BUMP, HAIR, CLOTHES
Last week in my miniscule shower, I dropped the soap. Instead of retrieving it like a normal person would have, by bending my knees, I did a swan dive, head first, and smacked my head against the sink. Perhaps I thought I was in yoga class.
Immediately a bump appeared on my head; it looked like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon. It was enormous and it throbbed. I put some ice on it and I kept the ice on until I arrived at the school to do my training. I took up the ice treatments once I got home. The bump subsided, and this week I have only a small, tender knot above my left eyebrow. The sink however, was destroyed. Just joking. The sink is fine, my head is not that hard!
When I arrived in this little apartment the water stank of sulfur and minerals. That’s been fixed now and I don’t have to rely on perfumed soap and Carolina Herrera perfume to consider myself clean. But this heavy water has done something to my hair. The water is incredibly hard. My fancy shampoo sits on my scalp like a balm and refuses to lather. I and I feel like I’m wearing so many long, dead fish on my head. It is really weird. Out of desperation (may my sister and niece forgive me) I’ve resorted to washing my hair with dishwashing liquid. It lathers, rinses out and manages to get the oil and accumulated dry cells off the bottom of my scalp and leaves my hair smelling faintly lemony. It’s harsh but I use a conditioner afterward. My hair is clean but still lank. I would almost wear a head scarf for this reason only. Even I don’t want to see my hair!
I’ve been training on an insane schedule. I went from visiting schools, (the last visits were in the private sector) to training two days later. The trainings are two hours long so for the first week I was scrambling, training in the mornings, teaching teens in the afternoon and trying to prepare for the next day’s training. I do two trainings in each area and of course the supervisors split the trainings by asking for classroom management for primary, which I hadn’t planned for. Now I’ve done most of the trainings two or three times with the exception of an upcoming grammar workshop. I don’t anticipate any problems with grammar. More than presentation the teachers have trouble with creating activities and making supplementary materials. They have teachers centered classes to the point of absurdity sometimes, every exchange, not matter how banal has to go through them.
In the early trainings the supervisors sat at a kind of dais where I put my materials. Thinking themselves an integral part of the training, they didn’t hesitate to interrupt spouting arcane theory that had nothing to do with the teacher’s daily practice. I was taken aback at first, then I got used to it and learned to ignore them or I would tell them that the training was for the teachers. Some of the supervisors are like my teen students. They want immediate acknowledgement in front of everyone. They want me to agree that Jeremy Harmer’s theory about the roles of the teacher is correct. Worse, some supervisors would take time (my time) to harangue the teachers about teaching grammar communicatively (the same thing they’ve been repeating for the last five, ten or fifteen years) but they never bother to say (or show) how.
The teachers do not want to hear about theory. They like examples of lessons from their curriculum with new techniques or approaches applied to them. This has been a challenge for me but I am glad to report that with the exception of the primary workshops, I am raising to the occasion. I hope to bring a trainer from a neighboring Gulf country in to help me train the primary teachers. I haven’t much to say about teaching young learners, though my degree is in teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages K-12. There is a law that children the first and second grades may not write in English. I heard this was because the Arabic teachers complained about the student’s confusion. In those grades the students trace, color and learn the sounds of the letters. In the third grade they suddenly are faced with reading, writing full sentences and a ton of vocabulary. Understandably third grade teachers are some of the most anxious people I have ever met. This coupled with the fact that the students are often taught in their homerooms if the school does not have an English Club. This means that there is not an opportunity for the teachers to display posters, student or teacher writing, or have books and other printed matter in the classroom. The only element in this society that is remotely consistent is the weird choices that are made and the apartheid for non-westerner foreigners.
There are separate hospitals for Kuwaitis. There are separate rules for work. For example, a non-Kuwaiti teacher can be transferred. A Kuwaiti can’t be transferred.
A Syrian teacher told me he needed medicine for is wife. He took her to the hospital.
