. "He say, if you have symptom 6 days, you need transfusion."
"A transfusion," I repeated, in disbelief. "I need a transfusion? For diarrhea?"
She nods, earnestly.
"Um," I reply. "I think that's maybe the wrong word."
I try to mime to her-- as I've mentioned before, I've become an excellent mime, though in this case it's mixed with English as well-- that a transfusion consists of sticking a needle into someone, removing their blood, and putting someone else's blood into them. She probably didn't quite understand the specifics of the procedure I was acting out, but she seemed to understand that I thought it was an awfully drastic measure.
"Oh. No, then," she said. But then she mimed the same gesture as I did before, with putting a needle into someone's arm. "But needle, yes. Stick with needle."
"Oh, an IV. He thinks I need an IV."
This at least made some sense. The doctor thought I was dehydrated. This would probably have been a legitimate concern, were I not possibly one of the best-hydrated people in the world when my health is normal.** Though I was not currently at my most hydrated, I had taken great pains to not only drink tons of water, but drink tons of electrolytes as well, not to mention checking myself for any other symptoms.
"No IV," I tell her, and pick up the shopping bag I'd dropped to the floor in response to the word "transfusion." I pull out the two monster bottles of Gatorade I'd bought a few minutes before and mimed gulping them down. "I drink this. Lots and lots. No IV. I just want antibiotics."

We'd been over this. I'd been asking for antibiotics for days, but something just didn't translate for some reason, which baffled me. The receptionists at the hostel didn't know what they were and didn't seen to be able to find the translation online. The nurses behind the counter at the pharmacy didn't seem to understand what they were. I just didn't get it. Wasn't this likely to be one of the most-asked for medications as far as foreigners in China go? How could I be the first Westerner with diarrhea (or, for that matter, any sort of bacterial infection) in China who wanted antibiotics (at least as far as all the people I'd spoken to were concerned)? I'd have thought that would be one of the first words they'd teach you in tourism school, but apparently not.
I took the pen and post-it note she had in front of her that had the words, both in Chinese and English, "Diarrhea" and "Transfusion" on it. I wrote, again, "Antibiotics (penicillin)." I handed it back to her; she smiled, and said she'd try to figure out what it meant. I trudged back up the stairs to my room.



*Have I mentioned that through this whole thing with the stolen purse and the bureaucratic nightmare, I've had really bad diarrhea? No? Well, I have. Apparently it's not technically "Traveller's Diarrhea" because I don't any other symptoms like headache or nausea (thank GOD), but it's been here a long time and isn't going away, nonetheless. It's been very annoying, and I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to obtain antibiotics.
**I drink a shitload of water. Sometimes when I'm on a long journey, by train or whatever, I try to limit how much water I drink. Anything less than 4 liters a day drives me insane. I drink, in fact, so much water that doctors have cautioned me that I might unbalance my electrolytes, and so I have even when in perfect health taken up the habit of making my every third bottle of water an ion drink of some kind. To most Westerners' disgust, I drank about a liter of Pocari Sweat a day in Korea. Yes, it's called "Sweat", but it's like Gatorade without being as sweet and with, I think anyway (it's hard for me to be 100% positive about labels in Korean), fewer calories.

8/15/2009

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8/15/2009

Well, my purse was stolen yesterday.
It was my fault. It was totally my fault. I had my backpack on my back. I'd been trying to be so careful all trip, keeping my backpack on my front or by my side, but just then, it was on my back.
I felt a gentle tug, turned around, and found that my purse was missing. I didn't even see anyone running away with it, although several witnesses saw three men, and the witnesses pointed my mom and I in the right direction. We ran two blocks, but never spotted them. My mom dug out her little translation pamphlet and yelled "Police, police!" so some Chinese girls called the police on their phones. A couple of them hung around to translate for us. We were creating quite a spectacle, but I didn't even really notice. I was REALLY torn up about losing my purse. Here is what was in my purse:
-my PASSPORT
-my American debit card
-my Korean bank card
-my IPOD
-my driver's license
-my Korean Alien Registration Card (without this I can't get my pension, worth over $1000)
-all other forms of ID I have
-jewelry I bought for Katie
-some other things too. About 650 yuan--a little less than $100. I care about that a lot less than most of the rest of it.

So. Yeah. Very not good.
We went to the police station, wrote down the report of what happened twice, drove to the scene, had some witnesses confirm that, yes, three men opened my bag and ran away with my purse. The police don't seem like they're acting like they're expecting to find the purse again. Lovely.
We called and canceled my American debit card. Luckily no activity has been seen on that. Can't figure out yet how to cancel my Korean card. And it's Saturday now which will make it harder.
We were planning to leave China tomorrow. My mom to America, me to Korea for 5 days then America. Without my passport (and, subsequently, without my Chinese visa as well), that's not happening.
The information on the US Consulate website is not encouraging. Can't go in without an appointment, can't see them without a report from the exit-entry bureau on the theft (apparently just the local police report doesn't count). We went to the exit-entry bureau today, they say the report won't be ready until Tuesday. Can't get an appointment with the Consulate until Wednesday. Website says that, barring life or death emergency, it can take 10-15 days for a new passport to be issued.
So... that could actually prevent me from going to Peace Corps.
Well, I'm going to take my Peace Corps invitation letter to that appointment. Hopefully that'll have some sway for them to expedite the process-- I want to get this passport and get to America so that I can SERVE our country, damnit!
I really hope I'm not stuck in China for weeks and weeks. I really want to do Tanzania. Brett says he'll make sure the school in Korea doesn't throw out my stuff. Worst comes to worst I'll tell him which stuff to grab (important papers and items and medications) and I don't care that much if they throw out the rest. I'm lucky he's so willing to help out.

