Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

 Today’s article is written for the Reach To Teach Teach Abroad Blog Carnival, a monthly series that focuses on providing helpful tips and advice to ESL teachers around the globe. The host for this month is Heather Richards, here you can find other similar articles. I’ll be posting a new ESL related article to this blog on the 5th of every month. Check back for more articles, and if you’d like to contribute to next month’s Blog Carnival, please get in touch with Dean at dean@reachtoteachrecruiting.com, and he’ll let you know how you can start participating!

______________________________________________________________

Slow travel is the best travel to me. It's hard to come by, and I think any travel is better than none, but to me, a quick week in Istanbul or a few days in Athens is so unsatisfactory. I'm left with some good times, great photos, and a yearning to learn so much more. 

Slow travel gives you a chance to be acquainted. You get a favorite little shop, and routes that you walk. You get a routine. If you are volunteering or teaching, you have responsibilities and deadlines and a work schedule. This might sound like the opposite of travel - all of the terrible daily regular life stuff that you were running from. But in a new country these little slices of "regular" life feel fresh and different. You name all your favorite stray animals. You know which store sells the cheapest eggs or which restaurant won't make you sick. 

 I travel to know the culture just as much as to see the sights. To me, coming away with an experience with local culture is far more important than a selfie in front of Big Ben (though I've definitely done that and I am not ashamed at all).

 A week in a place teaches nothing cultural except perhaps how people react to lost tourists. (Unofficial Observations: Yerevan is really friendly, but they don't usually speak English. In the Dominican Republic they will help you and then make you pay them by using guilt or persistence.) 

I think my love of slow travel is connected to the anthropologist in me. (Full disclosure: I'm in graduate school for anthropology right now!) Anthropologists have to spend two years in a different community and get at least one disease. They stay for around two years so they may see situations repeated - New Year's Celebrations, birthday parties, harvest rituals. They get a disease so they can have bragging rights. (Check!)  They study traditions and religion, local economies and kinship, gender relations and agriculture. The point is that the anthropologist, while always an outsider, should be so familiar to everyone as to be almost invisible. A part of the landscape. This familiarity allows them to understand and have access to the culture in a way which would not be possible for a tourist or distinguished guest.

The familiarity of schedule can do the same. It is only through routine and repetition that you as the traveler start to see patterns. I learned when my neighbors burned trash and when the preachers led revivals. I literally timed my evening walks by when the cows came home (have you tried to take a walk through a herd of cows? It's not pleasant). 

The benefit of slow travel is that you come away knowing something. You don't come away with just a fun story and a new profile picture, you don't come away with just a whirlwind idea of old churches and sweeping landscapes, you come away with knowledge, knowledge that changes you and your perceptions.

 Maybe the knowledge changes you because you've realized that how you do things isn't "normal" or "natural", it's cultural. Maybe the great scope of a history and people that you never knew about humbles you. Maybe knowing your neighbor's story shifts your priorities. Maybe you discover new passions from learning of art or music you never knew about. Maybe your heart breaks a little, and maybe it rejoices. 

My professor once told me a story about how World Bank officials, who make huge decisions about foreign aid, will be sent to stay in the place they may be allocating aid to. The length of that stay? Usually around three days. Three days.

In three days, you might be able to pick up several new facts and five new misconceptions about the people you are staying with. In three months, all of your preconceived notions and outsider biased misconceptions are shattered (hopefully) and through experience and relationship and study, you actually know a little about what that place and that community is about

Why I love anthropology is because it is firmly against outsider arrogance. Anthropologists don't claim to know a place until they have been there for years. And even after years, they would never presume to truly understand what living in that culture means. They are always aware of outsider bias.

We praise travel as a means to destroy prejudice, but "quick" travel can build it as well as destroy it. What does someone who spends a week in Port-au-Prince, Haiti actually know about the Haitian lived experience? What do they know from a week spent in museums Paris or Shanghai about the culture and values? Nothing probably, but now they think they know something.

 Assumed knowledge is more dangerous than self-aware ignorance.

(It's also just obnoxious. I know. I was almost that person.) 

I could give examples of times when assumed knowledge was dangerous -  from historical colonial rule or anthropology or recent international development, but then you would be depressed. 

I lived for six months in Peru, four months in Georgia and another four in the Dominican Republic. I do not presume to fully know the lived experience of being Peruvian or Georgian or Dominican. But through study, reading, immersion, and really just time, time spent in long, slow days sitting on stoops and around kitchen tables, I did come away with knowledge that changed me. The sense of healing from violence and connections with the land in Peru, the ancient depth of history and pride in Georgia, the constant hustle and social intensity in the Dominican Republic. I don't know much, but I know something. And I know far more than from my whirlwind trips through Istanbul, the Greek isles and Armenia.

Quick travel can be amazing. It can be fun and life changing. It can be a needed escape or relaxation or mind-shift. It can raise questions about what you are seeing and experiencing, but remember, you aren't always getting answers. You aren't always getting depth of knowledge. I'll always choose quick travel if the alternative is no travel, and often those are the choices. But slow travel memories are my favorites. Slow travel is what made me who I am. 