She was prescribed medicine. When the teacher asked for the medicine he was told that this medicine was for Kuwaitis only; he’d have to buy it at the pharmacy. And he pays into the health plan!
When I first arrived in Kuwait I regarded the veiled women as women who have made a choice to cover themselves. About a month ago I went out to a mall the end of Kuwait, that is to say, at the end of the earth. The mall is called Al Kut and apparently Kut is the old name for Kuwait. This mall is very beautiful. It is well designed with a lovely almost flat fountain in the center. Many café and eating establishment ring the fountain and one can sit outside and watch jets of water in the fountain ‘dance’ to recorded music.
I was sitting at an outdoor table with my friends and nearby were veiled women eating and drinking. In order to eat the woman prepares a bite-sized morsel, lifts her veil with one hand without revealing anything, and places the food in her mouth.
I was struck at the absurdity of it all. Lately, looking at these veiled women, I feel their message as “Don’t look at me, I don’t exist.” Not all women are veiled of course. While working at the Kuwait International Book Fair I met a woman, completely covered, with her teenaged daughter. The mother remarked that she couldn’t understand why her daughter didn’t want to take the veil, but she was cool about it. She was expressing wonder and surprise. The daughter was modestly but fashionably dressed. When her mom mentioned the veil, she shook her head and wagged her finger “No!” They were at the booth because the daughter wanted to study in the U.S. This was the first time I understood that the veil could be a choice.
Speaking of clothing, I didn’t bring much with me. There were a lot of books I thought I might need, so I sacrificed fashion for wisdom. Because of the need for modesty, I have concocted outfits that I hope I will never have to wear again. Most days I feel like a nun. Thank goodness I can’t post pictures on this blog, not that you would recognize me, it’s that bad! Unfortunately for me, the people here are obsessed with documentation. At a school in the private sector I had to pose with various groups of teachers. When I asked why they all wanted my photo, one teacher responded that I might one day be on CNN, and he wanted to be able to show that he’d met me. I said that if I got on CNN, it would probably be because I was in serious trouble. He didn’t get the joke. Is that black humor?
Immediately a bump appeared on my head; it looked like something out of a Tom and Jerry cartoon. It was enormous and it throbbed. I put some ice on it and I kept the ice on until I arrived at the school to do my training. I took up the ice treatments once I got home. The bump subsided, and this week I have only a small, tender knot above my left eyebrow. The sink however, was destroyed. Just joking. The sink is fine, my head is not that hard!
When I arrived in this little apartment the water stank of sulfur and minerals. That’s been fixed now and I don’t have to rely on perfumed soap and Carolina Herrera perfume to consider myself clean. But this heavy water has done something to my hair. The water is incredibly hard. My fancy shampoo sits on my scalp like a balm and refuses to lather. I and I feel like I’m wearing so many long, dead fish on my head. It is really weird. Out of desperation (may my sister and niece forgive me) I’ve resorted to washing my hair with dishwashing liquid. It lathers, rinses out and manages to get the oil and accumulated dry cells off the bottom of my scalp and leaves my hair smelling faintly lemony. It’s harsh but I use a conditioner afterward. My hair is clean but still lank. I would almost wear a head scarf for this reason only. Even I don’t want to see my hair!
I’ve been training on an insane schedule. I went from visiting schools, (the last visits were in the private sector) to training two days later. The trainings are two hours long so for the first week I was scrambling, training in the mornings, teaching teens in the afternoon and trying to prepare for the next day’s training. I do two trainings in each area and of course the supervisors split the trainings by asking for classroom management for primary, which I hadn’t planned for. Now I’ve done most of the trainings two or three times with the exception of an upcoming grammar workshop. I don’t anticipate any problems with grammar. More than presentation the teachers have trouble with creating activities and making supplementary materials. They have teachers centered classes to the point of absurdity sometimes, every exchange, not matter how banal has to go through them.