I am kind of a mess. Especially last night after everything was done with the police, I just curled up in bed and cried.




9/2/2009 NOTE: Don't worry, I'm back in America, everything worked out. I even managed to get my pension.

8/06/2009

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8/06/2009

Mom and I went to see the Great Wall of China! In fact, we not only saw it, but hiked five miles of it!
This was... I'd say about as easy as it sounds, but I'm not sure how easy you think it sounds. It was in the blazing sun, and oh my god, are there a ton of steps on that thing or WHAT. We went through 26 watchtowers. We hiked from Jin Shan Ling to Si Ma Tai, which is considered a less-touristy part of the Great Wall (that still has tour groups from hostels going there). We could definitely see why; parts of it were in disrepair, falling apart, and so on. I didn't mind, though, because that certainly made it more authentic. The views from either side were AMAZING, too. I imagine that once I post this on my blog, here is where I will put the pictures that my mother and I took.






Once we got farther along from the Jin Shan Ling side and towards the Si Ma Tai side, there were lots of work crews there, replacing crumbling stones and stairs and whatnot. So I guess in a few years, this are of the Great Wall will be fixed up as well, so that it too can be overloaded with massive amounts of tourists. While there were a lot of tourists here, it wasn't like packed or anything. We could hike the thing without feeling claustrophobic or anything, sometimes we couldn't really see many people around.
Though I mostly liked the disrepair, one part was pretty terrifying! Look what I had to navigate:



You maybe can't quite tell, but you can't just jump *down* from there-- you have to sort of jump to the side. If you go to the wrong side, you could very easily slip, fall, and die. At least, that's what my mom had to say. But what's life without a little adventure? I jumped face forward, with a Chinese lady grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the side I needed to go. I banged my knee, but it was just a surface bruise, it didn't hurt as I walked. My mom couldn't look down as she went, so she went backwards, legs (and backside) first. The Chinese lady, old and tiny though she was, somehow managed to heave my mom to the side, too. There was a lot of strength in that little body! I wish I'd gotten a picture, but alas.
This lady had a pretty clever setup, truth to tell. See, there are people (mostly women) selling things all along the Great Wall. Some souvenirs, fans and t-shirts and knick-nacks, and also some very useful things (like cold water [we always checked to make sure it was sealed], Coca-cola, etc).

Anyway, mostly these salesladies just have to compete with each other as you pass. This one, however, very cleverly set up her station right after that jump. So she helped you out and you're really grateful to her because, while you PROBABLY would have lived without her help, your chances of being very harmed would have been greatly increased. So when she-- a bit less pushily than the other salesladies-- offers you things to buy-- well, you want to. She helped you out, dude. Buying a t-shirt-- especially when the price doesn't seem inflated compared to the other ladies-- kind of seems like the least you can do.
So yes, this was a very clever lady (and also, as I said, a deceptively strong one, physically speaking). Which is how I ended up with my "I Climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt!

(Most of the pictures of me were taken on my mom's camera. I'll add one of the t-shirt, soon, I promise!)

It's actually very comfy-- certainly feels like cotton-- and is miraculously good at not absorbing smells. And reminds me of my adrenaline-rushing jump every time I see it. All in all, definitely a good purchase.


So, back to the fact that it's a five mile hike. In the burning sun. China, especially that area, is HOT in the summer. Plus, we started our hike around 11 am, and were told that we had to be at the end point by 2:30 pm for the van to take us home-- a many-hour drive to Beijing, incidentally. For the latter half of the trip, my mom and I took them at their word, and were convinced we weren't going to make it. How were we ever going to make it back to Beijing? We pushed ourselves faster up those stairs. So, so many stairs.
But then you get to the bridge, across the lake, and you know that's close to the end. One more watchtower. We've done it... right?
Except that you're only at the 28th watchtower. There are two more. So you stagger into the second to last one, sit down for a moment, stagger out again, and then...
The stairs.
Oh, those stairs. Those long, those steep, those unexpected and arduous stairs.
How can I possibly express the despair, the hopelessness, the disbelief upon seeing that to finish, we had to go up THOSE STAIRS?
I really wish that I took a picture from the bottom of those stairs, looking up. That might capture some of the essence. Alas, the best I have is a picture from afar, from across the lake, before we knew that it was, in fact, not the tower at the bottom we had to reach, but the one half-way up:




By this time it was, like, 2:15. My mom didn't think she could do it, so I said I'd climb the stairs and try to race to the van to tell them to wait, not to take off without her.
I crawled up those stairs. I couldn't climb them like a human being, I had to go on all fours, like an animal. But I got up them.
And at the end was a zip line! That was fun. Wish I could've gotten a picture, but since my mom wasn't with me, the mechanics didn't work out. Anyway, I put on the harness, they strapped me to a wire, and I slid across the lake and down to the bottom.
This was supposed to be the fastest way to get down. Easy for me to do, since I have no problem with heights*. Not, however, something that my mother would do. It would have been the fastest way to get to the van, except that just as I got to the bottom, the boat to take us across the lake was pulling away. There was only one boat, so I had to wait the full 15 minutes for it to come back.
My mother, who, having rested 10 minutes in the 29th tower slowly climbed the stairs and then, very sensibly, walked down the mountain to the van... actually arrived before me.
Whoops.