Maybe you don't care about cultural insights, or culture at all. Maybe you really do just want to see sights and nothing more. Well, I think you are entirely missing the point and also missing out on a lot of fun, embarrassing stories, friendships and changes to grow. But you probably think I'm an overly academic weirdo who probably made up their field (anthropology, what??), so I guess we're even. 

Maybe you would love to experience slow travel and gain cultural insights, but don't have the time. Often, life is too fast for slow travel - or even slow travel might not feel like enough time. How do we slow our travel down enough to garner meaningful cultural insights and come away with some local knowledge?

Some slowness tips:

1. Read. Get a novel or an in-depth non-fiction account about the place you are visiting. NOT a travel guide - those are well and good, but I'm talking about an in-depth cultural study. Get something by a local author if possible. Or maybe the book that every school kid is required to read while there, whatever the locals find essential reading. Read it before you go if you can, as it will open your eyes to phenomenon you otherwise might overlook.  I read Bread and Ashes while in Georgia, and In the Time of the Butterflies and Feast of the Goat  after my time in the Dominican Republic (I couldn't find them in country - but after is better than nothing!). 

2. Have a free day. If you are only passing through, but have a little extra time, build in a non-scheduled day. If you are there for a few months but are kept super busy, clear your calendar for a day. Don't sight see, don't go on a tour, don't call home. Just wander. Sit in the square. Take a walk. Talk to vendors. Read that book in a plaza. Run a few small errands. 

3. Study the language. This is touted all of the time, and it's true that you cannot understand a culture without understanding a language. Study before you go and while you are there. Even just a few phrases will help. Slow down by having a slow, stilted, grammatically erroneous conversation with a local. 

4. Ask a local AND do the tourist stuff. Sometimes, locals never get around to their own tourist sights (I've done that...), but they might know the very best little pub. Tourists sights are usually popular for a reason and bring insights of their own (here's looking at you Hagia Sophia - you blew my mind.) Try to do both. 

So take it slow. Sip your tea. Chat with your neighbor if that's culturally appropriate. Read books. Be open to change.

And maybe study a little anthropology while you're at it. 

Chemi Megobari (My Friend)

Today’s article is written for the Reach To Teach Teach Abroad Blog Carnival, a monthly series that focuses on providing helpful tips and advice to ESL teachers around the globe. The host for this month is Jamie Phillips. I'll be posting a new ESL-related article on my blog at the start of every month, and the carnival is always published on the 5th by that month's host. Check back for more articles, and if you'd like to contribute to next month's Blog Carnival, please contact Dean at dean@reachtoteachrecruiting.com, and he will let you know how you can start participating!

Friendships on the road are interesting things. Everything is moving quickly, and the person who was a stranger one second survives a careening bus nearly slamming into your shared taxi the next and you are suddenly best friends! But these friendships can sometimes fade away just as quickly, when after a night of wine and deep conversation in the hostel your new friend leaves for Istanbul in the morning and you head to Yerevan.

Longer term stays abroad give you more time for building friendships. They also give you more time to build up immunity to blatant staring, mistranslations, and exciting animal parts for breakfast. 

My best friend when I lived in the country of Georgia is someone I'll call James. Her name isn't actually James (and she is actually a female) but the Georgians called her something like that, so we'll go with it. James and I roomed together during our teacher training, were assigned to villages not far apart, and used our little Nokia phones to talk every single day. You would think we didn't have enough news to talk every single day, but we did. Chickens fought, teachers tried to marry us off to their sons, confusion arose. She came over to my host family's house for my 23rd birthday, when we had only arrived a week before, barely spoke Georgian and had no idea how to act. We were awkward together. We went to Batumi, the city on the Black Sea coast and got hopelessly lost and still managed to have a lovely time. 

James is from a small town in the northern mid-west and she's traveled almost every where. She saved cats in Guatemala and studied hallucinogenic drugs in Peru and went to math class in Germany. At least, that's how I remember the stories. James didn't take crap from nobody, and that's the kind of person you want to travel with.

We exchanged ridiculous text messages to get us through hour long supras (the toasting feasts of abundant alcohol). She took it in stride when shirtless Russian men approached us, or when she had to travel solo to meet us far in the mountains. James was a mastermind behind the great Mattress Carrying Caper. James stayed calm at all kinds of border crossings. James rejected the hands of Georgian suitors. 

During my time in Georgia, I also fell head over heels for a foreign mountain man and spent the majority of my time traveling with him and James. He and I were one of those obnoxious couples, but James was always chill about it. James gave us our space without rolling her eyes and cut our hair in a hostel in Armenia. The three of us did Christmas together in Istanbul and then just James and I went on to Greece, while Mountain Man returned to wandering mountains. 

We grabbed a bus into Athens and then found ourselves outside the bus stop, no Euros in our pocket and no place to exchange our money anywhere in sight. We were in the gray, asphalt wastelands of what I term the Athens Bus Desert, a place that chills the most Greek-loving soul. James remained calm and some kindly Greek people helped us. 