In the early trainings the supervisors sat at a kind of dais where I put my materials. Thinking themselves an integral part of the training, they didn’t hesitate to interrupt spouting arcane theory that had nothing to do with the teacher’s daily practice. I was taken aback at first, then I got used to it and learned to ignore them or I would tell them that the training was for the teachers. Some of the supervisors are like my teen students. They want immediate acknowledgement in front of everyone. They want me to agree that Jeremy Harmer’s theory about the roles of the teacher is correct. Worse, some supervisors would take time (my time) to harangue the teachers about teaching grammar communicatively (the same thing they’ve been repeating for the last five, ten or fifteen years) but they never bother to say (or show) how.
The teachers do not want to hear about theory. They like examples of lessons from their curriculum with new techniques or approaches applied to them. This has been a challenge for me but I am glad to report that with the exception of the primary workshops, I am raising to the occasion. I hope to bring a trainer from a neighboring Gulf country in to help me train the primary teachers. I haven’t much to say about teaching young learners, though my degree is in teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages K-12. There is a law that children the first and second grades may not write in English. I heard this was because the Arabic teachers complained about the student’s confusion. In those grades the students trace, color and learn the sounds of the letters. In the third grade they suddenly are faced with reading, writing full sentences and a ton of vocabulary. Understandably third grade teachers are some of the most anxious people I have ever met. This coupled with the fact that the students are often taught in their homerooms if the school does not have an English Club. This means that there is not an opportunity for the teachers to display posters, student or teacher writing, or have books and other printed matter in the classroom. The only element in this society that is remotely consistent is the weird choices that are made and the apartheid for non-westerner foreigners.
There are separate hospitals for Kuwaitis. There are separate rules for work. For example, a non-Kuwaiti teacher can be transferred. A Kuwaiti can’t be transferred.
A Syrian teacher told me he needed medicine for is wife. He took her to the hospital.
She was prescribed medicine. When the teacher asked for the medicine he was told that this medicine was for Kuwaitis only; he’d have to buy it at the pharmacy. And he pays into the health plan!
When I first arrived in Kuwait I regarded the veiled women as women who have made a choice to cover themselves. About a month ago I went out to a mall the end of Kuwait, that is to say, at the end of the earth. The mall is called Al Kut and apparently Kut is the old name for Kuwait. This mall is very beautiful. It is well designed with a lovely almost flat fountain in the center. Many café and eating establishment ring the fountain and one can sit outside and watch jets of water in the fountain ‘dance’ to recorded music.
I was sitting at an outdoor table with my friends and nearby were veiled women eating and drinking. In order to eat the woman prepares a bite-sized morsel, lifts her veil with one hand without revealing anything, and places the food in her mouth.
I was struck at the absurdity of it all. Lately, looking at these veiled women, I feel their message as “Don’t look at me, I don’t exist.” Not all women are veiled of course. While working at the Kuwait International Book Fair I met a woman, completely covered, with her teenaged daughter. The mother remarked that she couldn’t understand why her daughter didn’t want to take the veil, but she was cool about it. She was expressing wonder and surprise. The daughter was modestly but fashionably dressed. When her mom mentioned the veil, she shook her head and wagged her finger “No!” They were at the booth because the daughter wanted to study in the U.S. This was the first time I understood that the veil could be a choice.
Speaking of clothing, I didn’t bring much with me. There were a lot of books I thought I might need, so I sacrificed fashion for wisdom. Because of the need for modesty, I have concocted outfits that I hope I will never have to wear again. Most days I feel like a nun. Thank goodness I can’t post pictures on this blog, not that you would recognize me, it’s that bad! Unfortunately for me, the people here are obsessed with documentation. At a school in the private sector I had to pose with various groups of teachers. When I asked why they all wanted my photo, one teacher responded that I might one day be on CNN, and he wanted to be able to show that he’d met me. I said that if I got on CNN, it would probably be because I was in serious trouble. He didn’t get the joke. Is that black humor?
posted by Roja at 5:47 PM
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