And of course, as we should have realized all along but we are too apt to take people at their word, we were far from the last people to arrive. The van waited until everyone was there, at 3 pm, before it left. Apparently last time the trip happened, they waited until 3:30. There was never any danger.
Anyway, tiring as it was, it was definitely a good day. Though I may forever refer to The Great Wall of China as, instead, The World's Biggest Stairmaster.



*There's a family story about a time my family and I visited, I believe, Martha's Vineyard when I was, oh, maybe 4 or 5 years old. We climbed to the top of the lighthouse, and my mom, who has a phobia of heights, was sitting on the floor, clutching the bars, rocking back and forth in terror. I, on the other hand, was eagerly bouncing all around the observation deck** exclaiming, "I want to order a pizza!! Can we order a pizza?!?"***

**which terrified her further, of course.
***luckily, I don't remember the disappointment of realizing that they didn't deliver to the top of lighthouses. I'm sure it was a traumatic realization, however.

8/5/09

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8/05/2009

My plans to blog my trip to China are thwarted by the fact that not only has China blocked Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, they've also blocked Blogspot. I got a computer geek with an SSH to an American computer (despite the fact that he's a Kiwi, go fig) to let me post notes to this effect on Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes I really wish I had some practical skills, so that I could do this SSH thing (or other cool geek get-around-filters things) during the rest of the trip. Well, practical skills besides analytical thinking, but you know what, sometimes that's not actually that practical when you're dealing with people.
Well, they haven't blocked google documents, so I'm still going to jot my thoughts down as we go. I'll hopefully post them (and some awesome pictures!) when I get back somewhere that doesn't try to strangle the Internet.

Korean Buddhist Reconstructionism

As my mother and I were wandering through Insa-dong today (a little shopping district in Seoul), we were delighted to see a demonstration of an ancient and revered tradition in Korea:



Street and building construction is a deeply spiritual and illustrious cultural custom here in Korea, so we were fascinated to see it in action right there on the street!



Of course, Insadong is a very touristy part of Seoul-- there's a Tourist Information booth right at the entrance to the street. It has little souvenir shops-- oh, not ones with crappy little plastic replicas or anything (at least, not all of them), not THOSE kinds of souvenirs. It's a genuinely nice place to shop, with lots of little crafts stores and art galleries all over the place, and if you're visiting Seoul it's definitely worth a visit. Nevertheless, it's a tourist spot. So Mom and I have the suspicion that in this particular case, the traditional culture street construction is there more as a novelty for tourists to observe than as a genuine expression of the custom. As you can see, some people even gathered around to cheer them on:



So to be honest we kind of wondering if these were actual laborers, or performers, possibly college students majoring in tourism. But either way we enjoyed the demonstration!

Traditional Cultural Construction has actually had far-reaching effects on the religion, values, and economy of South Korea. The practice here is known as "Reconstructionism" and it has become an important aspect of several sects of Korean Buddhism. Here's how it works:

Through the cities and towns of Korea, several buildings are known as Reconstruction Buildings. Some of these are inconsequential buildings, small homes or stores or whatever, while some are very important, such as city halls, opera halls, pretty much halls of all persuasions. Throughout the year, laborers and carpenters erect these establishments, setting the foundations, construction the frames, and so on, with engineers and craftsmen making sure that they are all built to the highest standards. Ideally it should take exactly one year, though for the smaller projects this is not strictly followed.





Then, right before the building is completed-- say there's one more board that needs to be put in place, or one more nail that needs to be hammered in, or one more stripe to be painted on a tiger demanding persimmons of passing maidens-- the building is destroyed!

There's a great celebration surrounding it. I've heard it's an awesome party, but sadly I haven't had the opportunity to experience it myself. I'd have gotten to if I'd stayed in Korea for the whole year, but alas, that's life.

The building demolition can happen in a variety of ways, depending on the type of building, the particular sect of Buddhist Reconstructionism to which the smashers adhere, and the aims of the ceremonial smashing. (Often prayers and requests from the ancestors are involved, particularly in the old days-- it's much like the sacrificial bull, really. Prayers for a plentiful cabbage harvest are common.) Sometimes dynamite is involved. In the grandest and most elaborate destructions, fireworks double as demolition bombs. They both destroy the building, and create very attractive patterns in the sky above! Apparently it's quite a sight to see, with spectators having no idea which way to look!

But of course it's very hard to set up. The juxtaposition of:

1. dynamite
2. fireworks
3. the flying slabs of wood, stone, and painted tiles, the flying components of ondols, known for regularly lighting palaces on fire even without the assistance of bombs, and, in the case of European-influenced construction, flying flying buttresses
and
4. large amounts of spectators who have often already consumed large amounts of soju

combine to make this otherwise awesome spectacle a public safety nightmare. (Although, shockingly, there has been only one known injury resulting from this method, back in 1873 when a 38-year-old cabbage farmer was hit in the head with a flying phoenix sculpture (ironically on fire) and was knocked out. When he awoke, he was convinced that he was a 23-year-old, prodigiously accomplished musician named Stan. Though he actually had no more musical knowledge or talent than one would expect from a 38-year-old cabbage farmer, he made a very comfortable living as a musician, owing to the fact that Koreans from all over the country wanted to see whether or not he had, during this holy ceremony, miraculously learned to play the gayageum. Apparently word of mouth was not a sufficient deterrent, as he had an audience for the rest of his life.)