We took photos of each other at the Parthenon and made our way to Santorini, one of the Greek Islands. We took a hundred photos from the ferry and had a small giggling, squeal fest when we were actually on the shuttle up the cliffside. And we aren't the giggly types. We reveled in our inexpensive, gloriously clean hotel room and the views of the ocean. The next day we were stranded by the unreliable island bus system, and left to walk for hours along the road until we were picked up by a nice man who spoke to us about rabbit hunting.  We ate octopus by the sea. We saw waterspouts weaving through the ocean. I remember Santorini for its strange off-season abandoned feeling, the smell of the sea, and the beauty so striking it stung. 

It rained during one of our walks around the island, but James was prepared with an umbrella. 

James may get upset with Georgian manners and capricious children, but the only time I saw her truly angry was New Years Eve, which we celebrated in an Irish Pub in Athens with a bunch of Canadians. We followed the Canadians to a club and it was a terrible, crowded expensive place and James was angry. Rightly so, James.

We had to say goodbye the next day, I feeling sickly and exhausted,  heart aching from loss of the Mountain Man, boarded a long bus to Istanbul and then Tbilisi. James prepared to travel solo to Thessaloniki where she met a Peruvian man and they got married. That last part isn't true, but I would have been only slightly shocked. 

There are some people that come to define a time in your life. James was my person for my four months in the Caucuses. We drank wine in chilly nights in the mountains, stayed in countless hostels together, and forgave each other for lack of showering. James rapped Kanye's "Gold Digger" in the streets of Yerevan around midnight. It was oddly inspiring. 

Mountain Man came and went in my life, but it's James who I still send weird articles to about Georgia. And when I think of those months in the villages, I see myself walking down my town's main road, kicking up leaves and hoping a dog doesn't chase me, talking on my little Nokia phone to James. We were probably discussing our scores on the Snake game or planning our next trip. We were also likely complaining about strange food, cold bedrooms, and tummy troubles. 

I miss those days.  

Why ESL Teaching?

"Decision making process: how and why you decided to become an ESL teacher?" 

 Today’s article is written for the Reach To Teach Teach Abroad Blog Carnival, a monthly series that focuses on providing helpful tips and advice to ESL teachers around the globe. The host for this month is ‘Sarah Steinmetz‘, here you can find other similar articles. I’ll be posting a new ESL related article to this blog on the 5th of every month. Check back for more articles, and if you’d like to contribute to next month’s Blog Carnival, please get in touch with me at dean@reachtoteachrecruiting.com, and I’ll let you know how you can start participating!'

Honestly, my primary reason to teach English abroad was because I wanted to travel. I wanted an adventure and an ESL job could get me there. This article talks about how wrong that is as a driving force. But it wasn't my only driving force - I was very interested in international education and study abroad and, at the time, my goal was to become a study abroad adviser. Teaching English abroad seemed a good way to get my foot in the door with international education, and I had a lot of experience being a teacher and camp counselor with kids. I could see myself in a little study abroad office in some prestigious college, the nicely dressed young professional, helping excited college students choose a destination as we discussed programs in Peru, China and France. I could live vicariously through them, I could help mold young minds by facilitating their adventures, I could maybe use my job as a means to visit those countries! 

But every single study abroad job wanted two years of experience or a Masters. Oh the dreaded combination - I see it as a formula guarding the door to every "entry level" position "2yrs experience or MS = job".  I applied for study abroad and teaching abroad jobs simultaneously, spreading the net wide. I finally found a study abroad related job that was actually entry level and made it to the final round of interviews - I lost out to the other person because I had less international experience. Well, teaching abroad it was then. 

My plan was always to graduate college, work/volunteer/travel abroad and then head back to grad school for international education/non-profit management/international development/anthropology (I wasn't quite sure yet - the years abroad were supposed to help with that). I initially wanted to teach in South America, but their semester started in July and I had a great summer internship I didn't want to leave. I also didn't have much money and wanted a program that paid for flights or visa fees or SOMETHING so I didn't arrive broke. Leaving broke was one thing, arriving broke was just too sad. So where was the program that started in August, paid for some expenses and smacked of adventure and the unknown? 

In my intensive research (really, I spent hours every day) I stumbled upon a program in the country of Georgia. I had never heard much about this country. It was obscure. It was tiny. It was apparently full of moonshine and dancing with swords and really beautiful alphabet. (You can read about my pre-travel impressions here.) They paid for your flight, you didn't need a visa, and you got a small but livable salary. I started learning Georgian phrases and mentally packing my bags. I read every blog on Georgia and ESL teaching I could find. I flew through the interviews riding my enthusiasm, got an offer, accepted the offer, and started actually packing all within a few weeks. My parents were supportive, only adding the caveat to "please don't marry some Eastern European man who we can't communicate with at all".  I assured them I would only marry someone who at least spoke basic English. 

My plan at the time went something like - Go to Georgia for a semester. Teach English. Go to South America. Teach English and improve Spanish. Either get a better job teaching or with a non-profit and apply to graduate schools for the yet-to-be-determined awesome program which I will definitely be accepted to because I will have all of this international experience.

