the importance of here

Suddenly and never otherwise, this emotion of pure exhilaration sneaks up on me as I walk through markets or navigate across a busy street, I’m tempted to just stop and giggle at myself for being here. I do enjoy repeating this to myself: I left a comfort zone, a respectable job, a gorgeous country and beautiful people behind to come and ‘get this travel urge out of my system’ the self congratulating is never ending. Now the danger with this ‘adventure’, ‘travel phase’ or call it what you will time of my life is that I’m starting to feel it having the complete opposite effect of getting it ‘out of my system’. Now I know this will greatly alarm my mother, but if anybody she understands the thrill of different places, new challenges, more perspective and everything else that usually accompanies travel, maybe I will just blame her on this one.

The thing is that after getting through the worst of the culture shock, finding the ability to deal with missing family and friends and just having a bit of routine in place I wonder if I will ever be satisfied with 8-5 and all that goes with it again. This could also just be the result of being so happy with this move in life and rewards of being in the right place, who knows in a few months I might feel totally different.

I am about a week into being real teacher and as unbelievably overwhelming as it was I will dare say that I am in love with it. Those who know me and myself most of all could never before in my life fathom that I would ever want to be a teacher or actually like it. Another great aspect of living abroad I think, finding out things about yourself that you never would otherwise. I highly recommend this madness to anybody!

Happily I have a very diverse group of classes and it would be a mistake to prepare for any class the same way. I have a bunch of 6 year olds that just got acquainted with English a few weeks ago, the most energetic 8-9 year olds I have ever encountered, o so ‘cool’ teenagers and then lastly a colorful mix of young adults each studying English for different reasons. I have found a soft spot for each of these groups… maybe even more for the little boy that asked me if I was from heaven. I have great fun with each new class asking them to guess where I am from. I get a lot of USA, UK, Canada, Brazil and even Finland. They are usually very confused at the fact that I am from Africa and am not black.

I now have a very strange daily routine, seeing as I teach in the evenings during the week and a full day on the weekend. I am forced, you see, to sleep late on weekdays which will definitely take some getting used to, there still is the conventional voice that has turned to my wake-up alarm “get up lazy ass”, so rude.

I have also been extremely blessed to finally get a laptop, so no more dodgy internet cafes once a day! This has resulted in many a happy thing… Facebook all the time, the wonder and joy that is Skype and lastly my favorite new discovery: You Tube. This has brought a bit of home so much closer, South African and good Afrikaans music can now be enjoyed at anytime. ( Have not been that home sick to miss Kurt Darren or Nicolas Louw yet).

That is all the news for now folks, till next time… which might in fact be very soon.