Since the dynamite variety is dangerous there are other demolition ceremonies. Almost as much fun (so I've heard) are the versions where everyone just grabs a sledgehammer and goes crazy!

The next day, after all the parties on the rubble (as noted above, lots of soju is involved), everyone clears away the debris, and the process begins anew.

Many palaces have a designated hall specifically for this purpose, so that traditional construction is in progress within palace walls all year round. In some palaces, such as Gyeongbuk Palace, the practice is so revered that it is the Main Hall which serves this purpose. At the National Palace Museum of Korea, we saw scrolls preserved that were lists of all the Construction Managers who worked on the Reconstruction of the Main Hall of Gyeongbuk. It was a very honorable position (obviously, or else it wouldn't be immortalized in such a famous museum!).




The idea behind Buddhist Korean Reconstructionism is, I suppose, that the journey is more important than the destination, and that the work itself should be joyful, rather than for material gain. Tibetan monks practice sandpainting (you may have heard of this practice among Native Americans as well), where they create beautiful, intricate designs with sand, and then wipe them out of existence when they are done. As this practice has migrated its way across China, and then down through North Korea, this has evolved from sandpainting to building and street construction-- but the basic philosophy remains the same.

Buddhist Korean Reconstructionism has also been great for the economy, because people always have jobs! Construction and construction-related jobs are extremely easy to get because it's never ending! Carpenters, building contractors, architects-- it's considered a sign of wealth and class if the buildings have a new design each time you build them--painters, roofers, people who construct tiles, people who refurbish the destroyed buildings so that the materials can be recycled... the list goes on and on, and this is a huge fuel for the economy.

North Korea's destitution is largely considered to be due to the fact that they disavowed Reconstructionism when they became communist.

Whoops! (or: B-I-T-C-H)

So, anyone who has been reading this blog knows the story now: I meant to stay in Korea for a year, but because of Peace Corps difficulties and technicalities, I am leaving after only 7 and a half months.

What I haven't mentioned is that during this whole time, I've been in the process of convincing a very good friend of mine to move to Korea. (I won't say her name, just in case things change and she doesn't want her employers to know about this. Let's call her K.)

Since, uh, well, since almost a year ago, when I visited her in DC while I was living in Philly, I've been trying to convince her to move abroad, because she even admitted it's what she probably wants and just wasn't giving into. In my defense, I wasn't devoting all my energies to convincing her to come to Korea, in particular. I mean, once K expressed an interest, whenever I was joking around, I would tell her "Come to Korea!" But really I was pushing a foreign country, any foreign country, and when she was focusing on Greece, or the Czech Republic, I didn't try to steer her away from those and towards Korea; I supported her going anywhere abroad.

But yeah. Ultimately, K settled on Korea, and I'm not just flattering myself that the fact that I lived here was a large factor in that decision; she admitted it readily. Especially considering that she also requested my particular province.

Fast forward to, well, now. When it turns out that if I want to do Peace Corps, it'll be in September, and when K finally gets her job acceptance to EPIK-- in Gangwon-do (my province).

The long and short of it?

She's decided she's probably taking it.

I'm leaving Korea August 21st.
She's coming to Korea around August 17th.

Yeah.

As my (wonderful and wonderfully supportive) supervisor, Sarah, put it: "Wow, you're a bitch."

Whoops!

As we've comforted ourselves: It makes a good story! After all that, K's arriving in Korea the very week I'm leaving.

But still. If she doesn't like Korea, I am going to feel soooooo guilty... (And I'm, technically, Jewish. I know guilt!)

Jambo!

That (the title) means "Hello" in Swahili!

I've officially accepted my Peace Corps invitation! My place in the Tanzania Secondary Education program has been confirmed! Squee!

As you can see, I've changed the layout and format of my blog, and added a picture of Mt Kilimanjaro! Yes, Mount Kilimanjaro is located in Tanzania, to the north! Know what else is in Tanzania? The Serengeti (well, northwestern Tanzania and southwestern Kenya). You know, what's probably the best-known wildlife sanctuary in the world? Where The Lion King took place? (Though it's pretty dangerous to visit, and not just because of the lions and such, but rather because of the tsetse fly. God, I am going to be neurotically terrified that I have African Sleeping Sickness while I'm in Tanzania, I'm sure of it.)

Also, Zanzibar is in Tanzania! In fact, did you know that Tanzania didn't used to be called Tanzania? It was called Tanganyika until it merged with Zanzibar in 1964 and combined the two names to get Tanzania. My mom is sillily (I'm pretending that's a word, deal with it) excited that she'll get to "stand on Zanzibar" (also the title of a favorite book of hers) when she comes to visit me.

Plus, Jane Goodall's chimp research all happened in Tanzania, as well! Very few of you knew me when I was very young, but I used to be obsessed with chimpanzees, after a read a Zoobooks magazine about them. So this piece of information is also exciting to me.

In summation, Tanzania sounds a bit like Quintessential Africa, at least while I'm viewing it from afar. Who knows what it'll be like up close, but I can't wait to find out!