Strangely and unexpectedly enough, my plan worked. I went to Georgia and it blew my mind. I adventured, I was humbled, I had a whirlwind romance, I traveled and yes, I drank a lot of moonshine and danced. I also taught English to the best of my ability, swapping strategies with my fellow ESL teachers and researching games and activities. I loved (most) of my students and (most) of my co-teachers and it was a grand experience. I then headed off to the Dominican Republic which started with teaching English preschool and then turned into teaching Spanish elementary school and adult English and working as a non-profit assistant. Flexibility is key. I then found a job in New Orleans with a larger non-profit that I love, decided on international development AND anthropology as my Masters, and was accepted into my top-choice program.

 It still blows my mind that I'm following the plan that my senior college self made over mojitos with my roommates. 

So for me, teaching abroad was a great way to enter (what was then) my career of choice, and a path to travel and adventure. I didn't end up going into education, but I don't regret my time spent as a teacher. I would recommend anyone who is seriously interested in teaching or education and desires an adventure to look into ESL teaching abroad. As long as you enter it with the right attitude, humbly, open-minded, and ready to work hard, it can change your life. 

Mistake Making

Today’s article is written for the Reach To Teach Teach Abroad Blog Carnival, a monthly series that focuses on providing helpful tips and advice to ESL teachers around the globe. The host for this month is Vanessa Long, here you can find other similar articles. I’ll be posting a new ESL related article to this blog on the 5th of every month. Check back for more articles, and if you’d like to contribute to next month’s Blog Carnival, please get in touch with me at dean@reachtoteachrecruiting.com, and I’ll let you know how you can start participating!

I made so many daily little mistakes in the different countries I have taught in - cultural faux pas, language mishaps, that time I accidentally dropped all my underwear in my neighbors yard... 

In the classroom, I'm sure I made just as many mistakes. I made the mistake in the country of Georgia of doing an English "tournament". Well, I'm not sure if it was a mistake or not - the kids loved games, but those that were good at English were so absolutely devastated if they did not win. I thought the tournament would be fun for everyone and give the students who weren't the best at English a chance to win small prizes along with the better students.  Instead, I had a bunch of crying children - the good students who usually aced the tests- who hadn't been quick enough on the games and were now sobbing over it. I felt terrible. Maybe they didn't have the concept of "just for fun" competition over there? Lesson learned was to ask more if they had ever had a precedent of that sort of thing, and make sure to explain how it was for fun only, and not a reflection of how smart my students were. 

In the Dominican Republic, I was thrown into a Creole speaking pre-school classroom where I not only taught English, but Spanish, writing, and math. I had no idea what I was doing (I had signed up to be an English teacher in an immersion school, but that had fallen through). I came expecting it to be like Georgia, where I had support from other teachers and was told what were the classroom rules to follow, etc. Instead, my very first day there I was told to stand up and teach with no preamble at all. My mistake was not stopping right then and there and asking "what are the rules? What form of discipline do you use? Can I watch others teach for a day?" I should have been bolder and asked more questions at the beginning, instead of letting myself be rushed along. I struggled with classroom management every day and felt that I couldn't ask questions because now it may reflect badly on my organization. When I finally did ask questions everyone was happy to help - but I should have been asking from the beginning. 

So just ask a lot of questions. About everything, all the time. Take the risk of being that annoying foreigner, because in the end, that's what will set you up for success. 

First Grade

პირველი კლასის

Today’s article is written for the Reach To Teach Teach Abroad Blog Carnival, a monthly series that focuses on providing helpful tips and advice to ESL teachers around the globe. I'll be posting a new ESL related article on my blog on the 5th of every month. 

When I was teaching elementary school in the country of Georgia I was always accompanied by a co-teacher. Our program strictly dictated that we did not teach a class without a Georgian teacher in the room – but in the realities of Georgia this didn’t always happen. Time was fluid there, and schedules, and electricity and appropriate alcohol consumption and…many things. One day I went into my 1^st grade classroom and waited for my co-teacher to show up with the lesson plan. But she didn’t. It was ten minutes past the start of class time and 25 tiny people sat in their desks and stared at me eagerly. I wasn’t allowed to be in here alone. But I couldn’t very well leave a gaggle of 6-year olds while I went on a wild goose chase for a teacher that could understand my broken Georgian enough to help me out. I didn’t have a plan, I was still new, and the little ones looked at me with expectant faces, wiggling in their chairs. Mutiny would brew if I didn’t move quickly.

So I taught my very first 1^st grade class.

We did hand motions, we sang songs, we drew with chalk. We had no common language but everyone was attentive and still alive and actually learning something! No one ate their eraser or hit another kid or started an impromptu and rowdy drum circle (which had happened in other classes).

I never actually found out what happened to my co-teacher, but from then on, 1^st grade was my very own class. A Georgian faculty member would sit in the back reading or looking on, but I taught the class. I used wiggle breaks and stickers and smiley faces and songs and those little tiny things, with no knowledge of reading or writing or English at all, learned their alphabet and numbers and colors and Wheels on the Bus and how to draw hand turkeys.  I worked hard in all my classes (I taught through the 6^th grade) but 1^st grade was my very own and I was so proud of them.

What I've Learned in the ESL Classroom

Today’s article is written for the Reach To Teach Teach Abroad Blog Carnival, a monthly series that focuses on providing helpful tips and advice to ESL teachers around the globe. I'll be posting a new ESL related article on my blog on the 5th of every month. Check back for more articles, and if you'd like to contribute to next month's Blog Carnival please get in touch with me in the comments, and I'll let you know how you can start participating! You can read other blogger's posts from the carnival here!

