teachers without borders

10.15.14

I walked to the bank at six thirty this morning and though it’s relatively pleasant I feel the drain.  In fifteen minutes I’ll walk ten minutes to the Hili border and apply for a border pass.  It’s good for three months and for 127 dollars, it’s more affordable than renting a car at 370 dollars a month.  Do I expect any trouble?  I don’t know.  I’m only concerned about walking in the rising heat. 

The first week of classes finishes today, the usual chaos swirls, a number of teachers haven’t arrived or returned.  I appreciate someone teaching my five hours of study skills classes so I can meander like a good coordinator and there are jobs I have to fix.  Why didn’t we learn how to use excel in graduate school.  It ought to be simple, right?  It’s all about formulas and math and algorithms and ok I see.  Math and formulas and algorithms.  I know how to measure flour and soda for a loaf of Irish Soda bread. 

10.16.14

On Sunday I’ll get my 90 day border pass.  I’ll save a thousand dollars and I’ll walk across the border and have a beer, order a chimichanga or a whopper, purchase cigarettes, a newspaper, everything that is not available here.  Will I wind up spending a grand on the greener side of the barbed wire, I don’t think so.  In the police station the three star captain sternly explained the pass is a 24 hour only pass, if I stay longer I’ll pay fines and really, I didn’t want the pass to spend money, I’d like a break, a change, a return, albeit it’s short, to the city I lived in for ten years and called a really good home.  I want to be a teacher without borders. Is that ok to say?

I don’t believe it’ll ever be that good home anymore.  Visits remind me of what was worthy and I accept the changes which came in whirls of dust and smoke and spun me out of there.  I took this job to be close and when the two years is up I’ll be ok to leave. 

Erin Brockovich is still a good movie the third or fourth time.  A woman fighting against polluters of nature and mankind inspires.  Is there a fight you’d like to take up?  Sigh, my fight is Sunday through Wednesday: overcrowded classes with nothing but a whiteboard and as coordinator I must step up for others who are exasperated in uninspiring classrooms you’d find in the 1950’s abandoned by plague and neglect.  Am I doing any good here?  Sure I’d prefer being on a mountain peeling garlic and making beds. 

And what about those students I try to help and then undress me with frivolous gawks and embarrassed larks?  Funny not, amusing, flattering, they practice the ancient art of flirting, perhaps for the first time and really they’re harmless progenies.

Being on the mountain means the world burns and dies and I don’t know it.  The villagers have enough troubles and why would they be concerned about islamists and ebola.  They’re not.  Twenty four hours seven days a week of struggling for water, checking the loadshedding schedule when do we have electricity this week, we need wood to keep warm and cook with this winter, will someone help us our home is freezing my baby is sick.  Small peanuts compared with Syrians living in tents, Palestinians living in rubble but really it isn’t right to compare.  Suffering is suffering is suffering.

10.17.14

A few days ago a local told me the Buraimi-ans would rather be Emiratis and this could explain Muscat’s reluctance and apathy towards its undeveloped western frontier.  Sixty years ago the Saudis and local tribes fought and vied for the oasis and today what keeps people here is the low cost of living which is what brings their neighbors across and the paradoxical desert life is simply nicer on the emerald side.

8.37pm—It’s comfortable enough outside now and a 40 minute walk has got me thinking I should start running again.  There isn’t enough time to prepare for any marathon in January but half marathons and 10k’s are plausible.  It’s always hard at first and these darn cigarettes may make it more challenging but it feels good to sweat, it feels good to lose a few pounds and what the hell, last year my only exercise was walking back from the university and when it’s hot again there’ll be nothing doing.  So?

The laptop has given me something to do aside from reading and watching the boob tube, the Leica photos and exercises for my class which I am more than happy to help are constructive and that is always a good thing, right? 

I have a 9am dentist appointment tomorrow and I don’t think I’ll go.  The Egyptian dude took care of the two painful problems and the choppers are ok for now so with the border pass I can go to one of the folks I’ve been to in Al-Ain.  I wonder if Dr. Ursula from Kiev is still around. 

A scary thought, if I have access to greener pastures it automatically improves my quality of life and that is what I lacked last year, so could I stay here longer?  Really?  I can think of nothing other than Salalah with a car, the beaches and the mountains call to explore.  Of course I’d have to fly to Dubai every six weeks or so to stack up on coffee and cigarettes and that would be ok because if I do land there it’ll be for the last lap.  Plans to change careers aren’t going anywhere without a break.

In my last night in Nepal I met three exuberant and marginally insufferable Australian blokes in a Thamel bar and they were off to the Annapurna circuit.  Did they die in the storm?  A story from a local newspaper said the cyclone that slammed east India continued to move westward and a freak current diverted its course and slammed the Himalayas.  In Sarangkot hard cold rain kept tourists away. I guess I was lucky to miss it but geez poor school children have to walk in it.  Damn.

I don’t know enough of Hinduism to make any connection with my arrival on the mountain on the biggest and most important day of Dashain and my unforeseen breakdown in front of Laxman’s parents.  Sure 37 hours of no sleep played a part in lowering my defenses as did a liter of Gorka beer and a few hits from the chillum but the tika, the puja, the blessing, I wish I could understand why I unknowingly timed my arrival with the auspicious day.  Only some nut case entity could have known and he isn’t telling me a damn thing. 

10.18.14

Every three months one of the four stations I have shows ‘Fever Pitch’ and every darn time I watch it.  It’s not even close to being my favorite movie and to boot I can’t stand the Red Sox since Martinez tossed a 76 year old man with a plate in his head to the ground so why do I always keep it on? 

Jimmy Fallon is funny, he plays a teacher, it’s a baseball movie and they finished filming it at the same time the team won the series and simply wrote the improbable into the movie.  Was there an absurd coincidence right there?