There have been some complications with my documentation, mostly because I'm living in a small town in a foreign country right now, far away from the embassy, and also because I don't currently have my passport (I had to give it to my travel agent so I could get my Chinese visa). But the Peace Corps office has been pretty good about helping me out and extending deadlines and stuff to make sure it can all get done. Right now, unless my passport gets held up and doesn't arrive in the mail early next week, it should be okay. I'm just going to keep doing whatever I can to make things happen! And if something COMPLETELY unavoidable happens (and I do mean COMPLETELY unavoidable... I'll even skip my trip to China if necessary to make Peace Corps happen), then I'll just try as hard as I can to get a second invitation as an "extraordinary" circumstance. Of course, I've started to get my heart set on Tanzania, but any Peace Corps is better than no Peace Corps.

When I woke up this morning, my free Peace Corps online subscription to Rosetta Stone: Swahili was there!! I have to complete 40 hours before staging. I've already done 37 minutes this morning before work (plus 15 minutes on the phone with customer support first since it said I needed a plug-in that wouldn't install). Watch out Swahili, Mel's learning ya!

I'm also trying to convince all my friends to visit me in Africa! One friend is trying to make it happen already, but I want tons of visits! Barring that, let me know when/where we can meet while I'm in America from August 21-September 21. I miss you!

Invitation!

I went to Seoul today just for a few hours, just to hand my passport and money to a travel agent so that I can get my visa for China. (My mother and I are going to China together August 3rd-August 16th.) They told me that I should get my passport in the mail by next Tuesday, so that's cool.

Actually, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. In order for the next bit to make sense, I'll have to fill you in on what's been going on in my life for the past couple of weeks.

I was medically cleared by Peace Corps in early June. I told them then that I didn't want to enter Peace Corps until February 2010, and I expected this to be just fine. Well, I get on the phone with my Placement Officer, and no, that is actually not fine. My application is no longer active starting April 2010, and all of the education programs leave June-September. All those nice February-leaving programs are non-education.

So I gotta go in September.

I got notice on Monday that my invitation packet was in the mail, for Math Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (but that was the extent of my knowledge). On the strength of that bit of info, I gave my one month's notice at school. And proceeded to go CRAZY waiting for my invitation packet to arrive so that I'd know where I was headed in two months!

So I got home from Seoul this afternoon, and my heart fell to see that there was nothing in my mailbox. Then I went up to my apartment and discovered my package waiting inside!!! I was too excited to even be annoyed at my landlady for going into my apartment when I wasn't there. (As this problem will not go away in Peace Corps, I am learning to deal with it.)

So, here's the news:

I'm going to Tanzania, as a Secondary School Mathematics Teacher!! Staging is September 21st, and we get to Tanzania September 23rd!

I'm very happy with this placement. Tanzania is supposed to be an amazing place-- it's Eastern Africa, directly south of Kenya. I'm going to learn Kiswahili! That will certainly be a useful language to know, especially if I work for the UN or a human rights NGO. It got very high scores for volunteer survey about how personally rewarding the experience was. I've also been reading some blogs of Tanzania volunteers, and it sounds like they're having some insane but very, well, amazing times.


So here is my schedule for the next couple of months:

July 28th: My mom arrives in Korea.
August 3rd: She and I go to China together*.
August 16th: We leave China. She returns to Philadelphia, I go back to Korea.
August 21st: I leave Korea and go to Philadelphia.
September 21st: I go to Peace Corps staging (also in Philadelphia, I'm pretty sure).
September 23rd: Get on the plane to Tanzania!


So this is going to be a little bit crazy! I'm very glad I'll have a whole month to just chill with my parents (and prepare for Peace Corps, of course!). I'm going to be darting all over the world in the next couple of months, aren't I? A breather will be very welcome.

I am just so excited! I am a Peace Corps Invitee! Woooooo!



*Mom and I planned the China trip well before I had any inkling I would be leaving Korea early. So we thought that after this trip, I wouldn't see her again for six months. As it happens, I will see her again five days after she leaves.

WARNING: Please Refroin

I think this speaks for itself?

Taken at the beach in Gangneung. Korea has some beautiful beaches, but almost all of them are also military zones, especially in the Gangwon-do province, which is in northern South Korea. At least this beach didn't have barbed wire fences!

The RTW Bug...

...has bitten me. Hard.


(Yes, that is my real passport. Yes, the white spots are mold. I spent monsoon season in Thailand in 2006, give me a break!)


I mean, I've been planning to do an RTW for a long time. Ever since I did my backpacking trip through Europe almost 4 years ago. But at this point, I'd been thinking it would happen years in the future; I have to finish my time in Korea first, and then there would be 2 years in Peace Corps. I was thinking that maybe, instead of going all around the world in a year or two, I could circumnavigate the globe in more like 7 or 8 years, taking teaching jobs for a year in different countries on different continents.

This still isn't a bad idea, but... once Kat and I started talking about it, I really want to do the full, backpack-on-my-back, sleeping in hostels or couchsurfing (or in train stations), each-week-in-a-different-city Round the World Trip.

If my dreams come true and Peace Corps medically clears me next month, then it will be almost three years before I can seriously consider this trip.

I don't want it just to be something I yearn for my whole life... I want it to happen.

I'm putting it down in my Life Plan. In ink, not pencil.