I taught English to 1st through 6th graders in the country of Georgia, in a small town school that was often without electricity but did have a computer lab.  From there I went to the Dominican Republic, where I taught pre-schooler - 2nd grade in a one room, tin-roofed school house in a Haitian batey, where the heat gave you a headache by around noon. I also taught adults in the evening. Let me tell you, a lot was learned during this year. Now, I could go on about how inspired I was by my students, and I often was, and this could get really touchy-feely really fast - but I want this space to be an honest one, to tell it to ya straight. ESL can be hard, cultural differences are hard, and teaching was often one of the most difficult things I ever did. So with no softening, here are some lessons I learned in the ESL classroom.

1. how to break up fights

In Georgia, play fighting was normal and smiled upon, but it could get out of hand really fast. I had co-teachers that weren't supposed to leave me alone with the kids, but inevitably something would come up and it would be up to me to stop the escalating play shoving. In the DR, my little ones would fight over crayons. Distraction is key and also, being able to lift at least 50 pounds. Make sure you always have enough supplies for everyone and it makes things easier if they are all the same (like little bags of crayons for each kid with the same colors in them).

2. cultural push-back - sometimes you can't assimilate

In the Dominican Republic, parents would come by our open-door school house and if they saw children being rowdy they would tell me to hit the kids. No. I know that in that Haitian immigrant community it was normal and expected for parents and relatives to hit their children and often for teachers to do the same. I wasn't going to start a campaign for different disciplinary methods, but I certainly wasn't going to join in. Aside from my own ethical issues with teachers hitting kids, it would have been very, very inappropriate for a visiting, foreign teacher to do so. This was one cultural rule I was not going to follow. I stood my ground and parents looked at me askance, but there was no way I would lay a hand on a child in a violent manner. (Except once when I thought one of them was choking on a crayon...but he was ok!). While this was an extreme circumstance, I learned that cultural immersion doesn't always mean "just going with the flow", sometimes you have to make a stand for what is right for you and your work in the community.

But do learn the vocabulary that teachers use to tell their students to sit, stand, be quiet, etc. I didn't speak Georgian when I came to Georgia, or Haitian Creole when I went to live in an immigrant community. But I certainly learned command words fast!

Still I tried not to yell commands often, and instead of shouting and hitting, I used...

3. the power of smiley faces and stickers

My Georgian kids would do anything for the little smiley face I would draw on their papers if they did well. The better the work, the better the smiley face. I would also write little English phrases (great job! Good work!) that they would compare. Stickers also worked wonders to have the little ones behave - taking a sticker away from a 1st grader that won't sit down when you ask is a powerful deterrent.

4. energy, energy, energy

I think the only time my Haitian pre-schoolers were really engaged was when I was running around the concrete floor, over-heated classroom singing about baby sharks. It was exhausting. We played a lot of running games in our tiny space and a lot of "find the red card!" which I would hide around the room. I taught half the day (and worked in a shop the rest of the day, then taught in the evenings) and still needed a lunchtime siesta.

They expected a slightly more sedate classroom in Georgia, but those kids had just as much energy. So with my Georgian 1st graders I did "wiggle breaks" where we would all stand by our desks and wiggle. "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" and the "wheels on the bus" were also favorites. The more energy I could bring to the table, the better class went. And while this was most apparent with kids, it stood true for adult classes too!

5. be sassy

This is especially true for adult classes. My very first time teaching adults I stood up in front of 20 young Haitian men, a few who were probably there just to get a glimpse of  "la gringa flaca", and was shaking inside. But outside, I was firm. I demanded respect. I kicked one young man out of class for listening to his ipod, telling him that if his music was more important than what I was saying, he could go. When the young guys kept asking for ways to pick up women in English I told them I would not help them get a girlfriend and to stop shouting at gringas. After they understood that I wasn't the little skinny white girl who could be pushed around, we had a great time! I set the standard for behavior, and the class picked up on it - if you got teased for being late, you stopped being late. If everyone called you out for talking over me, you stopped talking over me. My adult class was my favorite ESL experience and I truly enjoyed my students.

6. you will make mistakes. It will be ok.

Oh man, the mistakes that were made! I would come home berating myself for not planning better, not realizing that activity wouldn't work, for forgetting some materials, etc etc. Mistakes will happen. Be flexible, be gentle with yourself. Teaching ESL is scary and you are human. Do what is best for you and best for your class and go home at the end of the day, have a good cry if you need it, and try again tomorrow.

7. dance

I love dancing. Guess what? So do most kids, especially when they are still young enough to not be self-conscious. Dance breaks got me through a lot of pre-school classes. Turn on some English songs and dance with your students. You'll feel better, they'll feel better.

9. be super flexible

I don't mean yoga. I would plan for class every day, and every day it would end up being different. Either my kids hadn't grasped the last lesson, or my adults felt it was more pressing to learn clothing related words than weather related words. Listen to them. You are there for them. I always held my plans loosely, and was ok giving up half the lesson for review. If they don't get the basics well, what is the point of me being there anyway? This lesson has carried over well into my current non-ESL life - make your plans, but don't hold them tightly.

