October 24, 2011

Tahmina notified me that she had not been able to arrange a specific time to meet with the deputy dean, but asked me to meet her at the PedInst at 11:00am nonetheless and she agreed to try and bring me the box of books sent by the State Department to help us teach abroad. When I boarded the trolley, one of the class monitors saw me and invited me to take his seat. He’s the same one that has invited me to his village for the upcoming Little Eid festival taking place the first weekend of November. I’m hoping to convince Caroline to go with me so we can explore at least one region outside of the capital. I had foregone breakfast thinking there was plenty of time to grab lunch across the street before the meeting, but just as I got the cafeteria, Tahmina called to say she was at the corner waiting for me.

                         Old man sweeping leaves in a courtyard

 We proceeded to the dean’s office at about 10:40 and his office was mobbed by students and English professors who had been notified I’d coming in that morning to teach a conversation class. I had not agreed to such thing and felt blindsided when the dean, instead of answering the list of questions I had carefully prepared, tried to shoo me into a classroom by telling me how eager the students were to meet me and have an opportunity to speak to a native English speaker. I was only able to get confirmation that the bathroom with the key belongs to the rector only and not even Tahmina, when she taught there, had access to it. My predecessor didn’t have an office space and I’d have to use the resource room donated by the British Council, and which sits unused by anybody else, as my office. The fact that this room is two buildings away from the English classroom didn’t seem to bother him. There is no listening lab as the equipment included in the Resource Room is old and doesn’t work anymore. I didn’t even have a chance to ask for a whiteboard so I won’t have to deal with the dust from the chalk. Instead, I was escorted to a classroom by the corresponding English professor, who looked like a student himself, and told that the dean himself had chosen the topic for the day: “Money in Our society Today.”

I apologize to the class for my lack of preparation and after a short introduction, had them work as pairs on the topic of what made a good teacher. Their professor didn’t want the students toto spend time writing their answers and wanted me to just ask them questions orally. I persisted by explaining that students needed to use all four skills in order to achieve fluency. Writing is not taught as a formal subject here and thus students can barely put together a cohesive sentence. When they stood up to give me their responses, which I summarize on the board, using a wet sponge to erase, the teacher kept interrupting them and completing their sentences. I asked him to please give them a chance to talk. By noon, I was famished and told the professor he could continue the class, which lasted for 80 minutes, for the next twenty minutes as I had not even had lunch and needed to get something to eat. He seemed none too happy and said that if the students had no questions, class would be over. He didn’t understand when I asked him if the class could be “dismissed”.

I made my way to the Russian cafeteria and found a line stretching to the door. I realized then there was no way I could have lunch and return in time for the 12:30pm class the dean had also arranged. Too bad because I had to eat and find a bathroom quickly. While having my usual soup, salad, bread and some boiled cabbage, the young woman I had met the previous Friday, and who volunteered at the Ismaili Center, came in with a friend and sat at my table. I related what had happened and she offered to try and get a key to the bathroom from the restaurant staff. When we went downstairs and she opened the door, my stomach lurched at the smell and the sight of a filthy squat toilet and an overflowing basket of toilet paper. I sincerely apologized to her, but said I could not set foot in that place. She offered to take me to her office so I could use their bathroom.

Tahmina had brought the box of books and offered to get a student to bring it in and then I could take it to the Resource Room. I decided instead that I wanted the books at home to plan my lessons there and figure I could take a taxi back. Firuza was so nice as to come back into the institute with me and negotiate with the taxi driver, who charged me 15 somonis, so I could get the box home. I started to carry out the box myself and the dean was appalled, begging me to allow him to find another student to carry it to the taxi stand. I told him I was used to moving boxes in all the years of living as a gypsy, but he took off and sent a very tall student to relieve me of the box. When I got home and perused the contents, I found, to my dismay that almost all of the materials require some kind of audio visual equipment to be presented to the class, something I lack completely. The institute doesn’t have an overhead projector, LCD projector, CD player, TV set or DVD player. It feels like being back in Nepal in 2000 where I only had access to chalk. Sometimes at the institute, the students can’t find even that.

Caroline called to inform me she had managed to buy a brand new printer, but had no cable to attach it to her computer as the store was out. I needed to print a few pages for my classes tomorrow and agreed to take my cable and JumpDrive to her house do so. I also needed to stop by the seamstress’ place in the hope that my outfit would be finished this time. When we got there, she was at her sewing machine working on it and seemed sheepish to have to apologize once again for not having it ready. She wanted to show me that she had taken the tunic apart and removed all the pleats in the front that made me look as if I were pregnant. She wanted for me to go back the next day, but I declined. Who knows when it’ll be readied?

                           Pensive girl at the seamstress shop

Corrie had called me to ask me to bring her the winter coat she had left at my house as Tahmina had invited her to go to Gharam with her and present a workshop on celebrating Halloween in the U. S. for the local teachers. All three of us went out to dinner at the nearby cafeteria and I found out, to my delight, that they had liver, and not my favorite soup. The liver was tender and they served it with plenty of sauce to go over the wheat germ I selected to go with it. When we stepped outside, I asked Corrie to please call my landlord, as she speaks Russian, to inform him that I needed a portable radiator to move between the kitchen and the bedroom before the weather turns even colder. It was 48 degrees this morning. He indicated he’d let his wife know and informed me of her decision shortly. I had only brought my heavy shawl with me and felt almost chilled. Caroline offered to lend me one of her heavy sweaters, but I preferred to walk quickly back to my house.

Stopped at Mariam’s apartment before getting to mine and she mimed she had been knocking on my door earlier. The two outfits were almost ready and she had wanted to have me try them on before finishing them. I felt somewhat awkward stripping to my panties and camisole in her kitchen, but she seemed fine with it. She insisted on giving me a pair of warm pink socks to wear around the house, a piece of flat bread decorated with poppy seeds and a generous portion of plov, as I could not eat it at that point. We agreed to go to the bazaar on Sunday morning to buy the ingredients for plov and she’ll teach me how to cook it. I hope Caroline can join us.