Winter 2009-Winter 2010: Teaching in Korea
Winter/Spring 2010-Spring 2012: Peace Corps
Spring 2012: Begin RTW!

Sound good, Kat?

The Shopping Mime

If the international aid thing doesn't work out (and if the interstellar diplomacy thing doesn't either), then at least my time in Korea is excellent for preparing me to make my living as a mime.

And in casual life, I shall rock at charades.

I've gotten quite adept at expressing to salesmen in local stores exactly what I want without using a single spoken word. (Though, I'm pretty sure that one thing I want-- soap for my floor-- doesn't actually exist in Korea.) I just walk into a store and start gesturing, and most of the time, they take me to exactly what I need.

So when I walked into the kitchen supply store, and I rounded my arms like a huge bowl, then made mixing motions...

...the woman behind the counter asked "Mixing bowl?" and I nearly fell over.

It was such an extreme revelation that the person behind the counter actually knew the word in English of what I was looking for (and, as an aside, honestly: why should they?). I was giddy, like, "Yes! Yes! Mixing bowl! Yes!" and was in general waaaaaay too enthusiastic. It kind of made my evening.

I suppose when your evening is made happy by the fact that a store clerk knew what a "mixing bowl" is, you are truly learning to appreciate the small pleasures of life.

Liftoff

Short story written at the request and prompt of Kat.

Danielle didn't tell anybody before she left, because after all, she was trying to disappear. And it's not very well a disappearance if everybody already knows, now, is it?

When the idea had first occurred to her, she'd wanted to take off now, now, now. But then she'd probably have to just come back after a month or two, because she hadn't planned; and returning from a mysterious disappearance after anything less than a year behind her seemed a bitter defeat, slinking back with her tail between her legs. No, this was going to be a triumph, and for that she had to plan. No, to scheme.

Soon the wait had become fun, because she was keeping this delicious secret, adding all the time to her strategy. First she decided, in order to get to that all-important one year mark, to get a job, so she did not find herself running out of funds. Of course, moving to another country just to start more monotonous work wasn't quite the idea, even if doing so when nobody knew you were leaving and nobody knew where you were did have a certain charm to it. But mostly it was a start, a warm-up, and it was insurance.

She'd taken almost a full year to work everything out. She wasn't sure how she felt about this. On the one hand, it took away much of the whimsy, the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants spontaneity.

On the other hand, she'd kept the secret all that time, letting on to nobody, not to her brother, not to her best friend, that she would soon dissolve into thin air.

And now she was boarding the plane.

.

Four weeks ago she'd taken a little trip to the airport and bought a ticket with cash. At 10 o'clock that morning, her lease had been up, though nobody else knew it besides her landlord, as they'd all assumed she'd renewed. And thirty minutes ago, as she sat in the terminal waiting for the plane to come, munching on the McDonald's which she bought only when she was in an airport, but every single time that happened, she sent an email to everybody in her address book:

Hi everyone.
I'm safe. I'm just taking off for a while. Don't worry about me.
I'll see you when I see you!
--Danielle

It would satisfy nobody, but nonetheless they would not be panicky. She'd have rather not tell anybody she was leaving, but she also didn't want anybody to worry too much, so she had to strike some sort of compromise between the two.

And now, she was standing in line, waiting for her seat (section B, row 37) to be called over the loudspeaker.

Excitement welled up within her. It was happening! She had been planning this moment for nearly a year, and finally, finally it was here!

It took most of her willpower to keep herself from skipping to her seat when it was called.

She had a window seat, which she loved. She stowed her backpack (filled with everything she would need; she had a suitcase in checked luggage as well, but it held nothing essential, for she knew eventually she would be leaving it behind, somewhere or other) in the overhead compartment, and sat back in her seat, watching everybody else file in and get situated.

"I'm free," she whispered, and in that moment she truly felt it. Years of anxiety, of expectations, of monotony and domestication, felt as though they were just falling away from her, and she was shedding the weight of her stressful life and all that was left, as she lifted into the air, was herself, pure and unburdened.

The plane lifted, and her heart lifted, and the way she felt, she was not inside of a man-made metal contraption, able to fly through the application of science and engineering.

No, she had been so filled with joy that the buoyancy lifted her right into the air, and twirling and laughing in sheer exhilaration, she was now dancing her way across the sky.

Bong-Rae English Experience Center

A couple of weeks ago, I was given a camera, and was set the task of taking pictures of the Bong-Rae English Experience Center (which is where I work) for our brochure. BREEC, as we call it, is still very new-- just opened up December 2008-- and our hope is that in the future other elementary schools in the Yeongwol area will send their students to our facility for a one or two day intensive.

So I thought, who knows, maybe some of you out there are interested to see where an English teacher in Korea is working. Maybe even some of you would get a kick out of seeing where I work. So I decided to post a few of the pictures for you!

First, the outside of the building (inside which, in fact, I am at this very moment):






Come up the stairs:



To our front door!




Inside, we've got a lot of goodies for visiting students (and for the students at Bong-Rae elementary, for that matter). First there's the library:






Then we've got tons of stations where students can, in essence, play make-believe in English. We give them dialogues, and they pretend to be doing many different everyday things, in semi-realistic surroundings. This could be, for instance, a hospital:




Or maybe airport security:




A produce store:




Or a hotel:




There are plenty of other stations, as well. We hand out realistic-looking passports (for the Republic of BREEC) to each class who comes through, which come complete with suggested dialogue. Once a student completes the dialogue (or, for younger grades, a simplified version) in the mock-up, we give them a stamp on that page of their passport.