So break up fights, navigate culture with a firm stance, bring energy, bring stickers, bring dancing, forgive yourself and keep it loose.

Once Upon a Hostel

Today’s article is written for the Reach To Teach Teach Abroad Blog Carnival, a monthly series that focuses on providing helpful tips and advice to ESL teachers around the globe. I'll be posting a new ESL related article on my blog on the 5th of every month. Check back for more articles, and if you'd like to contribute to next month'sBlog Carnival, please get in touch with me in the comments, and I'll let you know how you can start participating! 



I spent Christmas in Istanbul, which is weird. The only signs that much of the world was currently celebrating were some lights and a lot of very creepy Santa robots. Christmas Eve my friends and I found a mass in Turkish, English and Italian. We exchanged gifts on Christmas day and ran around the city looking for peppermint, which we never found...not even in Turkish Delight. It was my first ever Christmas away from home and I was a little disappointed, missing my family, and sad about the upcoming goodbye from my then boyfriend. 

We decided to go to bed early as we all had buses to catch the next day. We met our hostel roommates, a West African, a Frenchman and an American who was The Hostel Guy (every hostel has one...a guy who came and just never left so now they work there). In our rickety metal bunks we all tried to shut out the bar music and settle in to our over-heated room. 

Around 3 am we were rudely woken up by a returning resident - he loudly and drunkenly slammed into his bed, fell over, finally climbed up to his top bunk and collapsed. We tried to still our startled hearts and return to sleep. 

Fifteen minutes later we heard the sound of a chainsaw being used within the sticky mud of a swamp. And by this I mean the drunk man was loudly, moistly snoring. He would pause for a few moments and then reach deep into his chest and pull a loud rumble through his mucus filled sinuses and deliver it to us all. Then he would seem to stop breathing for much longer than anyone should, until he hacked his way back to the land of the living with a grunt that shook the walls. Five minutes into this and my bunk-mate was giggling. Five minutes more and we were all becoming worried that the next snore would be his last. "Maybe we should turn him over?" I suggested.

The Hostel Guy, who was in the bunk under him, stood up in only his undies, rake-thin and bearded, and nudged Drunk Guy. "What the bloody 'ell?" Drunk Guy pontificated. "Uhm...you're snoring a lot dude..." "Yeh, well, ok."

Ten minutes later we were all wishing the man would just snort up his nasal passages and be done with it. Instead Hostel Guy skipped the waking up part and just flipped Drunk Guy on his back so we could all stop worrying about him choking to death. This made absolutely no change. My Travel Buddy nudged his feet a few times to wake him back up. He muttered some curses. Nothing we were trying worked and in the sort of telepathic conferences that sometimes happen when random groups of people meet in dire circumstances, we all came to the consensus that we wouldn't be sleeping that night unless Something Was Done. 

"Maybe we could just move his mattress out into the hall?" Someone suggested. I don't remember who, but it wasn't me. My Travel Buddy spearheaded the effort - "lets just all pick up his mattress and move it! Come on!" She carefully climbed down from her bunk. The Hostel Guy was in. Frenchman stood up, also only in white-tighties, but no one was complaining about his near nudity at the moment (or probably at any other moment, in fact). My then boyfriend (fully clothed) climbed down to help. The West African refused to get involved, stating that he thought it was a bad idea, and I stood by as witness.

Now, moving a sleeping/drunk man without his consent is probably a bad idea. However, you take people that are frustrated and sleep-deprived enough and they will find a solution to a noise problem, no matter how ethically ambiguous it is.  The Intrepid Problem Solvers placed themselves around the mattress, their shoulders just coming to the bunk bed frame. They slowly eased the mattress from the frame, pausing when Drunk Guy snorted particularly loud. Finally it was off the bed frame - I snapped a photo and almost died of asphyxiation from trying not to laugh. The Problem Solvers carried the still sleeping man and the mattress to the doorway and realized - it wouldn't fit. They slowly lowered it to the floor and stared down at the Man. Now what? 

Suddenly, the Manager arrived.
"What is going on here?!" He whisper-yelled. The Problem Solvers looked like kids caught stealing. "Uhmmm..." French guy spoke up, "He was snoring so loud and we thought..."

The full weight of how bad of an idea this was fell on all of us.

"Would you like it if someone did this to you!?" The manager actually yelled. Drunk Guy woke up. "Waazzz happening?" 

"You tell him!" The manager glared at the group. The most awkward silence I have ever encountered followed.

"Hey man," Hostel Guy took one for the team. "You were snoring really loudly and we thought you could just...sleep somewhere else...so we thought we could move you..."

"Yeah ok." Drunk Guy got up. 

"How would you feel if someone did this to you?" The manager asked us again, glaring. Then he left, the Drunk Guy swaying after him. 

All was quiet. And in our shared crime, our diverse little group had bonded and we went on to traipse across EurAsia together. Well, not the last part, but there was a real bond.

If you enjoyed this bit of frivolity, check out other stories from the Reach to Teach series by following this link here!

How Living Abroad Makes You a Better Person

Today’s article is written for the Reach To Teach Teach Abroad Blog Carnival, a monthly series that focuses on providing helpful tips and advice to ESL teachers around the globe. I'll be posting a new ESL related article on my blog on the 5th of every month. Check back for more articles, and if you'd like to contribute to next month's Blog Carnival, please get in touch with me at dingleym@gmail.com, and I'll let you know how you can start participating! 



"What is my life?"

I asked myself that a lot when I was abroad - not in an existential "meaning of life" sort of way but in a "how did I end up riding in a purple van down a country road in Eastern Europe with a bunch of drunk and singing locals at 2 am on a Wednesday" sort of way. The happy, the awful, the ridiculous, it all piled together into bright colors and voices and the smells of city streets, cow poop, homemade wine, ocean breeze, coca tea. I wondered what my life was, and how I would tell these stories. I didn't wonder, not nearly as often as I should have, who I was. Who I was becoming, the person I was creating by choosing this life of travel. But it has shaped me, for better or worse, and I think mostly better. 

I am a huge advocate of travel, for everyone. Whether it be the next town over or the next continent, travel teaches us about humanity. Not to pull an "AP essay trick" but I'm about to quote a famous but mostly noncontroversial American author-  Mark Twain once said:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

More specifically than just traveling, bopping around through hostels or booking a vacation once a year, living abroad can truly change you. Some people say it's not living abroad unless you are there for a year. I think it's being anywhere for a month or more where it's not vacation - somewhere you have a job, get a paycheck, have responsibilities, habits, daily schedules, connections. When you budget down to your very last peso to make it until your next payday and know exactly which colmado has the cheapest black beans, when you pick which path to take back from school depending on whether or not the cows are being herded yet or you spotted that crazy neighbor on her porch. Certainly, the longer you stay the more living you did. But living isn't only counted in time.

I've gained a number of strange quirks from traveling, and I certainly have not exorcised all my bad habits (like talking about myself too much - oh wait, I have a blog...helpful redirection or indulgence?) but I believe I have become a better person by living abroad, and I'm sure many other travelers would back that up. Some ways that I believe living abroad makes us all better - 

1. Humility 

When you are in a culture you don't fully understand, speaking a language not your own (or not speaking it), you might as well be five years old. It's humbling (and sometimes humiliating) to be spoken to like a toddler, left out of decisions because you won't understand, depending on the goodness of others for even the smallest of tasks. This came out the most when I lived with host families, first in Peru, then in the country of Georgia. They held my hand to cross the street, did all the talking for me, told me to change clothes when it was cold and chuckled at my attempts to assert my maturity. It's worse in places where you don't speak the language, you can't argue your point, defend or explain yourself or give any retort when they look at you with a face of condescension and pity. 

Even harder though was having things that were respected back home get nothing but a shrug. Did my neighbors in the Dominican Republic care that I had traveled, did well in university, held competitive internships? Nope. They just looked down on me for not being able to cook traditional Dominican food, not growing out my hair and not having a man. Feminism, independence, degrees and my tricky swing dance moves that got me invites to parties back home meant nothing to them. 

The most humbling was when I argued with my host family in Georgia about being sick. They didn't believe in germs, didn't listen to my warnings about spreading my throat infection, told me it was due to me showering at night, thought I was ridiculous for missing a party when I was shaking with fever and ignored my attempt at "I told you so" when they got sick from sharing unwashed water glasses. So even my elementary grasp of basic science leads to nothing but derision? How's a girl to get respect around here other than marrying the next door neighbor who wears Bill Cosby sweaters and making lots of Georgian babies?

 But it isn't all frustrating cultural stories - staring up at snow-capped mountains, wandering in perfectly built ancient cities, feeling lost in the majesty of the Hagia Sophia or in the midst of chanting in a tiny chapel - this is humbling. Realizing the plethora of music, poetry, art that I have never even heard of, the great stories I have never known. My stories, culture, childhood is just another among billions – nothing says that more than a foreign country, proud in its ancient history of conquests and kingdoms, that can’t care less that you do things differently. Opening up to their story is humbling in a healthy way. We are one of many, and many have gone before. 

2. Resourcefulness

Living abroad, whether it's in a posh apartment in Paris or in a hut in South America, draws on your resourcefulness. You must be resourceful in communicating, in doing all that pesky visa paperwork, in making new friends cross-culturally. I spent a lot of time in Georgia communicating via broken Georgian, hand-motions, google translate, photographs and random Italian and Spanish words. Long conversations were exhausting. 

Throw in a developing economy and somewhat shaky infrastructure and resourcefulness multiplies. We built a "sofa" in the DR out of mattresses and old sheets. One of my culinary creations was from Ramen noodles, onion, and beef jerky snacks someone gave me. (When you are on a budget...) (The Haitian kids I taught were even more amazing - creating toys out of discarded suitcases, old tin cans, scraps of wood.) Living abroad draws on sources of creativity that you never had to tap into before. 