Next is the Multimedia Room, where students can be on big-screen TV, and actually, by waving their hands around in the air, interact with the things on the screen!

I can't figure out how to convert the format of those pictures (which I didn't take, as they involve students actually interacting with the system). If there is any interest whatsoever expressed, I'll try harder to post some of these. :)


And there you have it: the workplace of a foreign English teacher at a small English Experience Center in rural Korea. I'm in Gangwon-do, the least developed province of South Korea... imagine how snazzy these places must be in other areas!

I didn't get to do much this weekend, as I've been sick. Mostly just resting and cleaning my apartment (it's actually presentable now! Yay!). But last weekend I took the train to Gangneung, a city on the shores of the Sea of Japan, or as it is known in South Korea, the East Sea. The train ride is 3 1/2 hours long but oh, so scenic; the train ride itself was an adventure, a joy, as opposed to something you just try to get through. I took some shots out the window:








I was in Gangneung partially for the Cherry Blossom Festival, and partially to visit a friend of mine, Carolyn, who I met at Orientation. The cherry blossoms, while not yet fully in blossom, were nonetheless breathtaking.






There was one road we walked around, it's quite famous, both sides are lined with cherry trees. Apparently people come from all over to see that street, and I was no different.

As well as seeing the cherry blossoms, there were plenty of other festivities. Plus, of course, there was a beach. It was only about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, so we didn't get into the sea deeper than our ankles (and even that was so cold that it made my feet ache!). Still, relaxing on the beach with friends was a welcome chance from isolated, mountainous Yeongwol.

Then we went out clubbing-- Western alcohol! Rum and coke! Vodka and cranberry! You have no idea what this means to me. Soju, the liquor of choice in Korea, is vile. Disgusting. But it's the only thing available in Yeongwol. That, and bad beer, and if you go to the supermarket, inexplicably, 15 different kinds of Scotch. (However, you can't get the scotch at the bar.) Meeting people from Western countries whom I don't know is getting to be quite a thrill for me. In Yeongwol, if I see a Westerner I know him or her. Period. So meeting some new native English speakers was quite nice.

We also got to see a few Korean pop concerts, which was an adventure in itself. If I tell you about that, though, it would merit its own blog post. Well, we'll see. :)

Guinsa, Labyrinthine and Escher-esque

Today I went to a Buddhist temple, or rather a temple complex, because there wasn't just one, there were tons of them, all over the place. It was labyrinthine paths and Escher-esque staircases nestled into the mountains, going up, up, up.





Each section seemed like the whole, because you couldn't see anything else but the buildings towering above you almost as much as the mountains were. But then you glimpse this little hidden staircase and keep climbing and discover yet another level of the complex, brightly painted temples and footbridges all around.





Next you find a little courtyard balcony: it's below everything yet to come, but offers a view from above of everything through which you've just walked. So you look back, and discover that hidden staircase was one of many, a myriad of winding routes all leading to the same place... eventually.




Words truly cannot describe what it felt like, or the aching beauty of it.

Seoul Underground

You're in a small underground bar in Insadong, Seoul, South Korea. Throbbing music pulsates so forcefully that it replaces your heartbeat. Hooka smoke fills the air, lit bright blue by the floor lights. And you sip a mixed drink, savoring the taste and the buzz in this lush atmosphere. Lean back and chill with some friends-- it's hard to find a feeling like this one.

Baseball and the DMZ

This past weekend I visited the DMZ-- that is, the demilitarized zone, the two kilometers on either side of the border between North and South Korea. The videos they showed and the signs giving information were talking about how relations were getting better and better between North and South Korea... obviously they were all made before the past few months!!

I wasn't allowed to take pictures of any of the cool stuff, I guess because they're afraid of spies or something? Who knows. But I did get to see the border itself; you could see the South Korean flag flying on one side, and the North Korean flag on the other. (To tell exactly which flags they were you'd have to view it through those coin-operated binoculars, but I could definitely see each of the flagpoles with my naked eye.) Also, North Korea built these villages with very affluent-looking houses right on their side of the border. The idea is to make it seem like conditions in North Korea are good, but they're *very* obviously fake. We also toured these tunnels that the North Koreans dug between North and South Korea, in an attempt to invade Seoul directly. The North Koreans claim that they were mining coal, and even painted (yes, *painted*) the ceiling and walls of the tunnels black. However, it is clearly rock painted black, and not coal, so we are pretty confident it was actually an intended invasion tool.

I probably shouldn't do much more traveling this month, though, as the trip to Seoul and the DMZ pretty much wiped me out. I need to start saving some money!

Last night I ate dinner and watched baseball with Brett and the Korean teachers; it was very fun. The game was Korea versus Japan, and I imagine it must be quite a grudge match-- the Koreans *hate* the Japanese (considering the Japanese occupied them for decades in the early 20th century, can you really blame them?). I explained the rules of baseball to Brett-- did you know there's this big worldwide baseball tournament going on right now, World Cup-style? Because I sure didn't, although apparently America's participating too.