3. Independence

Living abroad, especially at first, you are often totally dependent on the goodwill of those around you. But at times you must strike out on your own without the support system you are used to, often without the language you are used to, the cultural standards you are used to and definitely not the traffic rules you are used to. Living abroad helps you be independent in many ways, and figuring out transportation, whether to cross borders or just get across town, required the most independence I've ever had to muster. By the time I could use the Tbilisi metro without checking the map fifty times I was so proud I could burst. (Don't worry, I was humble again when I realized I had been taking the wrong marshutka, the one that required me to walk half an hour home, for a month. I could have been dropped off nearly at my door). Figuring out Peruvian micros and mototaxis, Georgian marshutkas, Dominican carritos - it all took a huge leap of faith, and a lot of getting lost and asking total strangers for help. But now, as I have just moved to a new city I feel confident enough to drive around, get lost, attempt the buses, explore. Public transportation isn't for the faint of heart, especially when you can't even fully pronounce your destinations name, but it will breed in you a feeling of freedom and independence like no other. If you can figure out how to get around, then you're free. You can come and go as you like and no matter how much of a child you feel in your Georgian village, a wide world awaits you and no one can stop you from going. 

Living abroad forces independence on you, taking you far from your support system and throwing you straight into the jungle. And that independence has to hold too - the support network may be waiting back home, but they will never truly understand your experiences when you return a different person. And to me the first step to independence is getting on that grimy, half-broken piece of machinery they call a bus and taking it where you will. 

5. Skills

Maybe you would say skills don't make you a better person - then I would say, ok, but if you were stuck on a desert island who would be the better person, the really nice guy or the guy who knew how to make fish hooks out of his toenails? Who would be saving the lives then, huh? While you might not learn life saving techniques abroad, you will pick up skills, some that you might have never known you needed. The skills I can add to my Resume of Life (which is waaaay more interesting than my Resume of Work) are Traditional Georgian dancing, cooking rice the Haitian way, hand washing bedding in a bucket, rejecting men in various cultural contexts, chasing away dogs, chickens and (gently) children, drinking wine out of a ram's horn and looking good without much opportunity to bathe. And if nothing else, you pick up great stories to tell at parties.

 But seriously, living abroad gives you many skills, such as language skills and, really just as important, the ability to perceive cross-culturally, to live in multiple perspectives. The history of the world is littered with tragedies from interactions in which different perspectives and cultures were cast aside like so much garbage. And I'm not just talking that whole "we don't believe entire continents have a legitimate culture" tragedy from our sordid past, but more recently, when swaths of my own country can't speak to each other, or even about each other, without being spitting mad because no one can sit down, stew for a bit in a culture different from there's, pick up some new rhetoric and perspective, and start a different sort of conversation. 

Being able to live cross-culturally is something that many people come across the hard way, perhaps growing up on the move, or being children of immigrants - "third culture kids" feeling like they don't entirely belong. But they are also blessed, as we all can be, by the ability to lift themselves out of one culture and into another, the ability to be on the inside or on the outside and to understand multiple viewpoints. That can make better people of us all. 

4. Courage

We could all use an extra dose of bravery - to intervene in that awkward situation, to stand up to that intimidating person, to speak out from a place of vulnerability. I know I gained most of any courage I do have from living abroad. Because it's scary. Danger scary, like riding in careening marshutkas or hiking down a Peruvian canyon in the night in a thunderstorm. Socially scary, standing up in front a bunch of kids who you can't understand and they can't understand you. Coming down to try to talk to your host family when you would rather hide in your room. Reaching out to people who may not want to befriend you because of your foreign accent. Taking a risk. Getting up to dance. Stepping on that plane.  

I returned home from the Dominican Republic shell-shocked. I had been very sick, and I retreated inside myself into a small space where I felt forced to go from the stares, the shouts from strange men, the poverty I felt helpless against, the sickness I couldn't stop. I went long days without talking. I avoided crowded areas. I was pushed back out of my shell when I went to my summer job in Texas and I found that I wasn't so scared as I once had been, no matter the situation my demanding job often threw me in. I have ten minutes to come up with an activity for a group of forty kids to last two hours? Hey, at least they speak English – bring it on. And now, facing a new life in New Orleans, feeling like I've bitten off a bit much, I'm not afraid. The end is never really the end, and when I feel scared I remember being lost in Istanbul, stranded by the road in Greece, shaking in a Dominican hospital, in a wrong mototaxi in the wrong side of town in the most violent city in Peru. I'm not saying those were places where I showed remarkable courage, but I learnt courage. Those were places where the kindness of people and, I believe, the kindness of God, kept me safe. Strangers pointed me in the right direction, gave me rides, fed me soup. 

Yes, I can say, when the going is tough "I survived x event, so I can survive this!" and nothing is wrong with taking courage from memories of my own tenacity. But I can also say that there is great kindness in the world. And these both give me courage, and that serves me well every day. 

So go. Travel. Live abroad - for a summer, a season, a year. Work odd jobs and be bad at them. Work great jobs and be fabulous. Live with intensity, but also just live - with bills and habits and routine. When I felt bored and restless in Lima was when I really knew I lived there. Live with friends whose language you once barely spoke and who now you can guess their next words. Live with a favorite corner store and bus drivers you recognize. 

Live so that when you are ancient, you remember a hushed afternoon buried in winter's first snow up in the Caucuses and it fills you with peace. Peace and courage and humility and all of the bits and pieces of other places and people you have picked up. So go.