I tried to explain to Koreans how patriotic we get about baseball-- you know, the whole "As American as baseball and apple pie" thing. It was hard to express using very simple language; the closest I got was to say it was like kimchee for Koreans. This isn't quite true, but the Koreans were for some reason *very* impressed with this explanation. Mr. Gim was also impressed (or something) with my cheering for the game. He called me a "passionable" woman. (Okay.)

It was actually a rather boring game-- there was only one run the whole game, and it came right at the beginning. But KOREA WON!!! YAAY!!

So, Koreans and Americans (or people from any English-speaking country as far as I know) answer negative questions differently. Specifically, Koreans answer them logically, while we answer them illogically. So if you say "Don't you want to go to the movies?" and you did, then you would say "Yes," right? But Koreans say "No." Technically Koreans are right-- No, I don't not want to go to the movies. But it makes for a lot of misunderstandings-- if you think how often we ask negative questions, there is a lot of the time that a person is actually answering exactly the opposite of what it sounds like. Last night, this general source of confusion led to the other teachers believing that I have a secret husband. ("You are not married?" "No." *look of shock* "WHAT?!") I fear this may become a running joke.

There's another cultural difference, and this one I just discovered last night: Koreans make a habit of feeding their friends (particularly after they've taken a big gulp of alcohol). Like, Mr. Gim picked up a strawberry, and after I took a sip of beer, fed it to me. Luckily I'd been prepared for this a few minutes earlier when Brett fed Mrs. Song a strawberry. This is a completely friendly thing to them, with no implication of romantic interest or the like.

It's strange that something so intimate in one culture is so commonplace in another, isn't it?

Last weekend was EPIK Orientation. Even though I'd been here a month and a half, they still wanted me to go. It was fun-- got to meet some English teachers from other parts of Gangwon-do Province, and we got to visit Mt. Seorak National Park. The view was breathtaking:

Getting a teaching job abroad

So, in the seven weeks since I've moved to Korea, I've gotten several emails/messages from people asking for advice on how to go about getting a teaching job abroad. The economy's tanking and people are nervous about the state of the world, but the ability to speak English fluently is still a very, VERY valuable skill in the global market.

I'm considering forming a web site or something, to help people get teaching jobs (or any jobs, really) in a foreign country. It seems a bit presumptuous to me, given that I've only done it twice, once for a couple of months (and that was unpaid) and now this one, but... I just seem to enjoy helping people get out here into the rest of the world. I spent a couple hours on the phone with Kat, and I loved thinking of ways to get her to another continent.

I think I know why, too. It occurred to me when Chris said that he could get me a job in Greece and was surprised I hadn't asked him when I was looking into jobs abroad this past fall. And I thought "Oh, wow, I should have done that! I could be in GREECE right now!"

And then I wasn't sure why I thought that. I'm in Korea. That's way more of a different culture, and there's no reason I'd think that a job in Greece was better than a job in Korea. So why am I like "Oh, I should have gone to Greece!"? Because I have such strong wanderlust that, no matter where I am, I'm imagining what it would be like to live somewhere else. Which is not to say that there's no point to my traveling, or that I'd be just as restless in Korea as in Philadelphia. I'm happy to be here. I love the fact that I'm becoming friends with Koreans who have never left South Korea, or the fact that the people who I consider actually from my culture includes Brits, Australians, and South Africans.

That I got to toast to Obama with Brits and Australians!

But I have wanderlust. I'm restless. So now I'm thinking of all the other places I could be visiting, and I want to go there.

So really, even though I'm already living abroad, I want to live vicariously through people who are going to other places.* And I LOVE making plans for travel (even though I know that often I won't follow through and will do something different instead-- that's half the fun, as long as you're seeing new things!). So I get to plan someone else's new life abroad and live vicariously through that. It's great!

I'd love to do that for way more people. Maybe I don't have enough experience to start up a website now, but maybe in a few years. I think I'd really, REALLY enjoy it.




*Which does NOT mean you shouldn't come to Korea, Kat. I would WAY rather have you here than live vicariously through your Germany experience.

So I discovered something interesting on my block: a pizza-parlor-slash-comic-book-store.

For realz. It's totally the same store. Of course, all the books are in Korean, so I can't read them while I wait for the pizza. (I can't call ahead to order 'cause, again, don't speak Korean [yet]. Which is a shame, because there is no such thing as a tip OR a delivery charge here.)

I think this discovery is even more interesting that the boxing gym next door to my apartment that blasts "YMCA" as the manly men inside beat each other to a pulp.

Or you know, actually, maybe it's not.


So, yeah, I'm settling down into Korea OK.

Especially since they took down that sign that was hanging on the wall of the elementary school, that proclaimed "Spare the rod, spoil the child." with a backdrop of a pretty flower-covered field and a blue sky.

Of course, they only took it down because the hanger broke when the water pipe burst on the second story of the English Experience Center, the morning of my first classes ever. We had to have the class in a different building, which considering the fact that our classes were entirely built around the new technology and little mock-kitchens and mock-stores and mock-hospitals in the Experience Center, and thus had to come up with 5 hours of new material off the tops of our heads, is quite substantial.

There were several inches of water. Some teachers were standing on the bottom floor with snow shovels, pushing the water (streaming down the stairs) out the door. All day.

Shockingly, despite the fact that there were tons of COMPUTERS on that floor that had several inches of water on it, nothing was damaged.

Except those picture hangers. They also took down "Eagles don't catch files.", which is a shame.